more.” It is our clear understanding of the Lord’s mercy that enables us to turn
and live. We do not feel hopeless when we know what the Lord is like, and how
He feels toward us. Knowing that is what enables us to “go” and make a new
effort to “sin no more.”
Another realization that enables us to “turn and live” is that when we “go”
and work to “sin no more” the Lord is actually with us. He is providing the
power and even doing the work in us in the measure that we let Him.
So let us hear the Lord’s mercy when He says, “Go and sin no more.” He is
not abandoning us, but inviting His nearer presence when He calls:
“Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your
ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and
get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of
Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord Yehowah.
“Therefore turn and live!” (Ezekiel 18:30-32)
Amen.
The Rev. Grant H. Odhner teaches Theology in the Bryn Athyn
College Theological School. He is also visiting pastor of the
New York City Circle, chairs the General Church Publication
Committee and is Secretary of the Council of the Clergy. He and
his wife, Sarah (Bruell), live in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania.
Contact: [email protected]
O U R N E W C H U RC H V O C A B U L A R Y
Part of a continuing series developed by the Rev. W. Cairns Henderson, 1961-1966.
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL MAN
These are not terms for the mind and body, respectively. Both refer to the mind,
and they are descriptive of the two minds by which man is in company with angels
and with men. The internal man is the ruling love and its perceptions from which man
mediates when alone, and by which he does uses in the spiritual world; the external
man consists of the affections and thoughts which are displayed by a man when he is in
company, and by which he performs uses in this world. An important corollary is that
these two minds, distinct from each other, are also distinct from the body. (See Arcana
Coelestia 8742; Apocalypse Revealed 641)
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