The Betrothal

A Christmas Doctrinal Class by Rev. Andrew M.T. Dibb

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. (Luke 1:26-27)

So begins the wonderful story of the Lord's conception in the Gospel of Luke. The scene is familiar to each of us: Mary is at home, when suddenly she sees the angel Gabriel and hears his words of great joy:

"Rejoice, highly favoured one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!" (Luke 1:28)

An angel is a messenger of the Lord. In the Word angels came to bring wisdom and comfort, hope and the good news, the “euangellion” or Gospel, to those to whom the Lord wanted His presence revealed. This Gospel is the teaching that the Lord Jesus Christ was born into this world, that He made it possible for all people to be saved and brought into His kingdom. Thus the angel Gabriel came in excitement to Mary to inform her that she was the Lord’s choice as His natural mother.

When Mary saw the angel Gabriel, she didn't know that he was the human form of an entire society of angels. Nor did she know that his greatest love is to tell people about the Lord, especially that He would be born into the world to save the human race from spiritual bondage.

The scene of the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she would conceive and bear a son, and call His name Jesus, is one of the most poignant in the Word. Mary was a simple person, living in Galilee far away from the centre of worship at Jerusalem. She was neither highly educated nor socially well connected, except that she descended from Israel’s greatest king, David. There is a beautiful innocence in Mary’s simplicity. The last thing she expected in life was to see an angel. The image we have of Mary is of a demure young maiden, a virgin in every sense, for, as she said to the angel, 'I do not know a man'. Her state of life was that of a young woman about to embark on her married life to Joseph, but still living at home with her parents. The marriage had not yet been celebrated.

It is central to the Christmas story that Mary was betrothed to Joseph when the angel Gabriel appeared to her. This fact is mentioned in the lesson we read in the Gospel of Luke, where it is plainly stated that she was a 'virgin betrothed'. In Matthew we are again told that Mary was 'betrothed to Joseph'. This means that she had been promised as a wife to Joseph. In our culture, we would say that they were engaged to be married.

There are several good reasons why Mary should have been in this state when she conceived the Lord:

- In the Jewish Church of that time betrothal was considered marriage, although the marriage had not yet been consummated. This meant that the people around her considered Mary a woman, and it also meant that her mind was focusing on the upcoming marriage and future life as a wife and a mother.

- She was expected, during this period of betrothal, to remain in a state of order. She was not free to come into romantic contact with any other man, and she certainly was not permitted to have sexual intercourse with any man, including her husband to be.

The angel appeared to her in this state precisely for that reason - the child who was to be conceived needed to be conceived in a state of virginity, and there could be no question down the ages that Jesus was the son of an ordinary man. This is why Mary protested that she could not conceive because she 'had not known a man'.

There is a very good reason for this: the doctrines tell us that the human soul is transmitted as the living principle of the masculine seed. That soul, or internal human is passed from father to child, is an image of the father's own soul - although the life in it is from the Divine Itself. When a child is conceived, that human soul can receive life from the Lord, and, using the life in it, begins to draw from the mother the various substances needed to form the human body. When the child is born, he or she becomes an individual, drawing life from the Lord, and potential spiritual things from both mother and father, and the body from the mother. Thus there is a complete mixing of parents in the birth of a child.

When the angel Gabriel came to Mary, he announced the birth of the Lord. It was to be a miracle of all miracles, for according to prophecy a virgin would conceive and bear a son. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. His soul was Divine, given to Him by the Father, or, put another way, the soul within Jesus was not limited and finite as our souls are, but infinite and eternal, and capable of overcoming the powers of hell and saving the human race.

Here's an excerpt from Swedenborg's work, Arcana Coelestia 1999: "But the Lord's Internal was Jehovah Himself, since He was conceived from Jehovah, who cannot be divided or become the relative of another, like a son who has been conceived from a human father. For unlike the human, the Divine is not capable of being divided but is and remains one and the same. To this Internal the Lord united the Human Essence. Moreover because the Lord's Internal was Jehovah it was not, like man's internal, a recipient form of life, but life itself. Through that union His Human Essence as well became life itself. Hence the Lord's frequent declaration that He is Life, as in John,

As the Father has Life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have Life in Himself. John 5:26."

Yet even a soul such as that, if it is to live and walk amongst the people of this earth, must be clothed in a body. The Lord always operates within the boundaries of the order of creation - and order dictates that a soul must be clothed with a material body.

