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The human form is love, wisdom and use

Conjugial Love 183. After this, the angels said, “Let us have an exchange of speech by questions and answers; for when a subject is taken in solely from hearing, the perception of that subject does indeed flow in, but unless the hearer think of it from himself and ask questions, it does not remain.”

[3] Some among that conjugial gathering then said to the angels, “We have heard that the origin of conjugial love is Divine-celestial because it is from influx from the Lord into men’s souls; and that, being from the Lord, it is love, wisdom, and use, these being the three essentials which together make the one Divine essence, and nothing can proceed from Him and flow into man’s inmost which is called his soul save what is of the Divine essence; also that, in their descent into the body, these three essentials are changed into things analogous and correspondential. Therefore, we now ask you first, What is meant by the third essential–the proceeding Divine which is called use?”

The angels replied: “Without use, love and wisdom are merely abstract ideas of thought, and after some tarrying in the mind, these pass away like the wind; but in use, the two are brought together and become a one which is called real. Love, being the activity of life, cannot rest unless it is doing something; nor can wisdom exist and subsist except when doing something from love and with it; and doing is use. Therefore we define use as the doing of good from love by means of wisdom. Use is good itself.

[4] Since these three, love, wisdom, and use, flow into the souls of men, it can be evident whence comes the saying that all good is from God; for every deed done from love by means of wisdom is called good, and use is also a deed. What is love without wisdom but something fatuous? and, without use, what is love together with wisdom but a state of the mind? But with use, love and wisdom not only make the man, they are the man. Indeed, and this perhaps will astonish you, they propagate man; for in man’s seed is his soul in perfect human form, covered over with substances from the purest things of nature, from which, in the mother’s womb, is formed a body. This use is the supreme and ultimate use of Divine Love by means of Divine Wisdom.”

[5] Finally the angels said: “The conclusion then must be that in its origin all fructification, all propagation, and all prolification is from the influx of love, wisdom, and use from the Lord—from immediate influx from the Lord into the souls of men, from mediate influx into the souls of animals, and from influx yet more mediate into the inmost parts of plants; and all are effected in ultimates from firsts. That fructifications, propagations, and prolifications are continuations of creation is evident; for creation can come from no other source than Divine Love by means of Divine wisdom in Divine Use. Therefore, all things in the universe are procreated and formed from use, in use, and for use.”

True Christian Religion 387(3)…. Love and wisdom without the good of use are nothing; they are only ideal entities, and do not become realities until they exist in use. Love, wisdom and use are three things which cannot be separated; if separated, they are nothing. Love is nothing without wisdom; but by means of wisdom it assumes a form, which is use; therefore, when love by means of wisdom is expressed in use, then it really is, because then it actually exists. Love, wisdom and use are like end, cause and effect; the end is nothing unless it is in the effect by means of the cause; and if one of these three is destroyed, the whole is destroyed, and nothing remains.

CL13(6).In its essence, heavenly food is nothing else than love, wisdom, and use together, that is, use from love by means of wisdom. Therefore, in heaven, food for the body is given to every one according to the use which he performs, sumptuous to those who are in eminent use, moderate but of exquisite flavor to those in a use of medium degree, common to those in a common use, but none at all to the slothful.”
 

Thinking from essence to person

Index AR 2- #12. God is to be thought of from essence to person, and not from person to essence, and they who think concerning God from person, make God three, but they who think from essence make God one, illustrated n. 611. They also make God one, who think concerning God from the attributes of the Divine essence also from the proceeding attributes which are creation, preservation, salvation, and redemption, enlightenment, and instruction, illustrated n. 611, illustrated n. 961.

Apocalypse Revealed  611 [6] The boys then asked, “What is it to meditate on the Word spiritually and materially?” And the master replied, “I will illustrate it by examples. Who, when he reads the Word, does not think of God, his neighbor, and heaven?

