Apocalypse Explained, volume 1 - Swedenborg Foundation

APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED 322it Divine by His last temptation and victory on the cross, see TheDoctrine of the New Jerusalem (n. 293–295, 300–306).183c. [11] It is greatly wondered at in heaven that the man of thechurch does not know that the Holy Spirit, which is Divine truth,proceeds from the Lord’s Human, and not immediately from HisDivine, when yet the doctrine received in the whole Christianworld teaches that:As is the Father so also is the Son, uncreate, infinite, eternal,omnipotent, God, Lord; neither of them first or last, nor greatest orleast. Christ is God and man: God from the nature of the Father, andman from the nature of the mother; but although He is God and man,yet they are not two, but one Christ; He is one, but not by changing theDivine into the Human but the Divine took the Human to Itself. He isaltogether one, not by a mingling of two natures, but He is a singleperson, because as body and soul are one man, so God and man is oneChrist. (This from the Creed of Athanasius).Now as the Divine and the Human of the Lord are not two, but asingle person, and are united as soul and body, it may be knownthat the Divine which is called the Holy Spirit goes out andproceeds from His Divine through the Human, thus from theDivine Human; for nothing whatever can go forth from the bodyexcept from the soul through the body, since all the life of the bodyis from its soul. And since “As is the Father so is the Son, uncreate,infinite, eternal, omnipotent, God and Lord, and neither of them isfirst or last, nor greatest nor least,” it follows that the proceedingDivine, which is called the Holy Spirit proceeds from the DivineItself of the Lord through His Human, and not from anotherDivine that is called the Father; for the Lord teaches that the Fatherand He are one, and that the Father is in Him and He in theFather (see below, n. 200). But the reason why most of those in theChristian world think otherwise in their hearts, and thence believeotherwise, is, the angels said, because they think of the Lord’sHuman as separate from His Divine, although this is contrary tothe doctrine which teaches that the Divine and the Human of theLord are not two persons, but a single person, united as soul andbody. That this should be the doctrine of the whole Christianworld was provided by the Lord, because it is the essential of the