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Honoring the Lord's Presence, Day Five: Human Understanding
New Church Foundation
The second principle, that love seeks for connection, explains why God through the ages has communicated with people. This was done to individuals in dreams, through angels that appeared to people, and through prophets. Admittedly this communication is indirect and at times obscure. But it is interesting to note that in all places of the globe and as far as we can tell in all times of history there have been religious ideas in human cultures. The central Christian message is that God communicated in a very different way by taking on a human body and glorifying it. Jesus was called "Immanuel" meaning "God–with–us." As a result human beings could have some concept of God as having a personal interest in them. They could have a loving relationship with God.
Readings
Divine peace is within the Lord, arising from the oneness of His divine nature and the divine human nature within Him. The divine quality of peace in heaven comes from the Lord, arising from His union with heaven’s angels, and specifically from the union of the good and the true within each angel. These are the sources of peace. We may therefore conclude that peace in the heavens is the divine nature intimately affecting everything good there with blessedness. So it is the source of all the joy of heaven. In its essence, it is the divine joy of the Lord’s divine love, arising from His union with heaven and with every individual there. This joy, perceived by the Lord in the angels and by the angels from the Lord, is peace. (Heaven and Hell 286)
The human mind itself, even the most highly analytical and elevated mind, is finite; it cannot be rid of its own limitations. It will never have the capacity to see the infinity of God as it truly is, or God as He truly is. It can see God in a shadow from behind, as Moses was told to do when he begged to see God. He was put in a crevice in the rock and saw God’s back (Exodus 33:20–23). "God’s back" has as a general meaning the phenomena visible in the world and has as a specific meaning the things that are comprehensible in the Word. It is obviously pointless then to aim to find out what God is like in His own underlying reality or in His own substance. It is enough to acknowledge Him from finite, created things, in which He is infinitely present. (True Christianity 28)
Reflection
What is your view of who God is?
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