Everyone who thinks of God only from Person, and not from Essence, thinks materially; also he who thinks of the neighbor only from form, and not from quality, thinks materially; and he who thinks of heaven only from place, and not from the love and wisdom which heaven is, he also thinks materially.” But the boys said, “We have thought of God from Person, of the neighbor from form, that he is a man, and of heaven from place; did we therefore, when we were reading the Word, appear to anyone as dead horses?”

[7] The master said, “No, you are yet boys, and could not think otherwise; but I have perceived in you an affection of knowing and understanding, which, because it is spiritual, shows that you have also thought spiritually. But I will return to what I said at first, that he who thinks materially, when he reads the Word or is meditating from it, appears at a distance like a dead horse; but he who reads it spiritually, like a living horse; and that he thinks materially concerning God and the Trinity, who thinks of God only from Person, and not from essence. For there are many attributes of the Divine essence, such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, mercy, grace, eternity, and others; and there are attributes proceeding from the Divine essence, which are creation and preservation, salvation and redemption, enlightenment and instruction. Everyone who thinks of God only from person, makes three Gods, saying that one God is the Creator and Preserver, another the Saviour and Redeemer, and the third the Enlightener and Instructor. But everyone who thinks of God from essence, makes one God, saying, God created and preserves us, redeems and saves us, enlightens and instructs us.

“This is the reason why they who think of the Trinity in God from Person, and thus materially, cannot, from the ideas of their thought, which are material, do otherwise than out of one God make three; but yet, contrary to their thought, they are held to saying, that in each there is a communion of all the attributes, and this solely because they have also thought of God obscurely from essence. Therefore, my pupils, think of God from His essence, and from that of His Person, and not from His Person, and from this of His essence, for to think of His essence from Person, is to think materially of His essence also; but to think of His Person from essence, is to think spiritually even of His Person. The ancient Gentiles, because as they thought materially of God, and also of the attributes of God, not only imagined three gods, but many even to the number of a hundred. Know then that the material does not flow into the spiritual, but the spiritual into the material. It is similar with the thought of the neighbor from form, and not from his quality, and with the thought of heaven from place, and not from the love and wisdom which heaven is. It is similar with each and everything in the Word. Therefore, he who cherishes a material idea of God, and likewise of the neighbor and of heaven, cannot understand anything there. The Word is to him a dead letter, and he himself, when he reads it or meditates on it, appears at a distance as a dead horse.

[8] “They whom you saw falling from heaven, and who appeared in your sight like dead horses, were such as had closed the rational sight in themselves and others by this peculiar dogma, that the understanding is to be kept in subjection to their faith; not considering that the understanding, when closed by religion, is as blind as a mole, and there is mere thick darkness in it, and such thick darkness as rejects from itself all spiritual light, opposes its influx from the Lord and from heaven, and sets up a barrier against it in the sensual corporeal part, far below the rational in matters of faith, that is, places it near the nose, and fixes it in its cartilage, on which account they cannot afterwards so much as scent spiritual things; whence some have become such that when they sensate the odor from spiritual things they fall into a swoon; by odor I mean perception. These are they who make God three. They say indeed from essence that God is one; but yet when they pray from their faith, which is that “God the Father would have mercy for the sake of the Son and send the Holy Spirit,” they evidently make three Gods. They cannot do otherwise, for they pray to one to have mercy for the sake of another, and send a third.” And then their master taught them concerning the Lord, that He is the one God, in whom is the Divine Trinity.
 

Giving finite attributes to the Divine 

True Christian Religion 19. Since God alone is I am or Being, that is, Jehovah, therefore there cannot be anything in the created universe which does not owe its being to Him;

TCR 21.Jehovah God is Being in itself, because He is I am, the very, sole and prime source, from eternity to eternity, of everything in existence, which allows it to exist. In this and no other sense He is the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, Alpha and Omega. One cannot say that His Being is from itself, because ‘out of itself’ presupposes what is earlier and thus time; but time is inconsistent with the Infinite, which is said to be ‘from eternity’. It also presupposes another God, who is God in Himself, and thus God originating from God; in other words, that God formed Himself, so that He could not be uncreated or infinite, because in this case He would have distinguished Himself either from Himself or from another.