At first the father’s soul is clothed with human elements, for it begins as a reproduction of the father’s own soul, then,

"during its descent, … the soul is enveloped by elements of a type that have to do with the father's natural love. This is the source from which hereditary evil springs." (Conjugial Love 245)

And so the Lord needed an orderly environment in which to be born. Mary was chosen as His mother because, according to the Lord's all-seeing wisdom, He saw that she would be willing to carry this child, and she would be able to nurture Him in such a way that He would grow up prepared for the great work ahead of Him.

Yet Mary had to be in a state of order herself. In ancient Israel, to bear a child meant that she had to be married, and yet to preserve the honesty of the conception and ensure that the soul was Divine, not human, she had to be in the state before actual physical union with Joseph had taken place - otherwise the Lord could have been Joseph's son. So she had to be betrothed, and no motive should be found as a basis for accusations against the Virgin Birth.

It was partly for this reason that when Joseph heard that she was carrying a child he decided to put her away. Effectively this meant he planned to divorce her. According to the law of Moses, a betrothed woman carrying a child had broken the rules. Ideally speaking, the man responsible should be put to death. Joseph had no idea who the man was, but assumed that there was one. He was, however, a kind man, and so decided not 'to make her a public example', but to put her away privately.

It was at this juncture that the angel Gabriel came to Joseph in a dream, and soothed his fears. 'The child she is carrying,' the angel said, 'is conceived by the Holy Spirit.' Now Joseph understood, and the state of betrothal could continue, and order could be maintained so that the Lord could be born into this world with the full appearance of two loving parents, bound together in marriage after an orderly betrothal.

We now need to expand our vision of the Lord's life in this world. The conception of the Lord was but the first step in his development. He had to be born and grow up. His mind and body had to develop as does our own. The home of Mary and Joseph was needed to provide a stable and orderly environment for Him where He could live and grow, undergoing not only physical and mental development, but also the very processes by which His Divine soul could become present within His natural mind.

In picking these two people to be his 'parents' in the natural world, the Lord was able to provide for the future as well. The Word does not tell us anything about the marriage relationship between Joseph and Mary. We know that Joseph was obedient to the angel when he was told to take Mary and the infant Lord down to Egypt to escape Herod's cruelty. We know that each year they travelled to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. We know that had other children, whom likewise they loved and nurtured. But that is about all we know.

The book, Conjugial Love, by Emanuel Swedenborg, however, gives us some insights into the kind of orderly relationship they had. They begin in the concept of Betrothal, for betrothal is introductory to marriage. The kinds of preparation people make for their marriages determine a great deal the course their marriage will follow. The fact that Mary in her betrothed state had 'not known a man' indicates that she took the responsibilities of that state serious. Similarly, the fact that Joseph immediately knew that he was not the father of the child Mary carried indicates a similar seriousness about the state of betrothal. They were both innocent of any wrongdoing, and were obviously committed to building a life together based on the firm foundation of proper preparation.

Their betrothal prepared them for their future life together as man and wife, and, thus as the Lord's parents on earth. Betrothal is a preparation for marriage. It is a time when the minds and spirits of the two partners begin to grow together.

The teachings of the New Church tell us that true marriage, or conjugial love as it is often called, is a meeting and union of two minds. A true marriage is one in which the couple recognises the essential differences between masculinity and femininity, and rejoices in those differences without any attempt to dominate the other. In order for a couple to come into a true appreciation of each other, they need to put aside physical love to foster and nurture spiritual love. This is why Mary and Joseph lived apart during this stage of their relationship, and why they refrained from sexual activity, for in that way they made it possible for their minds to soar, and be united at the highest levels of idealism.

The book Conjugial Love tells us that in this state the mind of each partner is opened by his or her spiritual love. They are able to reach higher levels of love and commitment to each other as they foster the growth of mutual understanding unencumbered by physical things. The passage describing this development, then, goes on to describe how when a couple marry their love descends from the mind to the body. It is worth reflecting on the statement that

"It needs to be known that the quality of conjugial love as it comes down is determined by the height to which it climbs. If it reaches the heights it comes down chaste, but if it does not, it comes down as unchaste." (Conjugial Love 302).

With Mary and Joseph we can but only assume that their love reached its heights during their betrothal, and that their marriage was one of purity and chastity. Chastity in this sense means a marriage love between two people that has been cleansed of all impurities. In such a state the husband and wife enjoy the full pleasures of marriage, beginning on the spiritual level with a full meeting of minds, and descends into the body, where their love is consummated.

