new church life: jan uary/february 2016
combination of fallible, finite human genes and an infallible, Infinite, Divine
soul. But like every ordinary human being, the soul governed the development
of the body and the will inspired by that soul governed the understanding. So
when things came to His awareness, as they do incrementally with every child,
He “processed” them all from the perspective of His love – a profound love for
the salvation of the entire human race.
Was He fully conscious of this love from birth? No, He couldn’t be, because
the awareness of love is according to the vessels prepared to receive it, which
are things we learn from experience in the world. But it seems very clear from
what the doctrines show us that whenever some new information came to His
awareness He interpreted and acted on it from His infinite love. This produced
a kind of learning that is not possible for any other person. We read:
As regards the Lord’s instruction in general, the nature of it is very clear in
the int ernal sense of this chapter (Genesis 20); namely, that it was by continual
revelations, and thus by Divine perceptions and thoughts from Himself, that
is, from His Divine; which perceptions and thoughts He implanted in Divine
intelligence and wisdom, and this even to the perfect union of His Human with
His Divine. This way of growing wise is not possible with any man; for it flowed in
from the Divine itself, which was His inmost, being of the Father, of whom He was
conceived; thus from the Divine love itself, which the Lord alone had, and which
consisted in His desire to save the universal human race. (Arcana Coelestia 2500:2).
To be as clear as possible, this passage goes on to explain that the Lord’s
learning was still progressive, just as it is with any other person. It points out
that wisdom and intelligence actually are contained within love itself, and so in
the Lord’s case provided a most perfect insight into everything He experienced.
Still, as just noted, He could only get this insight in a focused, conscious, way
to the extent that He acquired knowledge through the senses, and the senses
were of course perfected gradually through life in the world, just as they are
with any child, only in His case much more quickly and more perfectly.
But here’s the critical qualifier: because it is knowledge (or concepts) from
the Word that most fully and completely contain the inflowing celestial and
spiritual life, we are taught specifically “that in His childhood the Lord did
not will to imbue Himself with any other concepts than those of the Word.”
(Arcana Coelestia 1461) These are the things He both needed and wanted, and
we know that He began learning them in His earliest infancy, soon after His
birth. (Ibid.1414)
For example, it is said that the truths the Lord learned first of all involved
“seeing all earthly and worldly things as created by God, seeing every single
thing as having a purpose, and seeing in every single thing a certain likeness
of God’s kingdom.” Further, “Such truth is implanted in none but the celestial
man, and since the Lord alone was a celestial man, these and similar truths
were implanted in Him in (His) earliest childhood.” (Ibid. 1434:e)
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