new church life: march / april 2014
glorified Human from the grave. This was a miracle that actually saved the
human race from being choked to death in the stranglehold of the hells.
Let’s take a closer look at what the Lord accomplished by means of
glorifying His Human and making it Divine, and how this miracle performed
2000 years ago still serves as the means for our salvation.
The Writings for the New Church tell us that, “the Lord came into the
world chiefly for these two purposes – to remove hell from angels and from
man, and to glorify His Human.” (True Christian Religion 579:1) The first
of these reasons was to remove the hells, because they had gained so much
power that they had infiltrated even as far as the spiritual heaven.
In the process of their assault on the heavens they had also managed
to gain control of the world of spirits, and as a result were almost able to
completely block out any communication between the Lord and people on
earth. The situation was so grave before the Lord was born on earth that we
are told, “a total damnation threatened the whole human race, and even the
angels of heaven could not have long continued to exist in their integrity.”
(Ibid.)
This is an amazing statement. Imagine for a moment what this truth
implies.
It implies that none of us would be here today if the Lord had not come
to earth and conquered the hells – for the whole human race would have
perished. None of us would have had the delight and privilege of knowing
our parents, grandparents and relatives because neither they nor we would
have existed.
We would have missed out on the delights of conjugial love with our
partner and the joy of raising our children. We would never have seen the
beauty of nature nor had the satisfaction of being useful to others. When we
consider the love we never would have experienced, we can appreciate even
more fully the debt of thanks we owe to our Lord and Savior.
In theological terms, the Lord’s conquering of the hells and the salvation
of the human race is called redemption. The New Church, however, has a
vision of redemption that is markedly different than the idea that modern
Christianity holds. The Writi