A marriage of this kind provides the most wonderful environment, for the love between the husband and wife provides a state of tranquillity and peace in which children can be reared. This is the kind of environment the Lord chose to be born into. He knew that during his life in this world He would have to face the most terrible of temptations. He knew that He would have to battle against hell continuously, and face the disbelief of the people around Him. His first thirty-three years were a preparation for this work lying before Him. And so He chose to be born to a couple who were in a state of order, who because of that order, were willing to receive Him into their lives, to nurture Him as if He was their own.

There is a message in this for us. Each one of us wants the Lord to be born into our own lives, and He is willing to come to us. "Behold,' He says, 'I stand at the door and knock'. Yet He can only enter into us to the degree that we bring our lives into order. Mary and Joseph clung to their betrothal - they committed themselves and stood fast. That is what the Lord wants us to do: to commit ourselves to Him, to live according to His Word in every detail of our lives, especially in our relationships with others, in our preparation for marriage, and in our marriages themselves. As we do, then He enters into us, establishes His presence there, and lifts us up to heaven.

AMEN

Lessons:

Deuteronomy 22:25-29

Isaiah 7:14-16

Luke 1:26-38

Conjugial Love 302

3869. 'For Jehovah has heard' means in the highest sense providence, in the internal sense the will of faith, in the interior sense obedience, in the external sense the sense of hearing - faith in the will which is received from the Lord alone being meant here. This is clear from the meaning of 'hearing'. As regards 'hearing' meaning the sense of hearing, this needs no explanation; but that 'hearing' in the interior sense means obedience and in the internal sense faith in the will, this is clear from the many places in the Word that are referred to below. The same is clear also from the nature of the sense of hearing when compared with that of sight. Sight in the interior sense means the understanding and in the internal sense faith in the understanding, see 3863; and the reason why it has these meanings is that the essential nature of things comes to be seen by means of one's internal sight and with the aid of this comes to be grasped by a kind of faith, though such as exists only in the understanding. When however things that are heard penetrate to the interior parts they too are converted into something similar to sight, for things that are heard are then seen interiorly. Consequently that which is meant by the sense of sight is also meant by the sense of hearing; that is to say, that which is of the understanding and also that which is of faith is meant. But the sense of hearing at the same time convinces a person that the thing is true, for it has an influence not only on the understanding part of a person's mind but also on the will part, and so reaches more interiorly. That is to say, it reaches the will and causes that person to will that which he sees. This is why 'hearing' means the understanding of a thing and at the same time obedience, and why in the spiritual sense it means faith in the will.

[2] It is because these two - obedience, and faith in the will - lie thus within 'hearing' that these attributes are also meant in everyday speech by the phrases hearing, listening to, and paying attention to; for a person who 'hears' is one who is obedient, and 'listening to' somebody also means obeying him. For those entities which exist interiorly within something are sometimes included within the actual expressions a person uses when he speaks. These occur there because it is a person's spirit which thinks and which grasps the meaning of the expressions used by others when they speak; and his spirit is in a way in contact with spirits and angels among whom the first beginnings of verbal expressions exist. What is more, the whole range of man's experience is such that whatever enters in through the ear and eye, or hearing and sight, passes into his understanding, through the understanding into the will, and from the will into deed. So it is with the truth of faith. This first becomes the truth of faith present within knowledge, then the truth of faith within the will, and finally the truth of faith in deed, and so finally charity. Faith within knowledge or the understanding is meant by 'Reuben', as has been shown; faith in the will by 'Simeon'; and faith in the will when it becomes charity by 'Levi'.

[3] As regards 'hearing' in the highest sense meaning providence, this may become clear from what has been stated above in 3863 about 'seeing' in the highest sense meaning foresight, for the Lord's foresight is a seeing from eternity to eternity that a thing is so, whereas His providence is a governing that that thing should be so and a bending of a person's freedom towards good insofar as He foresees that that person is going to allow himself in freedom to be bent towards it, see 3854.

[4] That 'Jehovah heard', the phrase from which Simeon received his name, in the interior sense means obedience, and in the internal sense faith in the will acquired from the Lord alone, is evident from very many places in the Word, such as the following: In Matthew,

Behold, a voice from the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him. Matthew 17:5.

