Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/136

40 ''only begotten of the Father,. . . No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath hrought Him forth to view" (i. 1-3, 14, 18). The Word is the Divine truth which has been revealed to men; and because this could not be revealed except from Jehovah as Man, that is, except from Jehovah in the human form, thus from the Lord, therefore it is said, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word" It is known in the church that by the Word the Lord is meant. It is therefore openly said, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father." That the Divine truth could not be revealed to men except from Jehovah in the human form, is also clearly stated : "No one hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath brought Him forth to view."'' From this it is evident that the Lord from eternity was Jehovah or the Father in a human form, but not yet in the flesh; for an angel has not flesh. And as Jehovah, or the Father, willed to put on all the human, for the sake of the salvation of the human race, therefore He also assumed flesh; wherefore it is said, "God was the Word, . ., and the Word was made flesh;" and in Luke, "Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; handle Me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have" (xxiv. 39). By these words the Lord taught that He was no longer Jehovah under the form of an angel, but that He was Jehovah Man; which also is meant by these words of the Lord, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again I leave the world, and go to the Father" (John xvi. 28). (A. C. n. 9315.)

Man is so natural and sensual that he is quite incapable of any idea of thought concerning things abstract, unless he adjoins something natural which had entered from the world through the sensuals, for without such his thought perishes as in an abyss, and is dissipated. Therefore, lest the Divine should perish with man, entirely immersed in corporeal and earthly things, and in those with whom it remained should be defiled by an impure idea, and with it everything celestial and spiritual from the Divine, it pleased Jehovah to present Himself actually as He is, and as He appears in heaven,—namely, as a Divine Man. For every part of heaven conspires to the human form; as may be seen from what has been shown at the close of the chapters, concerning the correspondence of all things of man with the Greatest Man, which is heaven. This Divine, or this [presence] of Jehovah in heaven is the Lord from eternity. The same also the Lord took upon Him when He glorified or made Divine the human in Himself; which also is very manifest from the form in which He appeared before Peter, James, and John, when He was