The Third Round: The Finite Image of the Lord in the Word is the Basis for Seeing Him as a Divine Human

From the work, Arcana Celestia 4735.2

[2] The Lord’s Human, after it was glorified or made Divine, cannot be thought of as human, but as the Divine love in human form; and this so much the more than the angels, who, when they appear (as seen by me), appear as forms of love and charity under the human shape, and this from the Lord; for the Lord from Divine love made His Human Divine; just as man through heavenly love becomes an angel after death, so that he appears, as just said, as a form of love and charity under the human shape. It is plain from this that by the Lord’s Divine Human, in the celestial sense is signified the Divine love itself, which is love toward the whole human race, in that it wills to save them and to make them blessed and happy to eternity, and to make its Divine their own so far as they can receive it. This love and the reciprocal love of man to the Lord, and also love toward the neighbor, are what are signified and represented in the Holy Supper-the Divine celestial love by the flesh or bread, and the Divine spiritual love by the blood or wine.

From the work, Arcana Celestia 7211

“Ye have neither heard the voice of the Father at any time, nor seen His shape” (John 5:37). For the angels are finite, and what is finite cannot have an idea of the Infinite; and therefore unless in heaven they had in respect to God the idea of a human shape, they would have no idea, or an unbecoming one; and thus they could not be conjoined with the Divine either by faith or by love; and this being the case, in heaven they perceive the Divine in a human form; whence it is that the Divine Human in the heavens is the all in their regards, and hence is the all in their faith and love; whence comes the conjunction through which is salvation (n. 6700).

From the work, Arcana Celestia 8783

Truth Divine is not received by anyone unless it has been accommodated to his apprehension, consequently unless it appears in a natural form and shape; for at first human minds apprehend none but earthly and worldly things, and not at all spiritual and heavenly things. Wherefore if spiritual and heavenly things were set forth nakedly, they would be rejected as if they were nothing, according to the Lord’s words in John:

If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I told you heavenly things? (John 3:12).

From the work, Arcana Celestia 9407

[12] The fact that the Divine Truth is the Lord Himself is evident from the consideration that whatever emanates from someone is the someone himself. What emanates for instance from a person when he speaks or acts originates in his will and understanding; and will and understanding constitute a person’s life, thus the person himself. For the human being is not a human being by virtue of the shape of face and body but by virtue of an understanding that sees what is true and a will that intends what is good. From this it becomes clear that what emanates from the Lord is the Lord; and the fact that this is Divine Truth has been shown often in what has gone before.

From the work, Apocalypse Explained 405

[2] That the good of love to the Lord is meant abstractedly by a mountain, is, because all things in the internal sense of the Word are spiritual, and spiritual things are meant apart from persons and places; therefore also the angels, because they are spiritual, think and speak in the abstract in regard to such things, and thereby they have intelligence and wisdom; for an idea of persons and places limits the thought, because it confines it to those things, and thus limits it. This idea of the thought is properly natural, whereas an idea apart from persons and places extends itself into heaven in every direction, and is no otherwise bounded than the sight of the eye while it views the sky without intervening objects; such an idea is properly spiritual. Hence it is that by a mountain, in the spiritual sense of the Word, is signified the good of love. It is the same with the signification of the earth, as denoting the church; for an idea apart from places, and from nations and people upon the earth, is that of the church there or with those [who live there]; this, therefore, is signified by the earth in the Word. It is the same with other things mentioned in the natural sense of the Word, as with hills, rocks, valleys, rivers, seas, cities, houses, gardens, woods, and other things.

From the work, Apocalypse Revealed 42

The arcanum is that before man turns himself to the Lord, and acknowledges Him as the God of heaven and earth, he cannot see the Divine truth in the Word. The reason is, that God is one, both in Person and in essence, in whom there is the Trinity; and that God is the Lord. Therefore, they who acknowledge a Trinity of Persons, look primarily to the Father, and some to the Holy Spirit, and rarely to the Lord, and if to the Lord, they think of His Human as of an ordinary man. When a man does this, he can by no means be enlightened in the Word, for the Lord is the Word, for it is from Him and concerning Him. Therefore they who do not approach the Lord alone, see Him and His Word behind them, and not before them; or backward, and not in front.

From the work, Apocalypse Explained 735

…the natural and sensual man separated from the spiritual can have no idea of the Divine in the Human, for they think of the Human of the Lord naturally and sensually, and not at the same time from any spiritual idea; therefore they think of the Lord in the same way as they think of an ordinary man altogether like themselves, and this they also teach; consequently in the idea of their thought they set the Divine of the Lord above His Human, and thus they altogether separate those two, namely the Divine and the Human of the Lord;

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