How important is Jesus?

A question posted on YouTube, on the Centrality of Christ:

“I think this is utter [sic] unnecessary in Swedenborg’s theology, it can work all well without that. Jesus may be just a spiritual teacher who taught about the existence of heaven and hell and an afterlife. … Just a great human such as Aristotle. It would be so awkward to arrive in the spiritual world and learn that you have to adore Jesus.”

What is Swedenborg’s position on the Centrality of Christ? And what can we learn from it?

We might say that Swedenborg was Christian, wrote in Christian terms, addressing Christians most directly, and was most critical of Christians.

LOOKING AT THE BIBLE:

“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18)

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

HOW DOES Swedenborg SEE The Lord Jesus Christ? As the manifestation of God

Swedenborg’s spiritual experiences begin with Jesus Christ.

“With the Lord everything is Jehovah, not only His Internal Man and Interior Man, but also His External Man, including the body itself.” (Heavenly Secrets, paragraph 1729)

“Throughout heaven they do not know any other Father than the Lord, for They are one” (Heavenly Secrets, paragraph 15)

HOWEVER, that DOES NOT DEMAND that all people acknowledge His person.

“But those who do not know anything about the Lord, …, if they believe in one God, and live in accordance with the commandments of their own religion, are saved by their faith and their life. Sin is imputed to those who know, not to those who are ignorant, just as blind people who knock into things are not blamed.” (True Christianity, paragraph 107, section 3)

The Lord’s work of salvation was a spiritual process played out in the natural, but does not hang on any natural, external acknowledgement. What is important is acknowledging the spiritual.

EXAMPLE: NAME

“the names contained in the Word … embody in a nutshell all the characteristics, thus the nature and state of that reality to which it refers.” (Heavenly Secrets, 6674)

“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)

What is more important – calling ourselves “Christian”, or becoming Christ-like? Paul meant the same when he wrote:

“(for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, …)” (Romans 2:14-15)

The meaning of the names of Jesus:

“… when Jesus is mentioned by someone reading the Word [the angels] perceive Divine Good, and when Christ is mentioned, Divine Truth. And when both are mentioned together they perceive the Divine marriage of good to truth, and of truth to good.” (Heavenly Secrets, 3004)

NAME is an external quality of the natural world, it is the spiritual essence BEHIND AND WITHIN NAME that must be acknowledged. The same is true of PERSON, it is the qualities that PERSON embodies that we must pay attention to.

That the Lord is doctrine itself as regards truth and good, thus that it is He alone who is regarded in doctrine, He Himself teaches in John, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” John 14:6-7. Here ‘the way’ means doctrine, ‘the truth’ everything that constitutes doctrine, ‘the life’ good itself which is the life of truth. (AC 2531, section 4)

This mirrors Isaiah 42:6-7:

“I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, And will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the Gentiles, To open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the prison, Those who sit in darkness from the prison house. (Isaiah 42:6,7)

What is the essential thing?

“believe in one God, and live in accordance with the commandments of their own religion” (TCR 107.3)

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