The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. –Luke 1:35
Dear members and friends,
In the Gospels, sometimes Jesus is addressed as son of man, and other times as Son of God. It is generally accepted that “son of man” describes the ministry and state of Jesus as a human, and Son of God the ministry and state of Jesus as the Divine. He was fully a human just like any other man, yet at the same time he was fully Divine. In my understanding, the ancient Christians invented the Divine Trinity to explain and bridge the common belief at the time: Divinity and Humanity are not compatible. It was a common belief among Jews that Jehovah as Divine is eternally transcendent from humanity. Also, Greek and Roman mythology believed that complete divinity is only given to those who are born of divine parents. If one parent were to be human, the child would be a demigod who is mostly human with a special power. Seen through this context, the ancient Christians could not have conceived of Jesus as Incarnation of the Creator, yet they would still need to explain the divinity of Jesus Christ.
Emanuel Swedenborg strongly insists, “Jehovah God came down and took on a human manifestation in order to redeem people and save them. (True Christianity #82)” In essence, this means that Divinity and humanity are not only compatible, but also that humanity is made up of that which is divine. In other words, Divinity is present in all humanity as a whole and as an individual, because the life of humanity is from Divinity. We can read this from the teachings of Jesus in John, “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. (14:20)” And, among many good qualities to cultivate, love is the most essential and life-giving simply because it is the essence of the Divinity, thus the life-giving core of the humanity. Consequently, the coming of Christ and His salvation is nothing but enlightening and enabling humans to be able to love what is not of and for the self. And, the most important nature of love is that it becomes real and alive when given unconditionally.
Blessings, Rev. Junchol Lee