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Arcana Coelestia #7891

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7891. And there shall be to you in the first day a holy convocation. That this signifies that in the beginning all shall be together, is evident from the signification of “the first day,” as being the beginning, namely, of liberation from those who have infested, and thus from damnation; and from the signification of “a holy convocation,” as being that all shall be together. Convocations took place in order that the whole assemblage of Israel might be together, and might thus represent heaven; for they were then all distinguished into tribes, and the tribes into families, and the families into houses. (That heaven along with the societies there was represented by the tribes, the families, and the houses of the sons of Israel, see n. 7836.) Therefore those convocations were called holy, and took place at every feast (Leviticus 23:27, 36; Numbers 28:26; 29:1, 7, 12). From this the feasts themselves were called “holy convocations,” for it was commanded that all the males should be present at them. That the feasts were called “holy convocations” is evident in Moses:

These are the set feasts of Jehovah, which ye shall call holy convocations, to offer a fire-offering unto Jehovah (Leviticus 23:37).

That at such times all males were to be present, in the same:

Three times in a year shall every male of thine appear together before Jehovah thy God, in the place which He shall choose; in the feast of unleavened things, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles (Deuteronomy 16:16).

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.

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Apocalypse Explained #83

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83. And was dead. That this signifies that He is rejected, is evident from this, that the Lord is said to be dead, when there are no longer faith in and love to Him; for the Lord lives with those who are in love and in faith to Him; but with those who are not in love and in faith He does not live, but is said to be dead, because rejected. This is what is here meant, in the internal sense, by "and was dead," but in the sense of the letter it denotes that He was crucified. The Lord's being crucified also similarly signifies, in the internal sense, that He was rejected and so treated by the Jews. For the Lord, when He was in the world, was Divine truth itself; and because Divine truth was altogether rejected by the Jews, therefore also the Lord, who was the Divine truth, suffered Himself to be crucified. Such things are signified by all the facts related by the Evangelists concerning the Lord's passion; the particulars relating thereto, even the most detailed, involve such a signification; therefore, when the Lord speaks of His passion, He calls Himself the Son of man, that is, Divine truth (as may be seen above, n. 63). That the Divine truth was entirely rejected by the Jews is well known, for they did not acknowledge anything said by Him, not even that He was the Son of God.

[2] From these considerations it can be known how those things also are to be understood which the Lord spake to His disciples concerning His rejection by the Jews. Thus in Luke:

"The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes" (9:22).

And again:

"The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation" (17:25).

In Mark:

"It is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought" (9:12).

In Luke:

"When Jesus took unto him the twelve, he said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things foretold by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished; that he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and spitefully entreated, and spit upon; and afterwards they shall scourge him, and put him to death; and the third day he shall rise again" (18:31, 32, 33).

The particulars here mentioned show how the Jews treated the Divine truth, which was from the Word. Jerusalem, in this passage, is the Jewish church; to be delivered to the Gentiles, to be mocked, to be spitefully entreated, to be spit upon, to be scourged, to be put to death, denote the wicked ways in which they treated Divine truth; and because the Lord was Divine truth itself, as being the Word (John 1:14), and it was foretold in the prophets that Divine truth would be so treated in the end of the church, therefore it is said that all things should be accomplished which are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man.

[3] Similarly it is said in another passage:

"These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me" (Luke 24:44).

That all things were accomplished, when Jesus was crucified, He Himself said, when He was upon the cross:

"When Jesus knew that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he saith, I thirst" (John 19:28).

The reason why He then said, I thirst, was, because He desired a new church, which should acknowledge Him. (That to thirst, in the spiritual sense, signifies to desire, and that it is said of the truths of the church, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 4958, 4976, 8568.)

These are also the things which are predicted by Daniel concerning vastation and desolation:

"After sixty and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself; and the people of the prince that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, so that its end shall be with a flood. At last upon the bird of abominations shall be desolation, and even to the consummation and decision it shall drop upon the devastation" (9:26, 27).

Desolation and vastation signify reprobation and rejection of Divine truth, with those who are of the church (as may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 5360, 5376).

[4] That Divine truth, which is the Word, was so rejected by the Jews, is also meant by these words in Matthew:

"I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise also shall the Son of man suffer of them" (17:12).

By Elias is signified the Word (as may be seen in Arcana Coelestia, in the preface to Gen. chapter 18, and n. 2762, 5247), and also by John the Baptist, therefore he was called Elias (n. 7643, 9372). Hence it is plain what is signified by its being said that Elias was come, and that they had done to him whatsoever they listed, and that the Son of man would in like manner suffer of them.

How the Jews explained the Word, and thus rejected it, is evident from very many passages in the Evangelists, where the Lord makes it clear. From these considerations it is now evident, that by "I was dead," is signified that He was rejected. (That the Lord also by the passion of the cross, glorified His Human, that is, made it Divine, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 294, 295, 302, 305.)