'Hearing Him' stands for possessing faith in Him, and obeying His commandments, and so possessing faith in the will. In John,

Truly, truly, I say to you, that the hour will come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice. John 5:25, 28.

'Hearing the voice of the Son of God' stands for possessing faith in the Lord's words, and willing them. People who possess faith that is part of the will receive life, and that is why the words 'those who hear will live' are used.

[5] In the same gospel,

The one entering by the door is the shepherd of the sheep; to him the gate-keeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. John 10:2-3, 16, 27.

'Hearing the voice' plainly stands for obedience resulting from faith that is part of the will. In the same gospel,

Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice. John 18:37.

Here the meaning is similar. In Luke,

Abraham said to him, They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them. If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets neither will they be persuaded if someone rose from the dead. Luke 16:29, 31.

'Hearing Moses and the Prophets' stands for knowing things contained in the Word and possessing faith in it, and so also willing those things. For possessing faith without willing is seeing but not hearing, whereas possessing faith together with willing is seeing and hearing. This is why both - seeing and hearing - are mentioned together in various places throughout the Word, seeing meaning that which is portrayed through 'Reuben' and hearing that which is portrayed through 'Simeon', since the two are joined together like brother to brother.

[6] The fact that seeing and hearing are referred to jointly is clear from the following places: In Matthew,

Therefore I speak to them in parables, because those who see do not see, and those who hear do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says, By hearing you will hear and not understand, and seeing you will see and not discern. This people's heart has become gross, and with ears they have heard in a dull manner, and their eyes they have closed, lest perhaps they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and with their heart understand. But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it. Matthew 13:13-17; John 12:40; Isaiah 6:9.

In Mark,

Jesus said to the disciples, Why do you discuss the fact that you have no loaves? Are you still without understanding and do not understand? Do you still have your heart hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? Mark 8:17-18.

[7] In Luke,

To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but for everyone else in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear. Luke 8:10.

In Isaiah,

The eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be opened. Isaiah 35:5.

In the same prophet,

Then on that day the deaf will hear the words of the book, and out of thick darkness and out of darkness the eyes of the blind will see. Isaiah 29:18.

In the same prophet,

Hear, you deaf, and look and see, you blind. Isaiah 42:18.

In the same prophet, Bring forth the blind people, who will have eyes, and the deaf, who will have ears. Isaiah 43:8.

In the same prophet,

The eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen. Isaiah 32:3.

In the same prophet, Let your eyes be looking at your teachers, and let your ears hear the word. Isaiah 30:20-21.

In the same prophet,

He who stops his ear lest it hears of blood, and shuts his eyes lest they see evil, will dwell on the heights. Isaiah 33:15-16.

In Ezekiel,

Son of man, you are dwelling in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see but they do not see, who have ears to hear but they do not hear. Ezekiel 12:2.

In these places both seeing and hearing are mentioned because one follows the other. That is to say, faith in the understanding, meant by 'seeing', is followed by faith in the will, meant by 'hearing'. Otherwise it would have been sufficient to mention only one. From this it is also evident why one son of Jacob was named from the expression 'seeing' and the other from 'hearing'.

[8] The origin of 'seeing' meaning faith within knowledge or the understanding, and 'hearing' faith within obedience or the will rests in correspondences in the next life and in meaningful signs based on these. People who have understanding and faith resulting from that understanding belong to the province of the eye, and those who are obedient and have faith resulting from that obedience belong to the province of the ear. The truth of this will be seen from what, in the Lord's Divine mercy, is going to be shown at the ends of chapters concerning the Grand Man and the correspondence with it of everything in the human body.

[9] So it is then that 'the eye' in the internal sense means the understanding, see 2701, and 'the ear' obedience. And in the spiritual sense 'the ear' means faith resulting from obedience, or faith in the will, as is also clear from the following places: In Isaiah,

Even so, you have not heard, even so, you have not known; even so, from that time your ear has not opened itself. Isaiah 48:8.

In the same prophet,

The Lord Jehovih will arouse my ear to hear like those who are being taught. The Lord Jehovih opened my ear, and I was not rebellious. Isaiah 50:4-5.

In the same prophet,

Attend diligently to Me, and eat what is good, that your soul may delight in fatness; incline your ear and come to Me; hear, that your soul may live. Isaiah 55:2-3.

In Jeremiah,

To whom am I to speak and testify, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot listen. Jeremiah 6:10.

