Commandments will set us free.
“You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you.” So if we keep
the covenant on our tablet we can be assured we will be the type of friend to
others that we hope they will be to us – supportive of the good qualities and
not condoning or being accepting of the evil ones. This is the type of friend
who will allow the evils and fruitless branches or behaviors to be pruned away
so that the good qualities can become more fruitful and prolific. (cf. John 15:2)
Perhaps the Lord best sums up all these teachings on forming genuine
friendships with one last bit of advice contained in the Golden Rule: “Therefore,
whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the
Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) Amen.
The Rev. Bradley D. Heinrichs is pastor of the Carmel New
Church in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, principal of the Carmel
New Church School, Executive Vice President of the General
Church in Canada, and Chairman of Swedenborg Incorporated.
He lives with his wife, Catherine (Stewart), and family in
Kitchener. 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.
HEAVENLY MARRIAGE
This term, which is also peculiar to the Writings, is interiorly descriptive of
a reciprocal conjunction of good and truth, or of the will and the understanding,
which has its origin in the union or marriage of love and wisdom in the Lord.
The heavenly marriage is effected in those only who have been regenerated, and it
takes place in the rational of the intellectual proprium. Essentially it is a union in
which love or good from the Lord received in the new will inspires life into truths
in the understanding and directs them to uses, and in which those truths in their
turn give form and quality to that love.
The details are complicated, but the basic idea is that good from the Lord
received from within by the internal way is brought into conjunction with truth
received from without, from the Word, by the external way, that is, through the
senses. We note that this union, which descends into ultimates in the mind, is
preceded by a union entirely internal which initiates conjunction, and to which
betrothal corresponds. (See Arcana Coelestia 3952, 2803.)
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