THE LORD'S PRAYER
AND
THE CREATION WEEK
By The Rev. Erik Sandström, Sr.
(Lesson 4)
4. Thy Kingdom Come
As we have already seen, the
whole of the Lord's Prayer regards the time of the Lord's Second Advent (Inv.
37). The kingdom for which we pray is therefore the kingdom then to be
established, that is, the new heaven and the new earth. In dealing with the
words, as it were the prayer in the closing section of the book of Revelation,
“Let him that heareth say. Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever
will, let him take the water of life freely,” the Apocalypse Revealed
reads as follows: 'Let him that heareth say, Come,' signifies that he who hears
and thence knows anything of the Lord's coming, and of the New Heaven and the
New Church, should pray that it may come. 'And let him that is athirst come'
signifies that he who then desires the Lord's kingdom and truths should pray
that the Lord may come with light. 'Whosoever will, let him take the water of
life freely' signifies that he who from love wills to learn truths and
appropriate them will receive from the Lord without his own work” (no. 956).
The particular things for which
we pray in the second petition of Lord's Prayer, “Thy kingdom come,” are
therefore the following: that the Lord may come and establish His New Heaven and
Church; that He may then give truths for the enlightenment of those who wait for
His kingdom; and that, from mercy, He may form a new will by means of those
truths, and so, as it were, appropriate the truths to that will, and this
without work on man's part.
It is said, without man's own
work. Yet there is no question of an idle prayer. All true prayer is of the life
as well as of the thought; it is prayer offered with the hand set to the plow.
But man's part is external. He must, as of himself, set the conscious things of
his mind in order according to the pattern of revealed truth, disciplining his
thoughts, obeying in his acts. But light itself he cannot gain by his own
efforts, still less the love that is born from the Divine light. He cannot from
hard reasoning and speculation force his understanding. Enlightenment is not of
man but of the Lord, whose part is internal. There is no enlightenment without
humility—the acknowledgment of need, the wish to be led.
Hence there is the most perfect
cooperation between man and his Lord. Man, as of himself, assembles and learns
the truths of doctrine, and abides by them in his life; and the Lord then flows
in with the light itself, so that in that light man may see and understand the
order of life, or, to put it differently, the laws of the kingdom. Thus the
coming of the kingdom is heralded by the coming and the reception of the truths
that make the kingdom. “Thy kingdom come is a prayer that that truth may be
received” (AE 48: 3).
This is what is implied in the
gospel proclaimed by the apostles in the spiritual world on the nineteenth day
of June in the year 1770: “The Lord God Jesus Christ doth reign” (TCR 791). For
it is deeply significant that that gospel was given only after the work that
contained the “Universal Theology of the New Heaven and the New Church—the True
Christian Religion—had been written. Any kingdom must be built by law, and so
also the Lord's kingdom. The only difference is that His kingdom comes into
existence from Divine law—from truths not assembled according to human prudence,
but by immediate Divine inspiration.
These truths are the “waters
above the expanse.” Below are the waters that pertain to the natural world. A
separation takes place when man perceives in his heart that the truths of heaven
possess a discretely higher value than do worldly truths. He is then introduced
into the second day of his week of regeneration—the week of the Lord's new
creation. Now the kingdom that is not of this world is beginning to be formed,
for man is bowing to its laws.
Such laws were not known in the
world when the Lord made His Second Advent. The Old and New Testaments were, of
course, spread throughout large areas of the world; but even the Church that had
them, and read them, did not know their real message. The very commandments of
the Lord—the rules of life—were relegated to the circumference of religious
thought, and the center was occupied by the notion that strict and unswerving
adherence to dogmas promulgated by Church councils was alone saving: dogmas held
in the memory, but by no means in the understanding—dogmas that were, in fact,
self-contradictory and thus unintelligible, wherefore there could be no question
of applying them to life. In this way the Church “taught for doctrines the
commandments of men” (Matthew 15: 9). Thus there was no kingdom of the Lord
among men, save with a remnant: stored up in the timid consciences of those who
yet feared God, and who prayed in the secret places of their hearts that His
kingdom might come.
The Lord asked: “When the Son
of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18: 8). And since there
was none, although there was very much that was called by that name, the Lord
therefore came in His new revelation, and thus returned to men the laws of God.
This new revelation is not, as
to its language, the light itself. Obviously, neither language nor the knowledge
held in the memory from language is light. But the language of the Writings is
such that it can be rationally understood: wherefore the thoughts of the
understanding can be disciplined and ordered, self-examination can be initiated,
and obedience begun, and all this by the strength of Divinely revealed doctrine.
This is man’s external work, his own conscious part in his salvation. But
because of the doing of this his part, the Lord's part also can be done; for the
Lord stands at the door knocking, and He enters in to sup with man only if man
agrees, in the way just mentioned, to open the door.
