Page:The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained.djvu/68

62 man, which takes place only as we become regenerated, we need not expect to understand much about the at-one-ment of the Divine with the Human in Jesus Christ.

It must be plain to every one that the Old doctrine on this subject is based upon, and grows legitimately out of, the doctrine of three Divine Persons. It is wholly incompatible with the doctrine of God's personal unity, and cannot stand for a moment when this is admitted. For when it is seen that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one and only Divine Person in whom "dwells all the fulness of the Godhead," then there is no first Person apart from Him to demand satisfaction for his violated law; no one whose wrath is to be appeased by the sufferings and death of another, or to whom the penalty due to man's transgressions is to be paid. It is plain, therefore, that the Old doctrine on this subject does by no means consist with the New doctrine of the Trinity (see p. 33), nor with the supreme and absolute divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. According to the belief and teaching of the New Church, man was originally created in the image and likeness of God. His understanding was created to be an image and so a finite receptacle of the Divine Wisdom, and his will to be a likeness and hence a finite receptacle of the Divine Love; and from the union of these two (love and