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John Chapter 3:22-36
After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea. And He continued there with them and baptized. (23) And John was also baptizing in Aenon, near Salim, for many waters were there. And they came and were being baptized. (24) For John had not yet been thrown into the prison. (25) Then a question from John’s disciples arose with the Jews about purification. (26) And they came to John and said to him, Teacher, the One who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have witnessed, behold, this One baptizes, and all are coming to Him. (27) John answered and said, A man is able to receive nothing unless it has been given to him from Heaven. (28) You yourselves witness to me that I said, I am not the Christ, but that having been sent, I am going before that One. (29) The one having the bride is the bridegroom. But the friend of the bridegroom, standing and hearing him, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice. Then this my joy has been fulfilled. (30) That One must increase, but I must decrease. (31) The One having come from above is above all. The one being of the earth is earthy, and speaks of the earth. The One coming out of Heaven is above all. (32) And what He has seen and heard, this He testifies, and no one receives His testimony. (33) The one receiving His testimony has sealed that God is true. (34) For the One whom God sent speaks the Words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure. (35) The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. (36) The one believing into the Son has everlasting life; but the one disobeying the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Divine Providence 151 by Emanuel Swedenborg
The inner self is not reformed simply by gaining knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, not, that is, simply by thinking. We are reformed inwardly by intending to do what our knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom tell us. When our knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom tell us that there is a heaven and a hell, that everything evil comes from hell, and that everything good comes from heaven, then if we do not intend evil, on the grounds that it is from hell, and instead intend good, on the grounds that it is from heaven, we are on the first step of reformation. We are on the threshold of hell, facing heaven. When we take the next step and intend to stop doing wrong, we are on the second step of reformation. We are outside of hell, but not yet in heaven. We see heaven as above us, and it has to be within us if we are to be completely reformed. Still, we are not reformed until both the outer and the inner self are reformed. The outer self is reformed by means of the inner self when the outer self refrains from the evils that the inner self intends not to do because they are from hell. We are more completely reformed when for that reason we abstain from them and fight against them. In this way, what is within is intending and what is outside is acting; for unless we do what we intend, there is a lack of real intention inside that eventually becomes unwillingness.

Following on from the teaching given regarding the new birth and our regeneration we come to a question raised by John’s disciples from their discussions with the Jews, concerning purification or more specifically who held the authority to offer baptism. But before we look at this question and its meaning in regard to the spiritual life there is a general principle revealed here in the Word in its move from a passage of instruction in spiritual matters to the activity of baptism. All spiritual instruction in truths is only truly received into our life when that instruction leads to living a life in accordance with it. Truths from the Word and the Heavenly Doctrines are the means by which our affections are purified from the loves of self and the world. It is therefore fitting that what follows the teaching given by the Lord to Nicodemus is the activity of baptism. Spiritually the act of baptism corresponds to what’s actually involved in living the spiritual life. It is a recognition of the ongoing need of having our inner life purified by means of spiritual water or truths from the Word from those false ideas and selfish desires that cling to our thought and affectional life. In this sense we can see that outer Sacrament of Baptism is a sign of our commitment to use the truths the Lord gives to us from the Word to cleanse the inner world of our minds through the ongoing practice of spiritual life which is the practice of self examination and repentance. This need to move from instruction to practise is captured in the words from our reading;

After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea (3:22)

The phrase “After these things…” refers to the instruction concerning spiritual life received from the Word into the state of ignorance represented by Nicodemus, who is of course our own ignorance, or the ignorance of the natural man in regard to the inner things of the Word and their application to the inner life of our spirit. But even in our ignorance the Word is on the move, Jesus or the Lord’s desire for our salvation comes with His disciples, who represent those spiritual principles we have acquired from the Word through seeking to live from it, into the land of Judea. The land is the ground for spiritual life and so refers to the church or a mind that from an affection for truth seeks to live from that truth. Judea is found in the southern part of Israel and in more ancient times was called Judah. The name Judah means praise, and from this meaning we can see that it corresponds to the affectional part of the mind which is the will. So Jesus and His disciples moving into Judea spiritually describes a state of willingness in spiritual matters. A state that involves taking the truths we are offered from the Word and compelling ourselves to actions in an affirmative response to live from them.

Truth in and of itself cannot save us from evils and falsities. Truth corresponds to light and as such is able to reveal what we need to do through making us conscious of what is in us that is opposed the life of heaven. Once we see what it is we must do we are then responsible to act in accord with that insight. This is the application of heat, for actions in response to truths is what spiritual heat or love is. Without the application of this kind of heat no transformation can take place. We are told in the Heavenly Doctrines that even those in Hell can understand and so affirm that a thing is true. But their state of life is such that they have no desire or affection to live from it, so they reject good, and as good is what heaven is they reject heaven, and as the Lord is nothing but good they reject Him as well. The Lord is our Saviour because He is good, so what actually saves us is good, and we receive this into our life when we make truths from the Word a matter of life. This is because our responses to truths opens the way to becoming more and more aware of deeper states of life opposed to what is spiritual. The process begins in externals, that is, it begins with the literal sense of the Word and its application in the external realms of life, and as we respond appropriately in outer life so the Lord draws our attention onto the more internal aspects of our life. This is what is meant by;

And He continued there with them and baptised. (3:22)

If you recall John the Baptist said that while he baptised in water the Lord would baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire. John’s is an outer baptism in natural truths from the Word, whereas the baptism of the Lord is an inner baptism of spiritual truths from the Word. To be baptised in the Holy Spirit is to receive spiritual truths from the Word and to be baptised in fire is to practise them, for fire is a symbol of purification and the inner man is only purified from evils and falsities by the heat or the affection for truths that leads to their application to the inner life of the mind.

