Apocalypse Explained (Whitehead) n. 26

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26. Verse 5. And from Jesus Christ, signifies from the Lord as to the Divine Human. This is evident from the fact that such was the Lord's name in the world; thus the name of His Human; but in respect to the Divine, His name was "Jehovah" and "God." It is called the Divine Human because the Lord made His Human Divine when He was in the world; for He united it to His Divine which was in Him from conception, and which was to Him a soul from the Father, thus which was to Him His life; for the soul of everyone is his life, and the body, which is the human, lives therefrom; when, therefore, the Divine was united to the Human in the Lord, as soul to body, it is called the Divine Human. (That it is according to the doctrine of the church that as soul and body make one man, so the Divine and the Human make one Christ, as also that His Divine and His Human make one person, see above, n. 10.) They, therefore, who think of the Lord's Human and not at the same time of His Divine, will on no account admit the expression Divine Human, for they think of the Human separately and of the Divine separately, thus, as it were, of a man separately from his soul or his life; this, however, is not to think of the man at all, still less of the Lord. [2] Because such a separate idea is in their thought, they pray to the Father to have compassion for the sake of the Son; when, nevertheless, the Lord Himself ought to be prayed to that He may have compassion, in whom, according to the universal doctrine of the church, the Divine is such as the Father has; for that doctrine teaches, that as the Father, so also the Son, is uncreate, infinite, eternal, almighty, God, and Lord; and neither is before or after the other, nor greater or less than the other (from the Athanasian Creed). This also is in accordance with the doctrine given by the Lord Himself, which is: That He and the Father are one; and that he who seeth Him seeth the Father, because He is in the Father and the Father in Him; that He is the way, the truth, and the life; and that no one cometh to the Father but by Him. From this it is clear how much they turn aside from the way and the truth who pass by the Lord and approach the Father. But as I have conversed much on this subject with angels, and also with spirits, who, when they lived as men in the world, were of the Reformed Church and of the Papal religion, I shall be pleased to relate these conversations in the following pages; from which it will appear in what light the church would be respecting the Divine, which is the first and primary principle of the church, if it would acknowledge and believe in the Divine Human of the Lord.


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