  
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Translation by Isaiah Tansley. Many thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #305

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305. In this way the Lord made his human nature divine. The Lord's human nature is divine because it came from the underlying reality of the Father that was the Lord's soul (10269, 10372, 10823, which use as an illustration the way children resemble their fathers) and because it came from the divine love that is within him (6872). The nature of every individual is determined by the nature of his or her love; we are all our own love: 6872, 10177, 10284. The Lord was divine love: 2077, 2253. The Lord made every aspect of his human nature divine, both inner aspects and outer ones: 1603, 1815, 1902, 1926, 2093, 2803. So unlike anyone else, he rose from the dead with his whole body: 1729, 2083, 5078, 10825. The fact that the Lord's human nature is divine can be recognized from the omnipresence of that human nature in the Holy Supper (2343, 10826) and from his transfiguration in the presence of three of his disciples 1 (3212) as well as from various statements in the Word (10154), particularly his being called "Jehovah" in it (1603, 1736, 1815, 1902, 2921, 3035, 5110, 6303, 6281, 8864, 9194, 9315). A distinction is maintained between the Father and the Son or between Jehovah and the Lord in the literal meaning, but not in the inner meaning of the Word, which the angels have: 3035. The Christian world does not recognize the Lord's human nature as divine; the view that his divinity and his humanity are separate was arrived at in a council to support recognition of the pope as the Lord's vicar (as I learned from conversation with members of that council in the other life) 2 : 4738.

[2] The divine-human nature has existed from eternity, in the form of divine truth in heaven and therefore as the manifestation of divine presence; later, in the Lord, though, the divine-human nature became the divine underlying reality, the source of the manifestation of divine presence in heaven: 3061, 6280, 6880, 10579. What the state of heaven was like before the Lord came into the world: 6371, 6372, 6373. What was divine could not be perceived then and therefore could not be accepted unless it had passed through heaven: 6982, 6996, 7004. The Lord from eternity was the divine truth in heaven: 2803, 3195, 3704. This is "the Son of God born from eternity": 2628, 2798.

[3] The only divinity they perceive in heaven is the divine humanity: 6475, 9303, 9356, 10067. The earliest people were not able to worship the infinite underlying reality but they were able to worship the infinite manifestation of it, which is the divine humanity: 4687, 4692. The ancients acknowledged the Divine because it appeared in a human form, and this was the divine humanity: 5110, 5663, 6846, 10737. The inhabitants of all planets worship the Divine in a human form; they rejoice when they hear that God actually became a human being: 6700, 8541-8547, 9361, 10736, 10737, 10738. See my booklet "The Earthlike Bodies Called Planets in Our Solar System and in Deep Space". 3 If we do not think of God as being in a human form, we can have no definite idea of God, because what is incomprehensible does not take shape in the mind: 9359, 9972. We can worship only something of which we have some concept; we cannot worship something of which we have no concept: 4733, 5110, 5663, 7211, 9356, 10067. So most people throughout the world worship the Divine in a human form, and this happens because of an inflow from heaven: 10159. When people who are devoted to living good lives think about the Lord, they all think about him as having a divine-human nature and not as having a human nature separate from a divine one: 2326, 4724, 4731, 4766, 8878, 9193, 9198. Why the people in today's church who are consumed with leading an evil life, as well as the people who are devoted to faith apart from caring, think about the Lord's human nature as not being divine, and why they do not understand what the divine-human nature is: 3212, 3241, 4689, 4692, 4724, 4731, 5321, 6371, 8878, 9193, 9198.

Примітки:

1. For the transfiguration of Jesus before Peter, James, and John, the three disciples referred to here, see Matthew 17:1-9; Mark 9:2-10; Luke 9:28-36; 2 Peter 1:16-18. [SS]

2. The identity of this council is not made clear, but judging from the description in the passage cited here, Secrets of Heaven 4738, Swedenborg refers to the Council of Chalcedon held in 451. It established the "Chalcedonian Definition" that held in part: "Following the holy Fathers, we all with one voice confess our Lord Jesus Christ one and the same Son, the same perfect in Godhead, the same perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, the same consisting of a reasonable soul and a body, of one substance with the Father as touching the Godhead, the same of one substance with us as touching the manhood, like us in all things apart from sin" (quoted in Frend 1984, 771). For discussion of this council, see Frend 1984, 742-785; Pelikan 1971, 1:256-266. [SS]

3. This book, referred to by the short title Other Planets in this edition, was originally published by Swedenborg in London in 1758. For a description of the delight of the inhabitants of other planets, and of spirits and angels from other planets, when they learn that God is human, see Other Planets 121. See also note 1 in Other Planets 7. [Editors]

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.