In the same prophet,

This I commanded them, saying, Hear My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. But they did not hear, nor did they incline their ear. Jeremiah 7:23-24, 26

In the same prophet,

Hear, O women, the word of Jehovah, and let your ear receive the word of His mouth. Jeremiah 9:20.

In the same prophet,

You did not incline your ear, and you did not obey Me. Jeremiah 35:15.

In Ezekiel,

Son of man, all My words that I have spoken to you, receive in your heart, and hear with your ears. Ezekiel 3:10.

In the same prophet,

I will bring My zeal against you, and they will deal with you in fury. Your nose and your ears they will remove Ezekiel 23:25.

'Removing nose and ears' stands for removing the perception of truth and good, and the obedience that goes with faith. In Zechariah,

They refused to pay attention, and fumed a stubborn shoulder, and made their ears heavy so that they might not hear, and set their heart adamant, so that they might not hear the law. Zechariah 7:11-12.

[10] In Amos,

Thus said Jehovah, As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so will the children of Israel in Samaria be rescued, on the corner of a bed and on the end of a couch. Amos 3:12.

'Rescuing two legs' stands for rescuing the will for good, 'a piece of an ear' for rescuing the will for truth. It may be seen that 'a piece of an ear' has this meaning, as has been stated, solely from correspondences in the next life and from the meaningful signs based on these, with which the internal sense of the Word and also the ritual observances in the Israelitish and Jewish Church are in accordance. This explains why, when Aaron and his sons were to be consecrated for their specific function, Moses was commanded among other things to take some of the ram's blood and to put it on the tip of Aaron's ear and on the tips of the ears of his sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the large toes of their right feet, Exodus 29:20. This ritual act represented the will anointed by faith, into which also as priest he was to be initiated. Anyone can recognize that this ritual act was holy since it was Jehovah who commanded Moses to perform it, and so also that putting blood on the tip of the ear was holy. But what holy thing was meant cannot be known except from the internal sense of the things in the Word, which at this point is that the holiness of faith when applied to the will must be preserved.

[11] The meaning of 'the ear' as obedience, and in the internal sense as faith resulting from that obedience, is even more plainly evident from the ritual that was to be observed when a slave did not wish to go free, described in Moses as follows: If a slave or servant-girl did not wish to go free,

His master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever. Exodus 21:6; Deuteronomy 15:17.

'Piercing his ear with an awl at the doorpost' stands for serving and obeying for ever. In the spiritual sense it stands for having no wish to understand what is true, only a wish to be obedient to it. This, compared with an understanding of what is true, is not freedom.

[12] Since the obedience of faith is meant in the internal sense by 'the ears', and being obedient by 'hearing', one may see what is meant by the following words spoken by the Lord many times, He who has an ear to hear, let him hear, Matthew 13:9, 43; Mark 4:9, 23; 7:16; Luke 8:8; 14:35; Revelation 2:7, 11, 29; 3:13, 22.

[13] As regards 'hearing' in the highest sense meaning providence and 'seeing' foresight, this is clear from the following places in the Word in which eyes and also ears are attributed to Jehovah or the Lord; as in Isaiah,

Incline Your ear, O Jehovah, and hear; open Your eyes, O Jehovah, and see. Isaiah 37:17.

In Daniel,

Incline Your ear, O my God, and hear; open Your eyes ¹ and see our devastations. Daniel 9:18.

In David,

O God, incline Your ear to me, and hear my speech. Psalms 17:6.

In the same author,

Incline to me Your ear, and save me. Psalms 71:2.

In the same author,

Turn an ear to my prayers, on account of Your truthfulness; answer me, on account of Your righteousness. Psalms 143:1.

In Jeremiah,

O Jehovah, You heard my voice; do not hide Your ear at my sighing, at my cry. Lamentations 3:56.

In David,

O Jehovah, do not hide Your face from me in the day of my distress; incline to me Your ear; in the day I cry answer me. Psalms 102:2.

[14] It is well known that Jehovah does not have ears or eyes as man does but that some attribute which may be ascribed to the Divine is meant by the ear and the eye, namely infinite will and infinite understanding. Infinite will is providence, and infinite understanding foresight; and it is these that are meant in the highest sense by ear and eye when these are attributed to Jehovah. These considerations now show what is meant in each sense [of the Word] by 'Jehovah heard', the phrase from which 'Simeon' received his name.

Footnotes: