new church life : may / june 2017
suffered as a result . This is why the Lord said in John :
I still have many things to say to you , but you cannot bear them now . However , when He , the Spirit of truth , has come , He will guide you into all truth ; . . . These things I have spoken to you in figurative language ; but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language , but I will tell you plainly about the Father . ( John 16:12 , 25 )
Swedenborg is telling the angels that this is what is happening on earth , this speaking plainly about the Father . Without these concepts the pathway for God is not clear . It is not that no one can be saved without them , but that the solutions to humanity ’ s ills and weaknesses cannot be found without them , so humanity as a whole cannot be saved .
What are the concepts that have been lacking ? If the revelation is so important then , what are these concepts that have been lacking ? It is interesting what Swedenborg mentions because they might not be the ones that most of us would talk about if given the chance . What would you mention ? I expect that most of us would focus on what has been taught about the Lord , the Word , and about life after death , as we typically do when we talk to our friends about what the New Church is . This is what Swedenborg does , but he also throws in things that we might never consider talking about . In True Christianity 24 there is a list :
The concepts we have been lacking are listed below . Their lack has deprived our intellect of the penetration to see that there is one God , that there can be only one underlying divine reality , and that all things in the material world come from that underlying reality .
( a ) Until now , no one has known anything about the spiritual world ( b ) The spiritual world has a sun that is pure love from Jehovah God ( c ) As a result , everything in that world is spiritual and affects us in our inner selves ( d ) By means of that sun , Jehovah God produced not only the spiritual world . . . but also the material world
( e ) Until now , no one has known the difference between “ spiritual ” and “ earthly ” ( f ) No one has known that there are three levels of love and wisdom that have been used to structure the angelic heavens
( g ) No one has known that the human mind is differentiated into the same number of levels
( h ) Lastly , none of the above would be the case for one instant were it not for the underlying divine reality – the Absolute in itself .
These are the things that have been lacking . This is not exactly the list that Swedenborg recites to the angels , which we read in our lesson , but it is similar .
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