new church life: september/october 2016
work of one’s calling faithfully, sincerely and diligently for this is from love to
God and love to the neighbor, and is (for) the good of society.” (True Christian
Religion 738) The passage then quotes John 15:8: “By this is My Father glorified,
that you bring forth much fruit; so shall you become My disciples.”
This gives us a new idea of what a “good job” is. A job that pays well is a
good job. A job well done is a good job. But in the best sense of all, a “good job”
is one done by someone who loves the Lord and wishes to be of use to others.
(WEO)
O U R N E W C H U RC H V O C A B U L A R Y
Part of a continuing series developed by the Rev. W. Cairns Henderson, 1961-1966.
GRAND MAN
Here is another term that is found only in the Writings. The angels are organized
into societies, and these into groups, each one of which performs a general use to which
corresponds to the function performed by some member, organ, viscus or membrane
of the human body. Every part of the body, even every single cell, has its heavenly
counterpart in the field of use.
As to their uses the heavens are thereby organized in the form of a man, and it
is this heavenly man that is called the Grand Man. Note that heaven is so called from
use, not from shape, though we may well suppose that if it could be seen in its entirety
it would appear in the human shape. Note also that while the heavens from this earth
constitute a grand man, the Grand Man is made up of all the heavens from all the earths.
The Writings present us with three general ideas: 1) heaven as a grand man, with
the world of spirits as the alimentary system and hell as the waste excreted from the
body; 2) he aven as a grand man and hell as a great monster; 3) heaven, hell and the world
of spirits as one man: heaven being the man, the world of spirits being the alimentary
system as to the work of the angels in that world, and the hells being those things which
are in the body but not of it, yet which serve vile uses, that is, for purification and so on.
This last concept is under the teaching that everyone in the spiritual world must be of
some use, as well as those in the hells and those in the heavens.
The general idea of the Grand Man is that the Lord is within heaven and the
church as the soul is in the body–immanent but discretely distinguished; that heaven
and the church are the mind and body; and that they are to the Lord what the spiritual
and natural organics are to man. Thus the Lord is the soul and life of the Grand Man;
angels, spirits and the spiritual minds of men of earth are the mind of that man; and
men on earth are its body and senses. (See Arcana Coelestia 2906, 4219, 4225, 6807; True
Christian Religion 119)
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