The Divine end and purpose in creation is the formation of a heaven from the human race; a heaven wherein men may attain to final happiness by entering into the uses of the Lord's kingdom, having renounced their selfish striving after their own futile ends, acknowledging that all their power is from Him alone, and giving to Him alone the glory.
It is this kingdom for which men pray while addressing the Lord Jesus Christ as the Divine Human and as the heavenly Father and the origin of all good and all truth. Each petition in the Lord's Prayer when spiritually understood marks a further step by which this end can be fulfilled for the regenerating man and for the church.
Man's own end in life is the pursuit of happiness. This is what he instinctively strives for, each man in his own fashion and whatever be his ruling love. Yet it recurs continually that this happiness which he tastes for a moment melts away and eludes his grasp. The visions which we men create in our imagination often dissolve in the light of day. The kingdoms which we build up with centuries of toil and reasoned foresight may in time turn into tyranny or confusion. The joys and pleasures for which our hearts may hunger are often found too transient, or grow dull. For man can make nothing that is lasting and, still less, eternal. The heavens that he makes for himself are such as pass away. No human love however ardent, no prudence, no wisdom of man, can create happiness.
The truth is simple. The kingdom and the power and the glory are the Lord's. Just as physical and mechanical power is made available to men only so far as they take advantage of the pre-existent natural laws which they have discovered and formulated, so spiritual power is given to men and angels only so far as they follow the Divine laws of love and charity, of faith and use, which are impressed from creation upon every human soul and which are revealed to our minds in the Word of God and perceived in states of innocence by those who are poor in spirit.
When the Scribe of the Lord's Second Advent asked certain celestial angels how they had found a home in the inmost heaven, they replied that in their life in the world they had shunned filthy thoughts, frauds, revilings and hatreds, and thence come to love chastity, sincerity, justice and truth; but that they perceived that when evils had been put away and they acted as if from themselves from love of the neighbor, it was done not from themselves but from the Lord; on which account they had been raised up by the Lord after death into the third heaven (AE 902:4, DLW 239).
The Lord alone can introduce man into heaven. Man can indeed make for himself imaginary heavens, or lead himself into the false heavens which evil men and evil spirits continually endeavor to construct to satisfy the sensual longings or please the selfish prides of men. But the angels know that the Divine of the Lord is what makes heaven. The kingdom of the Lord is therefore likened to a vast human form—a spiritual organism of uses and functions—which is in the image and likeness of God, and thus is a Grand Man. In its inmost aspect, this Grand Man is infinite and eternal and identical with the Divine proceeding from the Lord's Divine Human. So regarded, it is the Divine of Use, the infinite harmony of all the ends and purposes of Providence; an infinite composite which does not consist of persons but of the potential uses which the Lord foresees and seeks to provide uses through which mankind on the countless planets can come to partake in the joy of the Divine creation, world without end (Love xiii:3, 4, vi.: AE 1115:5). So viewed, the Grand Man of heaven is purely Divine, and is indeed the Body of the Lord, perfect and glorious in its Divine Humanity; in whom we are to abide as the branches abide in the Vine; and in whom we live and are moved and have our being.
So far as we willingly cooperate with the laws of Providence, our souls can be brought into uses of love and charity and find a place within that infinite heaven which is the Body of the Lord. By the finite uses men perform they can become instruments in the Lord's hands for Divine uses of which they are unaware, and thus be conjoined with the Lord. It is so that the angels also come to constitute a Grand Man which is the image of the Divine Man. In this heavenly Man the Lord is the life and Soul; for nothing of life is from man or angel. And nothing human can be of eternal use unless the Lord gives it a place in the pattern of His Divine uses wherein all things are reconciled. To Him alone belong the kingdom, the power and the glory. If we felt that it were not so: if we could not add our "Amen" to this confession; then the purpose of our prayer would go for nought; for we would then be persuaded that our own arm could save us and that our own mind could create a heaven for us.
"Thine is the kingdom!" It is the law which makes a kingdom. And the creative law of heaven is the Divine truth. And as the love and mercy of a kindly monarch are shown by his laws, so the Divine truth reveals the infinite love of the Lord. Love makes heaven by means of this truth. "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made."
