IBhayibheli

 

John 1:18

Funda

       

18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Amazwana

 

Explanation of John 1:18

Ngu Brian David

Ancient of Days, by William Blake

The Lord, in His essence, is infinite. He is the source of all energy, the well-spring of reality itself. His love is of such power that we would be destroyed by its direct heat, which is infinitely greater than the heat of the finite sun. His wisdom, the direct outpouring of His love, is of such power that we would be blinded by its brightness, which is infinitely brighter than the light of the finite sun. His immensity – which is beyond immensity – is inaccessible to our finite imaginative powers. In His essence, He is unknowable to us.

Yet we know Him. How? The Writings say that His love and wisdom project as a human form, then pass through that form almost like a filter to come to us as divine truth. That truth is like a container that is conformed to our minds, enough that we can hang onto an idea of the Lord and receive His love. We can have ideas that are filled with the Lord, and feel like we know Him, though really what we know is just the amount we can handle.

That divine truth is, itself, "the only begotten son." It was the son as the soul within the physical man Jesus; it was the son as the inner meaning of the Old Testament; it was the son as expressed by the Lord in other ways before Moses, and it is still the son now as the inner meaning of the Old and New Testaments together. It knows the Father – the love that is the Lord’s essence – and does, in fact, declare the Father to us, if only we will listen.

(Izinkomba: Arcana Coelestia 2025 [4], 4211, 4724, 5321 [2], 6849, 6887, 7211, 8705, 10579)

Okususelwe Emisebenzini kaSwedenborg

 

Arcana Coelestia #7211

Funda lesi Sigaba

  
Yiya esigabeni / 10837  
  

7211. 'And I will bring you to the land concerning which I lifted up my hand to give it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' means raising by Divine power to heaven, where the Divine Human is the All. This is clear from the meaning of 'bringing to the land' - the land of Canaan - as raising to heaven (for the meaning of 'the land of Canaan' as the Lord's kingdom or heaven, see above in 7196); from the meaning of 'lifting up the hand', when said of Jehovah or the Lord, as by Divine power (for the meaning of 'hand' as power, see 878, 4931-4937, 5327, 5318, 6947, 7011); and from the representation of 'Abraham Isaac, and Jacob' as the Lord in respect of the Divine itself and in respect of the Divine Human, dealt with in 6804, 6847, at this point in respect of the Divine Human since this is the All in heaven. The reason why the Divine Human is the All in heaven is that no one there, not even an angel of the inmost or third heaven, can form any picture in his mind of the Divine itself, as accords with the Lord's words in John,

Nobody has ever seen God. John 1:18.

You have never heard the Father's voice nor seen His shape. John 5:37.

For the angels are finite, and what is finite cannot form any mental picture of the Infinite. In heaven therefore unless they pictured God in human shape they would have no mental picture of Him, or only an unsuitable one, and so could not have become linked to the Divine, either through faith or through love. That being so, in heaven they perceive the Divine in human form; and this explains why the Divine Human in heaven is the All in the insights they have, and is consequently the All in their faith and love, as a result of which they are joined to Him and thus saved by Him, 6700.

  
Yiya esigabeni / 10837  
  

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