Arcana Coelestia 926 … no other verb can be used of Jehovah than Is. The things which are said of Jehovah throughout the Word are there for the benefit of people who cannot grasp anything apart from that which comes within man’s actual experience. That is why the sense of the letter takes the form it does. The simple in heart are able to be taught from appearances as they belong to man’s actual experience, for their knowledge of things goes scarcely any further than that based on sensory experience; therefore it is their mental grasp of things that determines the way anything is said in the Word,…

AC 2553. All thoughts which man has are confined within natural things experienced by his senses, and anything that is said which does not draw on and does not fit in with those natural things is not comprehended but perishes, like sight gazing into some ocean or universe without any object there on which it may focus. Consequently if matters of doctrine were presented to man in any other manner, they would not be received at all, and so he would have no respect for them. This may become quite clear from each detail in the Word. There purely Divine things are for the same reason presented as natural, indeed sensory ones, such as that Jehovah has ears, eyes, and a face, has affections as man does, anger, and many more things.

AC 3869.[14] It is well known that Jehovah does not have ears or eyes as man does but that some attribute which may be ascribed to the Divine is meant by the ear and the eye, namely infinite will and infinite understanding. Infinite will is providence, and infinite understanding foresight; and it is these that are meant in the highest sense by ear and eye when these are attributed to Jehovah.

TCR 25.The Divine Being, which is in itself God, is the same; not the same in a simple way, but infinitely the same, that is, the same from eternity to eternity. He is the same everywhere, the same with each person and in each person; but all the changes and differences occur in the person who receives Him, and it is his state which causes this.

AR 961. To this I will append two narrative accounts. Here is the first: Once, on awakening from sleep, I fell into a profound meditation regarding God. And when I looked up, I saw in the sky above me a bright, oval-shaped light. Then, as I fixed my gaze on the light, the light ebbed toward the circumference and entered the perimeter. And suddenly heaven opened to me and I saw some magnificent sights, with angels standing around in a circle on the southern side of the opening and conversing together. Because I burned with a desire to hear what they were saying, I was therefore first granted to hear the sound, which was full of heavenly love, and afterward the words, which were full of wisdom arising from that love. They were talking together about the oneness of God, conjunction with Him, and so salvation.

What they were saying is beyond description. Most of it cannot be put into the words of any natural language. But because I had been myself a number of times in the company of angels in heaven, and had then used the same language as they, being in the same state, I was consequently able to understand them now and to take from their conversation some thoughts that I could express in rational terms in the words of a natural language.

They were saying that the Divine being is one, unchanging, absolute, and indivisible, and so is also the Divine essence, inasmuch as the Divine being is the Divine essence, thus also God, because the Divine essence, which is at the same time the Divine being, is God.

[2] This the angels illustrated using spiritual ideas, saying that the Divine being cannot evolve into a number of Divines, each of which possesses the Divine being, and still be one, unchanging, absolute, and indivisible. Indeed, each would think, of Himself and by Himself, from His own being. If He should then think also at the same time unanimously with others and in harmony with others, the result would be a number of like-minded gods and not one God. For unanimity is the consensus of a number, and at the same time the consensus of each one, of himself and by himself, and this does not accord with the unity of God, but with a plurality of beings. They did not say, with a plurality of gods, because they could not, since the light of heaven resisted it, being the light in accord with which they formed their thinking and in which their discussion proceeded. They even said that when they tried to say “gods,” with each one a person by himself, their effort to say it turned instantly and spontaneously into their saying one God, indeed into saying the one and only God.

[3] The angels said in addition that the Divine being is a Divine being in itself, not one derived from itself, because to say one derived from itself supposes a being in itself as its origin, thus a God derived from God, which is not possible. Something derived from God is not called God but rather Divine. For what is a God derived from God? What then is a God born from eternity from God? And what is a God emanating from God through a God born from eternity? They are but words that contain not a spark of light from heaven.

