Could there be reasons for the humble, vulnerable beginnings of Jesus’s life?

In this video from his Swedenborg and Life web series, host Curtis Childs and featured guests explore how the Divine design may have been at play from the very beginning of Christ's life.

(Референце: Apocalypse Explained 706 [12]; Luke 2:8-12; The Word 7; True Christian Religion 89, 90, 96, 766)

89. 3. In the process of taking on a human manifestation, God followed his own divine design. In the section on divine omnipotence and omniscience we showed that in the act of creating, God introduced his design into the universe as a whole and into each and every thing in it. Therefore in the universe and in all its parts God's omnipotence follows and works according to the laws of his own design. The treatment of those laws runs from 49 to 74.

Now, because God came down, and because he is the design (as was also shown in that section), there was no other way for him to become an actual human being than to be conceived, to be carried in the womb, to be born, to be brought up, and to acquire more and more knowledge so as to become intelligent and wise. Therefore in his human manifestation he was an infant like any infant, a child like any child, and so on with just one difference: he completed the process more quickly, more fully, and more perfectly than the rest of us do.

This statement in Luke shows that he followed the divine design in his progress: "The child Jesus grew and became strong in spirit, and he advanced in wisdom, age, and grace with God and with humankind" (Luke 2:40, 52). Other statements about the Lord in the same Gospel make it clear that he grew up more quickly, more fully, and more perfectly than the rest of us; for example, when "he was a child of twelve, he sat and taught in the Temple in the midst of the scholars, and all who heard him were astounded at his insightful answers" (Luke 2:46-47). Likewise later on; see Luke 4:16-22, 32.

The Lord's life followed this path because the divine design is for people to prepare themselves to accept God; and as they prepare themselves, God enters them as if he were coming into his own dwelling and his own home. The preparation entails developing a concept of God and of the spiritual things related to the church - that is, developing intelligence and wisdom.

It is a law of the divine design that the closer and closer we come to God, which is something we have to do as if we were completely on our own, the closer and closer God comes to us. When we meet, God forms a partnership with us. The Lord followed this design even to the point of union with his Father, as we will show later on [97-99, 105-106].

2798. That 'Abraham took the pieces of wood for the burnt offering' means the merit of righteousness is clear from what has been stated and shown above in 2784, and so without further explanation.

[2798a] 'And laid them on Isaac [his son]' means that it, that is to say, the merit of righteousness, was joined to the Divine Rational. This becomes clear from the representation of 'Isaac' as the Lord's Divine Rational, often dealt with already, and from the meaning of 'laying it on him' as allying it. The expression 'his son' is used because the Lord's Divine Human was not only conceived but was also born from Jehovah. The Lord's conception from Jehovah is very well known from the Word of the Lord, and therefore He is called 'Son of the Most High', 'Son of God', and 'Only Begotten of the Father' in Matthew 2:15; 3, 16, 17; 16:13-17; 17:5; 27:43, 54; Mark 1:11; 9:7, 9; 14:61-62; Luke 1:31-32, 35; 3:21-22; 9:35; 10:22; John 1:14, 18, 49; 3:13, 16-18; 5:20-27; 6:69; 9:34-35, 38; 10:35-36; 20:30-31, and besides these in very many other places where He calls Jehovah His Father.

[2] It is also well known that He was born of a virgin Mary, yet even so like any other. But when He was born again, that is, became Divine, this was from Jehovah who dwelt within Him and who was Himself as to the very Being (Esse) of life. The union of the Divine Essence and the Human Essence was effected mutually and reciprocally, so that He united the Divine Essence to the Human Essence, and the Human Essence to the Divine Essence, see 1921, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2018, 2025, 2083, 2508, 2523, 2618, 2628, 2632, 2728, 2729. From this it may become clear that the Lord made the Human within Himself Divine from His own power and in so doing became Righteousness. That which was allied to the Divine Rational when He underwent inmost temptation was the merit of righteousness; and it was from the Divine Rational that He fought, and it was against it that evil genii fought, until He glorified that Divine Rational also. These are the things meant in the internal sense by Abraham's laying the pieces of wood for the burnt offering on Isaac his son, and they are the things which angels perceive when these words are being read.