new church life: september/october 2014
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Why we say “Word” instead of “Bible”
Why the Word is identified with the Divine Human
How Divine truth is accommodated to our natural minds
The four styles of writing in the Old Testament
Sensual elements, and genuine truths, in the Old Testament
The difference between a representative church and a representative of a
church
The abolition of representative worship
The quality of the early Christians
The end of the Christian Church
Rational truths and rational thought
How the human mind is organized, and how the three degrees of the
mind relate to the three heavens
The ways in which the three revelations of the Word relate to different
periods in human history
Swedenborg and the Heavenly Doctrines
The Word as the foundation of the Lord’s Church on earth
Why the Writings are the Word as fully as the Old and New Testaments,
and how they differ from those previous revelations
The Old Testament is a sensual revelation adapted to people who were
merely natural. The previous revelation (the Ancient Word, now lost, except
for a remnant at the beginning of the Old Testament) was of a spiritual
quality, but by the time the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai the church
had become so natural that the interior truths known to the ancients would
have been profaned. Therefore, Mr. Rogers notes: “A different revelation had
to occur. This is the internal meaning of the breaking of the first set of tables
hewn by Jehovah and their being replaced by the second set hewn by Moses. –
Arcana Coelestia 10603:2, 10453:31.” (p. 21)
Then, in comparing the New Testament with the Old, Mr. Rogers writes:
“The essential difference is that, while the literal sense of the Old Testament
presents exterior truths which belong only to the external sense of the Word
and the external life of the church, the literal sense of the New Testament
presents interior truths that have to do with the internal life of the church. ....
It was in large part because the two peoples were different that the Lord taught
them in two different ways. Whereas the Israelites and their contemporaries
[in the ancient Near East] could not receive the revelation of interior truths,
the Mediterranean peoples of the Classical Age could.” (p. 62)
I found Mr. Rogers’ treatment of the New Testament especially illuminating.
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