Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/167

Rh also taught His disciples before He departed, in these words: "Jesus said to them, fools and slow of heart to Believe all that the Prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered this, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke xxiv. 25-27). Afterwards, Jesus said to His disciples, "These are the words which I spake unto you whilst I was yet with you, That all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning Me" (Luke xxiv. 44). That the Lord in the world fulfilled all things of the Word, even to its minutest particulars, is evident from these His words: "Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law till all he fulfilled" (Matt. v. 18). From these now one may clearly see that by the Lord's fulfilling all things of the Law it is not meant that He fulfilled all the commandments of the Decalogue, but all things of the Word. (L. n. 11.)

The Lord Himself says, "All power is given unto Me, in heaven and on earth" (Matt, xxviii. 18). . . . In respect to all power being given to the Son of Man, both in the heavens and on earth, it should be known that the Lord had power over all things in the heavens and on earth before He came into the world; for He was God from eternity, and Jehovah,—as He Himself plainly says in John: "And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was" (xvii. 5); and again: "Verily, verily I say unto you, Before Abraham was I am" (viii. 58). For He was Jehovah and God to the Most Ancient church which was before the flood, and appeared to the men of that church; He was also Jehovah and God to the Ancient church which was after the flood; and He it was whom all the rites of the Jewish church represented, and whom the members of that church worshipped. And the reason why He says that all power was given unto Him in Heaven and on earth, as if it were then first given, is, that by the Son of Man His Human essence is meant, which when united to the Divine was also Jehovah, and at the same time power was given unto Him; which could not be done before He was glorified, that is, before His Human essence by unition with the Divine had life also in itself, and had thus in like manner become Divine, and Jehovah; as He Himself says in John: "As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself" (V. 26). (A C. n. 1607.)