God

There is one God.

• Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Mark 12:29,30)
• The chief thing of the Church is to acknowledge God, to believe in God and to love Him. (The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine §281) Read more.
  • How important it is to have a correct idea of God can be known from the truth that the idea of God constitutes the inmost of thought with all who have religion, for all things of religion and all things of worship look to God. (Divine Love and Wisdom §13)
• There is in all the world no nation possessing religion and sound reason that does not acknowledge God and that God is One. (True Christian Religion §9)
• Suggested Reading: True Christian Religion §5-12, Divine Love and Wisdom §23-27
• Suggested Search: God

Jesus Christ is that One.

• I and the Father are one. (John 10:34)
• Philip says to him, Lord, show us the Father... Jesus says to him, Have I been so much with you and hast thou not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; and how sayest thou, show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? (John 14:8-10)
• In Jesus Christ, the Divine from eternity and the Human in time are united as soul and body in man. (Canons of the New Church §23) Read more.
  • To acknowledge Jesus Christ in heart is to acknowledge the Divine in His Human. For he who acknowledges the Lord and does not at the same time acknowledge the Divine in His Human does not acknowledge the Lord, since His Divine is in His Human… as the soul is in the body. Consequently to think of the Lord’s Human, and not at the same time of His Divine, is like thinking of a man apart from his soul or life, which is not thinking of a man. (Apocalypse Explained §10)
  • And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him. (Gen 1:27)
    God and Man, that is, the Divine and the Human, are one Person. (Canons of the New Church §23)
  • All the Divine things of the Father are at the same time in the Human of the Lord. Thus the Lord is the one and only God who had all power in the heavens and on the earths from eternity, and will have to eternity. (Canons of the New Church §23)
• Suggested Reading: True Christian Religion §1-3

There is a Trinity within the Lord God Jesus Christ.

• And Jesus coming spoke to them, saying, All authority is given to Me in heaven and on earth. Going forth, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you; and, behold, I am with you all the days, until the consummation of the age. Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20)
• These three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are the three essentials of the one God, and they make one as soul, body, and operation make one in man. (True Christian Religion §166) Read more.
  • When it is said that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the three essentials of the one God, like soul, body, and operation in man, it seems to the human mind as if these three essentials are three Persons, which is impossible. But when it is understood that the Divine of the Father, which constitutes the soul, and the Divine of the Son, which constitutes the body, and the Divine of the Holy Spirit or the proceeding Divine, which constitutes the operation, are the three essentials of the one God, the statement is comprehensible.
    
    But if these three Divine essentials are called Persons, and if to each Person is attributed his own property ‐ to the Father imputation, to the Son mediation, and to the Holy Spirit operation ‐ the Divine Essence, which in fact is one and not divisible, becomes divided. And none of the three is God in fullness, but each has a third of the power, an idea that sound thinking must reject. (True Christian Religion §168)
  • From the trinity in every man, then, who can fail to perceive the trinity in the Lord? In every man there is soul, body, and operation; so also in the Lord, “for in the Lord dwells all the fullness of Divinity bodily,” according to Paul (Col 2:9). Therefore in the Lord the trinity is Divine, but in man it is human. (True Christian Religion §169)
• The trinity in one Person and thus in the Lord consists of the Divine Itself, which is called the Father; the Divine Human, which is called the Son; and the Divine that proceeds, which is called the Holy Spirit. Thus the trinity is one. (The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine §306)
• Suggested Reading: True Christian Religion §163-184

God descended and put on the Human to save mankind.

• And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and He will save us. This is Jehovah; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. (Isaiah 25:9)
• Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with Child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. (Matthew 1:23-4; Is 7:14)
• That the Lord was conceived of Jehovah the Father, and thus was God from conception is known in the church. Also He rose again with His whole body, for He left nothing in the sepulcher. (Arcana Coelestia §10825)
• God assumed the Human in accordance with His Divine order. (True Christian Religion §89) Read more.
  • Since, then, it was God who descended, and since He is Order itself, it was necessary, if He was to become Man actually, that He should be conceived, carried in the womb, born, educated, acquire knowledges gradually, and thereby be introduced into intelligence and wisdom. In respect to His Human He was, for this reason, an infant like other infants, a boy like other boys, and so on; with the sole difference that this development was accomplished in Him more quickly, more fully, and more perfectly than in others.
    
    That this development was in accordance with order is evident from these words in Luke: “And the Child Jesus grew and waxed strong in spirit. And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and in the stages of life, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:40, 52). That this was done more quickly, more fully, and more perfectly than with others is evident from what is said of Him in the same gospel, that when He was twelve years old He sat in the temple in the midst of the teachers and taught them, and that all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers (Luke 2:46, 47; and afterwards, 4:16-22, 32).
    
    This took place because Divine order requires that man should prepare himself for the reception of God; and in proportion as he prepares himself, God enters into him as into His dwelling-place and home; and this preparation is accomplished by means of knowledges about God and the spiritual things pertaining to the church, and thus by means of intelligence and wisdom. For it is a law of order that in proportion as man approaches and gets near to God (which he must do wholly as if of himself), God approaches and gets near to man, and conjoins Himself with man in man's interiors. It was in accordance with this order that the Lord progressed even to a oneness with His Father, as will be further shown in what follows. (True Christian Religion §89)
• Jehovah God came down into the world as Divine truth, in order that He might work redemption; and redemption consisted in subjugating the hells, restoring the heavens to order, and after this establishing a church. (True Christian Religion §86) Read more.
  • The Lord came into the world that He might save the human race, which otherwise would have perished in eternal death. He accomplished this salvation by subjugating the hells, which infested every man coming into the world and departing out of the world, and at the same time, by glorifying His Human, for thus He can keep the hells in subjection to eternity. The subjugation of the hells and at the same time the glorification of His Human, were effected through temptations admitted into the Human that He had from the mother, and by continual victories in them. His passion on the cross was the last temptation and complete victory. (The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine §293)
  • Jehovah God descended as Divine Truth, which is the Word... “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1,3,14) By the Word here the Divine Truth is meant, because the Word, which is in the church, is Divine truth itself, for it was dictated by Jehovah Himself, and what is dictated by Jehovah is nothing but Divine truth, and can be nothing else. (True Christian Religion §85)
• Suggested Reading: The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine §280-297, True Christian Religion §81-107

God is both Divine and Human.

