278. The inflow of life into human beings in particular. There is only one source of life; from it comes the life found in everyone in heaven and everyone in the world: 1954, 2021, 2536, 2658, 2886-2889, 3001, 3484, 3742, 5847, 6467. That life comes from the Lord alone: 2886-2889, 3344, 3484, 4319, 4320, 4524, 4882, 5986, 6325, 6468, 6469, 6470, 9276, 10196 (which include various illustrations). The Lord is life itself: see John 1:1, 4; 5:26; 14:6. Life flows from the Lord into angels, spirits, and people in this world in a wondrous way: 2886-2889, 3337, 3338, 3484, 3742. The Lord flows in because of his divine love, the nature of which is to want what belongs to it to belong to others: 3742, 4320. All love is like that, so divine love is infinitely that way: 1820, 1865, 2253, 6872. As a result, our life seems to be within us and does not seem to be flowing in: 3742, 4320. Another reason our life seems to be within us is that the principal cause, which is life from the Lord, and the instrumental cause, which is we ourselves as a recipient form, act as a single cause and therefore we as the instrument perceive life as our own ¹ : 6325. The pinnacle of angels' wisdom and intelligence is to perceive and know that every bit of life comes from the Lord: 4318. I perceived a joy that angels were experiencing as a result of leading a life that comes from the Lord and not from themselves; things they said to me confirmed my perception: 6469. Evil people are unwilling to be persuaded that their life is flowing in: 3743. Doubts that our life flows in from the Lord cannot be removed as long as we are controlled by illusions, ignorance, and negativity: 6479. As all people in the church should know, everything good and true comes from heaven (that is, through heaven from the Lord) and everything evil and false comes from hell; in fact, every bit of life goes back to either goodness and truth or evil and falsity, and apart from these there can be no life at all: 2893, 4151. This is the clear message of the teachings of the church that have been drawn from the Word: 4249. Yet in spite of all this, people do not believe that life flows in: 4249. In reality, if our communication and connection with spirits and angels were taken away, we would die instantly: 2887. This also shows us that all life flows in from the primary reality underlying life. Nothing arises from itself; things arise only from other things that are prior (which means that absolutely everything arises from the primary underlying reality), and in all cases things maintain their existence in the same way that they arose, because continuing existence is constant coming into being: 4523, 4524. Angels, spirits, and people in this world have been created to receive life, so we are all simply forms that are receptive to life: 2021, 3001, 3318, 3344, 3484, 3742, 4151, 5114, 5986. The kind of forms we are depends on our receptivity: 2888, 3001, 3484, 5847, 5986, 6467, 6472. So the basic nature of people in this world, spirits, and angels depends on the basic nature of their forms for receiving life from the Lord: 2888, 5847, 5986, 6467, 6472. We have been created in such a way that in the inmost parts of ourselves, and therefore in other parts as well, we are capable of receiving what is divine and being raised up and joined to the Divine through the good things we love to do and the truths we believe; and therefore we, unlike animals, live forever: 5114.

[2] Life from the Lord also flows into evil people, so it flows into people in hell as well: 2706, 3743, 4417. However, they turn what is good into evil and what is true into falsity; so they turn life into spiritual death, since our nature is what determines how we accept the life that is flowing in: 4319, 4320, 4417. Goodness and truth are still constantly flowing into them from the Lord, but they reject or stifle or pervert them: 3743. The life that is in people who are devoted to evil and falsity is not genuine life; what the life they have is like: 726, 4623, 10284, 10286.

Footnotes:

10738. Before these things had been said they had supposed that our group as well had consisted of those who wished to confuse them with the idea of three regarding God. Consequently, having heard these things, they said that emissaries from God - whom they would now call the Lord - had also come and taught them about Him, but that they refused entrance to the visitors who disturb them, especially those with ideas of three persons in the Godhead. For they know that God is one and therefore that the Godhead is a oneness, not the unanimity of three, unless those who so insist are prepared to think of God as an angel may be thought of. That is, within an angel there is an inmost, invisible level of life, on which he thinks and is wise; an outward level of life visible in a human form, on which he sees and acts; and an emanation of life from himself, which is a sphere of love and faith surrounding him. For what the love and faith of each spirit or angel are like is recognized at a distance from the sphere of life emanating from him. In the Lord's case, they said, the emanation of life from Him consists in the Divine itself which fills and constitutes the heavens, because the Essential Being (Esse) within the life of love and faith is from Him.

[2] Having heard all this I was led to say that such an idea of three and at the same time of one is in keeping with the angelic idea of the Lord, and that it arises out of the Lord's very own teachings about Himself. For He teaches that the Father and He are one; that the Father is in Him and He is in the Father; that whoever sees Him sees the Father, and whoever believes in Him believes in the Father and knows Him; also that the Paraclete, whom He calls the Spirit of truth as well as the Holy Spirit, goes forth from Him and speaks not of His own accord but of the Lord's, so that by Him is meant the Divine going forth.

[3] And I went on to say that an idea of three and at the same time of one was in keeping with the Essential Being and the Coming-into-being (Esse et Existere) of the Lord's life when He was in the world. The Essential Being of His life was the Divine itself, since He was conceived from Jehovah and the essential being of anyone's life is what he is conceived from; the Coming-into-being of life, springing from that Essential Being, is the Human in [bodily] form. The essential being of anyone's life which the person has from his father is called the soul, and the coming-into-being of life from that essential being is called the body, the soul and the body constituting one complete human being.

[4] The relationship between them both is similar to the relationship between what lies in an endeavour and what lies in an action resulting from it. For the action is the endeavour put into effect, so that the two are one. The endeavour as it exists in a person is called the will, and the endeavour put into effect is called the action. The body is the instrument by which the will that employs it performs an action, and in the performance of it the instrument and the employer of it come together as one. So it is with soul and body.

[5] An idea of soul and body such as this is what angels in heaven have, and from that idea they know that the Lord made His Human Divine by the power of the Divine within Him, which was His soul derived from the Father. The faith accepted everywhere in the Christian world is no different from this, for that faith teaches,

As the body and soul are one man (homo), so also God and man (homo) in the Lord is one Christ. ¹

Since the unity or oneness in the Lord was such, He rose again not just as to His soul but also, unlike anyone else, as to His body which He had glorified in the world. This too He taught the disciples, when He said,

Handle Me and see; for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me have. [Luke 24:39.]

[6] This explains why the Church acknowledges the whole presence of His Humanity within the sacrament of the Holy Supper, which acknowledgement would not be possible unless His Human also were Divine.

These matters were well understood by those spirits, for such matters fall within angelic spirits' range of understanding. They also said that to the Lord alone belongs power in the heavens and that the heavens are His. In response to this I was led to say that the Church knows that too from the mouth of the Lord Himself, who said before He went up to heaven,

All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. [Matthew 28:18.]

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