“Not so,” they said, “in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him is the Divine being itself from which all else springs, to which the soul corresponds in man. He has also a Divine humanity, to which the body corresponds in man. And from Him is also the emanating Divine, to which the activity of soul and body corresponds in man. This trine is a unit, because from the originating Divine springs the Divine humanity, and from the originating Divine through the Divine humanity springs as a consequence the emanating Divine.

“For this reason, too, every angel and every person, being an image of the Divine, has a soul, body and activity which constitute a unit, since from the soul springs the body, and from the soul through the body springs the consequent activity.”

[4] The angels said further that the Divine being, which in itself is God, is unchanging – not unchanging statically, but infinitely, that is, unchanging from eternity to eternity. It is the same everywhere, and the same for every individual and in every individual, with all variation and capability of variation resting in the recipient. The state of the recipient is responsible for this.

That the Divine being, which in itself is God, is absolute, they illustrated as follows:

“God is absolute,” they said, “because He is love itself, wisdom itself, good itself, truth itself, and life itself. If these were not absolute in God, they would have no reality in heaven or in the world, as they would have no relation to anything absolute. Every quality is accorded its quality from the fact that there is something absolute from which it springs and to which it has relation so as to be what it is.

“This absolute entity, which is the Divine being, does not exist space, but is present with people and in people who live in space, in accordance with their reception, since love and wisdom, and goodness and truth, which are absolute in God, indeed which are God Himself, cannot have location predicated of them, or a progression from place to place, but are independent of space, and so omnipresent. Therefore the Lord says that He is in the midst of His disciples, and that He is in them and they in Him. ¹

[5] “However, because no one can receive Him as He is in Himself, He appears, such as He is in Himself, as a sun above the angelic heavens, and the light emanating from that sun is the Lord in respect to wisdom, and its warmth the Lord in respect to love.

“The Lord is not a sun, but the Divine love and wisdom radiating immediately from Him and surrounding Him appear to angels as the sun. He himself in the sun is human. He is our Lord Jesus Christ, both in respect to the originating Divine and in respect to His Divine humanity, since the originating Divine, which is love itself and wisdom itself, was the soul He had from the Father, thus Divine life, which is life in itself. Not so in any other person. The soul in him is not life, but a recipient of life. This is also something the Lord taught, saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” ² And in another place, “As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.” ³ He who has life in Himself is God.”

To this the angels added that it is possible for someone who possesses some spiritual light to perceive from this that because the Divine being, which is also the Divine essence, is one, unchanging, absolute, and so indivisible, it cannot possibly exist in a plurality of persons. And that if someone were to say it could, there would be manifest contradictions in any added qualifications.

[6] Having said this, the angels perceived in my thought the usual notions in the Christian Church regarding a trinity of Persons in union and their union in the trinity, regarding God, and regarding as well the birth of the Son of God from eternity. And they said then, “What are you thinking? Are you not forming your thoughts from a natural sight, with which our spiritual sight does not accord? Therefore, if you do not rid yourself of those ideas in your thinking, we will close heaven to you and go away.”

But to that I said to them, “Pray enter more deeply into my thinking, and perhaps you will see an agreement.”

They then did so, and they saw that by three Persons I mean three succeeding Divine attributes, namely creation, salvation, and reformation, and that these are the attributes of a single God. They saw, too, that by the birth of the Son of God from eternity I mean His birth foreseen from eternity and provided in time. And I told them then that I acquired my natural thought regarding a trinity of Persons and their union, and the birth of a Son of God from eternity, from the church’s doctrinal creed, called the Athanasian Creed, and that the doctrine in it is right and correct, provided that for the trinity of Persons in it one substitutes the trinity of a Person, which exists only in the Lord Jesus Christ, and for the birth of the Son of God, His birth foreseen from eternity and provided in time. For it is in relation to the humanity He assumed in time that He is plainly called “the Son of God.”