• For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called... God, Hero, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace.(Isaiah 9:6)
• That the Lord adored and prayed to Jehovah His Father, is known from the Word of the Gospels; and also that He did so as if to one different from Himself, although Jehovah was in Him. But the state in which the Lord was at these times was His state of humiliation. The nature of this state was that He was then in the weak human that was from the mother. But in so far as He put this off and put on the Divine, He was in another state, which is called His state of glorification. In the former state He adored Jehovah as one different from Himself, even though in Himself, for... His internal was Jehovah. But in His state of glorification, He spoke with Jehovah as with Himself, for He was Jehovah Himself. (Arcana Coelestia §1999) Read more.
  • The Divine order is that man should set himself in order for the reception of God and prepare himself to be a receptacle and abode into which God may enter and in which, as in His temple, God may dwell. Man must do this, from himself and yet must acknowledge that it is from God. He must acknowledge this because he does not feel the presence and operation of God, although it is God who by His intimate presence performs all the good of love and all the truth of faith in man.
    
    Every man progresses and must progress in accordance with this order, if from being natural he is to become spiritual. In like manner it was necessary for the Lord to progress, in order to make His natural human Divine. This is why He prayed to the Father, did the Father's will, ascribed to Him all that He did and said, and why He exclaimed upon the cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” For in this state God seems to be absent. But after this state comes another, which is the state of conjunction with God. In this state man acts as before, but now from God. But now he does not need, as before, to ascribe to God every good that he wills and does, and every truth that he thinks and speaks, because this is written on his heart, and thus is inwardly in all his actions and words.
    
    In like manner the Lord united Himself to His Father, and the Father to Himself. In a word, He glorified His Human, that is, made it Divine, in the same manner in which He regenerates man, that is, makes him spiritual. (True Christian Religion §105)
  • Since His coming the Lord is directly present with the men of the church. This is because in the world He put on also the Divine Natural, in which He is present with men. The glorification of the Lord is the glorification of His Human, which He put on in the world; and the Lord's glorified Human is the Divine Natural.
    
    The truth of this is evident from the fact that the Lord rose from the tomb with the whole of the body that He had in the world, leaving nothing in the tomb, and therefore took with Him from the tomb the Natural Human itself from the firsts to the lasts of it. So after the resurrection when His disciples thought that what they saw was a spirit, He said to them: “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; handle Me and see; for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:37, 39).
    
    This makes it clear that by means of His glorification His natural body was made Divine. Therefore Paul says that in Christ dwells all the fullness of Divinity bodily (Col. 2:9); and John says that Jesus Christ the Son of God is the true God (1 John 5:20). From all this the angels are aware that in the whole spiritual world, the Lord alone is complete Man. (True Christian Religion §109)
• Suggested Reading: The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine §280-310

God's essence is love and wisdom.

• As the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; remain in My love... These things have I spoken to you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. (John 15: 9,11-12)
• O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! In wisdom has Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches. (Psalm 104:24)
• In God there is love together with wisdom in their very essence. No one can deny this, for God loves everyone from love in Himself, and leads everyone from wisdom in Himself. (Divine Love and Wisdom §29)
• God created the universe with each thing and all things of it from love by means of wisdom... Love moreover, is not merely the essence that forms all things; it is also that which unites and conjoins them, and thus when they are formed holds them in connection. (True Christian Religion §38)
• Love and wisdom make one in God. (True Christian Religion §41) Read more.
  • It is the essence of love to love others outside of oneself, to desire to be one with them, and to render them blessed from oneself. The essence of God consists of two things, love and wisdom; while the essence of His love consists of three things, namely, to love others outside of Himself, to desire to be one with them, and from Himself to render them blessed. And because love and wisdom in God make one, as has been shown above, the same three things constitute the essence of His wisdom. Love desires these three things and wisdom brings them forth.
    
    The first essential, which is to love others outside of oneself, is recognized in God's love for the whole human race. For its sake God loves all things that He has created because they are means, for when the end is loved the means also are loved
    
    The second essential of the love of God, which is a desire to be one with others, is recognized in His conjunction with the angelic heaven, with the church on earth, with everyone there, and with everything good and true that enters into and constitutes man and the church. Moreover, love viewed in itself is nothing but an effort towards conjunction. Therefore to realize this essential of love God created man in His own image and likeness, a form with which conjunction is possible. That the Divine love continually seeks conjunction is evident from the Lord's own words: that He wishes them to be one, He in them and they in Him, and that the love of God might be in them (John 17:21-23, 26).
    
    The third essential of the love of God, which is to render others blessed from Himself, is recognized in eternal life, which is the endless blessedness, happiness, and felicity that God gives to those who receive His love into themselves. For as God is love itself, so He is blessedness itself; for all love breathes forth delight from itself, and the Divine love breathes forth blessedness itself, happiness, and felicity to eternity. Thus God from Himself renders the angels blessed, and men after death; and He does this by conjunction with them. (True Christian Religion §43:2-4)
• Suggested Reading: Divine Love and Wisdom §47-60, God Is Love