The Gist of Swedenborg | Page 3

his soul or life, which, however, is no conception of man, still less of the Lord.
--_Apocalypse Explained, n._ 26
WHY HE CAME
The Lord from eternity, Who is Jehovah, came into the world to subdue the hells and to glorify His Humanity. Without Him no mortal could have been saved; and they are saved who believe in Him.
--_True Christian Religion, n._ 2
The Lord came into the world to save the human race which would otherwise have perished in eternal death. This salvation the Lord effected by subjugating the hells, which infested every man coming into the world and going out of the world, and by glorifying His Humanity; for so He can hold the hells subdued to eternity. The subjugation of the hells, and the glorification at the same time of His Humanity, were effected by temptations let into the Humanity He had from the mother, and by unbroken victories. His passion on the cross was the last temptation and complete victory.
--_Heavenly Doctrine, n._ 293
HOW HE CAME
Because, from His essence, God burned with the love of uniting Himself to man, it was necessary that He should cover Himself around with a body adapted to reception and conjunction. He therefore descended and assumed a human nature in pursuance of the order established by Him from the creation of the world. That is, He was to be conceived by a power produced from Himself; He was to be carried in the womb; He was to be born, and then to grow in wisdom and in love, and so was to approach to union with His Divine origin. Thus God became Man, and Man God.
--_True Christian Religion, n._ 838
THE LIFE ON EARTH
The Lord had at first a human nature from the mother, of which He gradually divested Himself while He was in the world. Accordingly He kept experiencing two states: a state of humiliation or privation, as long and as far as He was conscious in the human nature from the mother; and a state of glorification or union with the Divine, as long and as far as He was conscious in the Humanity received from the Father. In the state of humiliation He prayed to the Father as to One other than Himself; but in the state of glorification He spoke with the Father as with Himself. In this state He said that the Father was in Him, and He in the Father, and that the Father and He were one.
The Lord consecutively put off the human nature assumed from the mother, and put on a Humanity from the Divine in Himself, which is the Divine Humanity and the Son of God.
--_Doctrine Concerning the Lord, nn._ 29, 35
THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE
When the Lord was in the world, His life was altogether the life of a love for the whole human race, which He burned to save forever. That life was of the intensest love by which He united Himself to the Divine and the Divine to Himself. For being itself, or Jehovah, is pure mercy from love for the whole human race; and that life was one of sheer love, as it can never be with any man.
--_Arcana Coelestia, n._ 2253
"COME UNTO ME"
Do you, my friend, flee evil, and do good, and believe in the Lord with your whole heart and with your whole soul, and the Lord will love you, and give you love for doing, and faith for believing. Then will you do good from love, and from a faith which is confidence will you believe. If you persevere in this, a reciprocal conjunction will take place, and one that is perpetual, indeed is salvation itself, and everlasting life.
--_True, Christian Religion, n._ 484
THE TRINITY; THE FULNESS OF HIS BEING
They who are truly men of the Church, that is, who are in love to the Lord and in charity toward the neighbor, know and acknowledge a Trine. Still, they humble themselves before the Lord, and adore Him alone, inasmuch as they know that there is no approach to the Divine Itself, called the Father, but by the Son; and that all that is holy, and of the Holy Spirit, proceeds from Him. When they are in this idea, they adore no other than Him, by Whom and from Whom are all things; consequently they adore One.
--_Arcana Coelestia, n._ 2329
God is one in essence and in person. This God is the Lord. The Divinity itself, which is called Jehovah "the Father," is the Lord from eternity. The Divine Humanity is "the Son" begotten from His Divine from eternity, and born in the world. The proceeding Divinity is "the Holy Spirit."
--_Divine Providence, n._ 157

MAN
"Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him; And the son of man that Thou visitest him?"
_Psalm_, VIII, 4
GOD'S UNRELAXED EFFORT
The object of creation was an angelic heaven from