That entrance of the Lord is
what. is called influx, and the influx is that of light. This light is creative,
for in Divine light there is life (John 1). Hence man is given the truths of
life. He sees, he knows not whence, that the thing is true. Indeed, he perceives
it to he so, perceives from internal light flowing in. This is what is meant by
truths being given to man “without his own work”: for, as has been said, the
external work that he is called upon to do does not give light, thus not truth.
It is the influx that gives light, and that, of course, is not of the man. Yet
this does not make man's part less essential. It only marks it as external,
reactive and receptive, and thus secondary to the creative force of light, for
the sake of which the receptacle has been made ready.
In man's spiritual experience,
however, the two operations—that of man as of himself, and that of the Lord—are
in no way sensed separately. The point is not one of chronology. The only potent
thing is that man must first know that the coming of light is not of his doing;
for unless he knows and understands this there is no room for humility in him,
and without humility the light cannot flow in. Then the very humility with him
must find expression in his obedient and faithful doing of his part.
This is all summarized if we
say that man must have the willingness to receive. The willingness is man's
part, and that which is given to be received is the Lord's part. Yet unless
man’s willingness is active, unless it finds expression in his way of life,
unless it takes the form of persistent seeking and praying and knocking, it is
just not willingness. It has given itself away as merely vain and decorative
thought. Willing is a love. It cannot be inactive.
In all of this we see that the
prayer for the kingdom is a prayer for the Word that makes the kingdom. This,
therefore, is the second thought, the second truth, in the Lord's Prayer: first,
the Lord as our Father in the heavens and the holiness of the Human in which He
is visible, and then His Word.
It is said that “by the Word of
the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His
mouth" (Psalm 33: 6); and similarly, that the Word which was in the beginning
with God, and was God, the Word in which was life, and which became flesh and
dwelt among us, made all things; and that without it was not anything made that
was made (John 1: 1-14). This is not spoken primarily of the rocks and soil of
the planets of the universe, nor of the fiery substances of its countless suns,
although these things also have been created by means of the proceeding Divine
law; the immediate reference is to the internal kingdom of the Lord, for the
sake of which the physical universe was made. No such kingdom was ever made
without the Word—the Word operating as inflowing light by means of its own
embodiment and representative in Divinely ordained language of human speech.
We call the embodiment also
“the Word”: and we do well, for there is no embodiment without a soul. But we
most ever be mindful of the soul of the Word—the light itself that made the
language; praying that we may be quickened by the Word itself, the Word as a
whole, and not merely the embodiment.
So, and in precisely the same
way, we call the Writings the Word. And again we say well, for the Lord is in
them. The “light of the world” is in them, and made them. But here also, of
course, the language and the light are as the body and the soul. Yet there is a
difference between this language and that of previous Divine revelations. For
the language of the Writings is like the Lord's glorified body. When, after His
resurrection, He appeared in it. “His head and His hairs were white like wool,
as white as snow; and His eyes were as the flames of fire; and His feet like
unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and His voice as the sound of
many waters” (Revelation 1: 14, 15). Nowhere save in the Writings does the Lord
so appear. It is there that we see Him in His glory. This marks the Writings of
the Second Coming as different from all other language, different from all other
holy writ.
As in the past, so again the
Lord creates His heavens by “the Word of His mouth.'' And as in the past, He
does so by inspired human language and light together. But His heavens now are
His new heavens, and from them is His New Church on earth, designed to be His
kingdom, that is, His heaven, in the world.
When established, this Church
will live from spiritual charity and enlightened faith. These two things,
charity and faith, are the kingdom. In them the Lord alone rules as King and
Father: as King because He directs them, as Father because they are from Him.
This kingdom “cometh not with
observation: neither shall men say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the
kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17: 20, 21). Or, as the Lord said to Pilate:
“My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18: 56). That kingdom is a creation
within the minds of men: wherefore the Church, the Lord's New Church, is such an
internal creation. That is the Church itself, the kingdom itself. But even as
the light itself has its embodiment, so also the kingdom has, and ought to have,
its embodiment. And just as the embodiment of light may foolishly be mistaken
for the light itself, so the embodiment of the kingdom may he confused with its
essence. In neither case, however, is the internal thing possible without its
embodiment or instrument. So the embodiment of the kingdom indeed cometh with
observation. Only, let us pray that the kingdom itself is there also, and that
it, will come.
This is the way in which “he
that heareth” should say, “Come”; for “he who hears and thence knows anything of
the New Heaven and the New Church, thus of the Lord's kingdom, should pray that
it may come. Thus will the petition, “Thy kingdom come,” take on life and
objective meaning, and prepare the way for the kingdom itself, for the
fulfillment of the prayer.
THE SECOND
COMING
“All who do not think beyond
the sense of the letter believe that when the Last judgment comes the Lord will
appear in the clouds. This, however, is not to be understood, but that He will
appear in the Word, and the Lord appears plainly in the spiritual sense” (AR
820).
TO CONTINUE :
Beginning -
Lesson - 2 -
Lesson - 3 -
Lesson - 5 -
Lesson - 6 -
Lesson - 7 -
Lesson - 8 -
Lesson - 9 -
Lesson 10 -
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