[7] At that the angels said, “Good!” And they asked me to say on their authority that if someone does not turn to the God Himself of heaven and earth, he cannot enter heaven, because heaven is heaven owing to this one and only God, and that this God is Jesus Christ, who is the Lord Jehovah, our Creator from eternity, our Savior in time, and our Reformer to eternity, thus who is at once the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

After that the heavenly light that I saw before came back over the opening in the sky, and it gradually descended from there and filled the interiors of my mind, enlightening my natural ideas regarding the union and trinity of God. And the ideas I had initially acquired about these, which were merely natural, I then saw separated, as the chaff is separated from the wheat when shaken in the wind, and these ideas were carried off as though by a wind into the northern zone of heaven and vanished.
 
 
Describing the Divine in terms of negation

TCR18. The Divine Being (Esse) will be discussed first, then the Divine Essence. It looks as if these two are one and the same, but in fact Being (Esse) is more universal than Essence, since Essence presupposes Being, and comes into existence from Being. The Being of God, or the Divine Being, is indescribable, since it transcends all ideas of human thought. This cannot grasp anything except what is created and finite. What is uncreated and infinite, such as the Divine Being, is incomprehensible. The Divine Being is Being Itself, the source of all things and which must be in all things for them to exist.
 

The human from the mother, the human from the father and the human made Divine 

Doctrine of the Lord 35. vi. By successive steps the Lord put off the human taken from the mother, and put on a Human from the Divine within Him, which is the Divine Human, and is the Son of God. That in the Lord were the Divine and the human, the Divine from Jehovah the Father, and the human from the virgin Mary, is known. Hence He was God and Man, having a Divine essence and a human nature; a Divine essence from the Father, and a human nature from the mother; and therefore was equal to the Father as to the Divine, and less than the Father as to the human. It is also known that this human nature from the mother was not transmuted into the Divine essence, nor commingled with it, for this is taught in the Doctrine of Faith which is called the Athanasian Creed. For a human nature cannot be transmuted into the Divine essence, nor can it be commingled therewith.

[2] In accordance with the same creed is also our doctrine, that the Divine assumed the Human, that is, united itself to it, as a soul to its body, so that they were not two, but one Person. From this it follows that the Lord put off the human from the mother, which in itself was like that of another man, and thus material, and put on a Human from the Father, which in itself was like His Divine, and thus substantial, so that the Human too became Divine. This is why in the Word of the Prophets the Lord even as to the Human is called Jehovah, and God; and in the Word of the Evangelists, Lord, God, Messiah or Christ, and the Son of God in whom we must believe, and by whom we are to be saved.

AC 141. Innumerable things might be said about man’s Own in describing its nature with the corporeal and worldly man, with the spiritual man, and with the celestial man. With the corporeal and worldly man, his Own is his all, he knows of nothing else than his Own, and imagines, as before said, that if he were to lose this Own he would perish. With the spiritual man also his Own has a similar appearance, for although he knows that the Lord is the life of all, and gives wisdom and understanding, and consequently the power to think and to act, yet this knowledge is rather the profession of his lips than the belief of his heart. But the celestial man discerns that the Lord is the life of all and gives the power to think and to act, for he perceives that it is really so. He never desires his Own, nevertheless an Own is given him by the Lord, which is conjoined with all perception of what is good and true, and with all happiness. The angels are in such an Own, and are at the same time in the highest peace and tranquility, for in their Own are those things which are the Lord’s, who governs their Own, or them by means of their Own. This Own is the veriest celestial itself, whereas that of the corporeal man is infernal. But concerning this Own more hereafter.

Scripture passages unpacked (From Doctrine of Sacred Scripture 2.)

Jesus said to the woman at Jacob’s well, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water. Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. John 4:6, 10, 14.

By Jacob’s well is signified the Word, as also in Deuteronomy 33:28; and for this reason also the Lord sat there, and spoke with the woman; and by water is signified the truth of the Word.

In the same Evangelist:

If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. John 7:37-38.

In the same:

Peter said to Jesus, Thou hast the words of eternal life. 
John 6:68.

John 1: 1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe.He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.