new church life: jan uary/february 2016
that God at the creation introduced order into the universe and all its parts; and
accordingly that the omnipotence of God proceeds and operates in the universe and
all its parts according to the laws of His order. . . . Now since God came down, and
since He is Order itself, as is there shown, it was necessary, in order for Him actually
to become Human, that He should be conceived, carried in the womb, and be born;
and that He should be educated, acquiring in due course the knowledge by which
He might attain to intelligence and wisdom. Therefore as to His Humanity He was
an infant like any other infant, a boy like any other boy, and so on; but with this sole
difference, that He passed through those progressive states sooner, more fully and
more perfectly than others.
The passages we read from Luke are then cited as proof of these teachings.
But again, questions emerge even from this. Did He whine? Did He make
mistakes? Was His judgment ever off? Did He take delight in anything
mischievous? Did He ever do anything wrong? If He “grew in wisdom” doesn’t
that imply that He lacked wisdom early on? What can we make of all this?
Again, the doctrines answer, but more in principle or general teachings
than in detail. We read, in the explanation of the internal sense of Abraham’s
journey into the land of Canaan:
In the Lord there was not any evil that was actual, or His own, as there is in all men,
but there was hereditary evil from the mother, which is here called ‘the Canaanite
then in the land.’ . . . There are two hereditary natures connate in a person, one
from the father, the other from the mother; that which is from the father remains
to eternity, but that which is from the mother is dispersed by the Lord while the
person is being regenerated. The Lord’s hereditary nature from His Father, however,
was the Divine. His heredity from the mother was evil, and this is treated of here,
and is that through which He underwent temptations. (See Mark 1:12-13; Matthew
4:1; Luke 4:1-2) But, as already said, He had no evil that was actual, or His own, nor
had He any hereditary evil from the mother after He had overcome hell by means
of temptations; on which account it is here said that there was such evil at that time,
that is, that the ‘Canaanite was then in the land.’ (Arcana Coelestia 1444:2)
This important passage goes on to note that the Canaanites lived by the
sea – the Mediterranean – and represented the evils in the outskirts of the land,
or the external aspects of human life that relate to the world. But what does
this really mean? Are we talking about a natural predisposition to selfishness
and worldly disorders? Surely we know all about that sort of thing, as we act
on these impulses constantly (and suffer the consequences) as we ourselves
grow up.
But of the Lord it is said about the Canaanite: “That this signifies the evil
heredity from the mother, in His external man, is evident from what has been
already said . . . for He was born as are other men, and inherited evils from the
mother, against which He fought, and which He overcame.” In other words,
He felt these as tendencies or inclinations in His outward life but He never
gave in to them. Rather, He overcame them. All of them. Presumably without
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