And it is at this point of turning to what is more internal that an inner objection arises from the natural man. In our reading today this inner objection is framed around a question concerning purification and it is raised by the Jews with the disciples of John. John represents the Word in its literal sense and his baptism to the reformation of our external life in accordance with a natural understanding tied to the letter of the Word. This is the preparer of the way of the Lord, for until the external life is brought into some form of order and discipline from a love of obeying the Word as to its natural truths the inner life of our thoughts and emotions will continue to run rampant taking every opportunity to fulfil in outer life the desires belonging to the loves of self and the world. The literal sense of the Word is for the natural man, and by it the chaos of the external mind can be addressed somewhat and brought into order, but it would be a mistake to think that an externally ordered life is where the spiritual life ends. On the contrary bringing our external life into order is merely the beginning, the foundation for entering into the spiritual realm of our thought and affectional life and having the Word operate to cleanse and purify things on this level.

There is an inherent resistance in the natural man to making this shift from externals to internals in regard to the focus and practise of religious and spiritual life and it centres on this question of the legitimacy or authority a more inner practice of spiritual disciplines has in the scheme of a religious life. The natural man’s focus is on external things, this being what is deemed most important. It is likely to respond to any prompt to move towards a more internal application of truths with questions that challenge this kind of focus, saying that such work is of little value, that people should just get on with living their lives as best as they can and not worry so much about digging too deeply into examining their motives or the nature of their thoughts. What this line of reasoning fails to see is that the purity or orderliness of the external life is only acceptable if it is a true reflection of the inner life of the mind. The reformation of the outer life is made possible precisely because it allows a person to begin to work on the inner life of their thoughts and affections so that the two, the internal and external man can become aligned. If this inner work isn’t done then the outer and the inner remain at odds with each other, and it needs to be understood that it is this inner that ultimately forms the real person who lives on after death, because a person is their spirit.

The question that arises from the Jews obviously had an unsettling effect on the disciples of John. The Jews in the context of this Gospel represent those elements within the natural man that are opposed to the Lord and what He is seeking to accomplish in our life. The disciples of John are truths from the Word understood naturally, or according to its literal sense. When we are being challenged to begin to work on a deeper level within ourselves objections arise from natural man that calls into question the need to do this deeper work. Look, it says, the Word is to be understood in terms of just what it says, why look for other meanings, it just confuses things and makes it all too difficult. Your a good person, you don’t harm anyone, you do your best to live a good life, surely this is all that matters? To the natural man this all sounds plausible, and fits well with the literal sense of the Word when understood externally.

But we know there is more to the Word than just its literal sense. It has an inner spiritual sense that addresses the inner things of the mind. And what we see in John’s response to his disciples question concerning the baptism of the Lord is that there is in fact a deeper work. John testifies concerning himself, that he is not the Christ – that his role or use is that of one who calls us to prepare the way of the Lord. In declaring that he is not the Christ he is saying that the literal sense of the Word or truths naturally understood can’t save us, they can only create the conditions into which deeper spiritual truths can be revealed, truths that address the inner issues of our life. When these truths when seen then we are witnesses of the Lord coming in power.

John’s words to his disciples corresponds to the message found in the literal sense of the Word and is discerned by those who seek to explore the Word and its application to their inner life. For those who have access to the Heavenly Doctrines it is very clear that there is a level of the Word that speaks to the inner life of the mind. And when the Word is read with a view to applying it inwardly we find it reveals its power to bring changes into this level of life, that it does in fact bring light on our motivations and provide us with insights as to how we are to move forward. We find that old selfish ways of thinking and being in certain circumstances and situations are transformed and no long affect us the way they once did. We find that those who once troubled us emotionally no longer do so in the face of new attitudes and ways of viewing others that arise from living from spiritual principles. All this is good, it is the product of truth being worked into the life, and those who work at this level know that what they have received they have received from heaven as is said in the statement;

Joh 3:27-28 John answered and said, A man is able to receive nothing unless it has been given to him from Heaven. (28) You yourselves witness to me that I said, I am not the Christ, but that having been sent, I am going before that One.

To stay in the literal sense of the Word, to remain in a purely external relationship to it and not allowing it to penetrate our inner life leaves us at the mercy of external life events. We remain ever vulnerable to feeling like a victim of circumstances, of rising anxiety, of a sense of powerlessness in the face of powerful emotions over which we seem to have no control. An external approach to spiritual things leaves us inwardly trapped in fears and worries about the future and immersed in unresolved regrets from the past. It’s only as we move to work where it counts from a deeper understanding of the Word and its application to our inner life that real lasting changes can even begin to take place. This requires us to come to the Word in a different way, to read it in relation to those things within that trouble us. When this happens then the meaning of John’s words become clear – He must increase but I must decrease (3:30) – These words refer to the spiritual life within the Word coming to the fore as a more literal understanding of the Scriptures gives way to the Lord who is the Spirit coming forth in power.

Joh 3:31-36 The One having come from above is above all. The one being of the earth is earthy, and speaks of the earth. The One coming out of Heaven is above all. (32) And what He has seen and heard, this He testifies, and no one receives His testimony. (33) The one receiving His testimony has sealed that God is true. (34) For the One whom God sent speaks the Words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure. (35) The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. (36) The one believing into the Son has everlasting life; but the one disobeying the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Amen.