358. Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love

Part 5

The Lord has created and formed within us two vessels and dwellings for himself called volition and discernment. Volition is for his divine love and discernment for his divine wisdom. I have already discussed the divine love and wisdom of God the Creator, who is the Lord from eternity, and I have discussed the creation of the universe. Now I need to say something about our own creation.

We read that we were created in the image of God and according to his likeness (Genesis 1:26). In this passage "the image of God" means divine wisdom and "the likeness of God" means divine love, since wisdom is nothing more than the image of love. Love actually presents itself to view and to recognition in wisdom, and since that is where we see and recognize it, wisdom is its image. Then too, love is the reality of life and wisdom is its consequent manifestation. This "image and likeness" of God is strikingly visible in angels. Love shining from within is their faces and wisdom in their beauty, with beauty as the form of their love. I have seen this, and I have come to know it.

2011. 'For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations' means here, as previously, that from Him comes all truth and resulting good. This is clear from the meaning of 'father' as that which comes from Him, from the meaning of 'multitude' as truth, and also from the meaning of 'nations' as resulting good, all dealt with above in 2005-2007. The fact that these same words mean in the more universal or more remote sense the union of the Human Essence with the Divine Essence, see above, in 2004. For the union of the Lord's Human Essence with the Divine Essence is as the union of truth with good, and the union of His Divine Essence with the Human Essence that of good with truth - which is reciprocal union. Indeed within the Lord it was truth itself that united itself to good, and good that united itself to truth, for the Infinite Divine cannot be called anything else than Good and Truth themselves. Consequently the human mind is not at all mistaken when it thinks of the Lord as Good itself and Truth itself.