The Heavenly Doctrine discloses that as a first projection of the Lord's love towards creating a finite world, there came into being a spiritual Sun, as an origin of spiritual heat and spiritual light. From this Sun and through atmospheres going forth from it the Divine love radiates as Divine truth, to be received by angels and men in this accommodated form. As light, this proceeding truth enables the eyes of the angels to perceive the spiritual objects around them. As heat, it inflows into their souls and gives them the faculty to will and understand. The angels of the "celestial" kingdom of heaven receive the Divine truth immediately into their hearts, or into their wills, and feel it as an influx of good. The angels of the Lord's "spiritual" kingdom receive the Divine truth into their understandings and are conscious of it as truth. With the celestial, the truth received into their hearts endows them with a power which nothing in the created universe can surpass. With the spiritual, the truth which makes them intelligent also environs their whole heaven with a glory and a magnificence beyond the dreams of mortal man. But all these angels, celestial and spiritual, confess with joy of heart that nothing of the power which they can exercise or of the glory with which they are encompassed is from themselves, but that both are to be ascribed to the proceeding Divine truth.
The power of the celestial angels is manifold. They serve as the media through which the Lord inflows with love into the lower heavens. Their moderating influence, though unobserved, permeates the heavens. Before their sphere the most arrogant infernal crew will cringe and flee. Their power of understanding anticipates the ordinary processes of reason and is therefore called "perception", by which they immediately judge of right and wrong and see a complex of truths in its universal perspective. Their power of enjoyment is so acute that they are capable of an intensity of happiness such as man cannot approximate. Yet should a celestial angel ever become conscious of these powers, his concern would only be to thank the Lord for being able to transfer to others what belongs to himself (AE 79). For this is the root and secret of spiritual strength. Such power is given only to those who are in the highest form of charity and are able to love others more than themselves. This mutual love inflows from the Lord whenever the celestial heavens are allowed to draw nigh. It comes as a sphere loaned by heaven to men, and without it our race would perish. It is seen in the caress of a mother's hand and in the mutual touch of married partners. It is represented in certain human acts of great significance, such as the laying on of hands in baptism, ordination, and blessing. For touch carries with it something of the celestial power of transferring to another what is in oneself.
But these angels know that the power of mutual love is not from them. Long ere mankind was born and the celestial heavens peopled, the Lord poured out His sphere of mutual love and by it governed the wild beasts of the forest and plain, who blindly followed their mating calls and their herding instinct. The celestials know, as none better, that the power that moves the world is love, and that the source of love is the Lord alone, who—even after men refused and perverted His better gifts—persists to lead them by bending their natural affections to serve the heavens which they had spurned.
His is the kingdom and the power; but also the glory! Among the spiritual angels, the Divine truth is evidenced not so much by power as by a glory which makes the very air sparkle with brilliance. This same glory is seen in the palatial abodes of these angels and in their temples and gardens, their food and their garments. The inmost heaven has the beauty of natural simplicity, but in the spiritual heaven there is the ornate magnificence of art, always proportioned to the intelligence of the angels and the uses in which they excel. All things seem to laugh, to play, to live before their eyes. But to the angels these things of glory and honor are only the representative tokens of that glory which created the heavens. Their heaven is to them a world of Divine truths—truths under the appearance of grace and beauty. They do not think of these outward things, nor enjoy them for their own sakes, but see in each new flower and in the precious things of wealth and in the shifting harmonies of colors, sounds, and forms, an inward meaning, a message of spiritual significance which teaches them of the Divine things which flow into their minds and fill them with delights and which enable them to serve the neighbor with truer sympathy and deeper understanding. Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.
We are apt to think of heaven from externals, as another more perfect natural world. We need often to remind ourselves of the Lord's words, "The kingdom of God is within you." It is a mental, spiritual world, wherein we dwell even now, amidst imagery which appears like that of nature; but which displays only the states which we choose to foster. If our minds are blind to the virtues of others, or insensible to the delights which come from a spiritual communion with others, or if we cannot be kindled by the inspiration of new truths, new perspectives of uses that may perfect society, then we will never be able to see how "the heavens are telling the glory of God" the palaces of heaven, its verdant gardens, and its springs of living water. But men and angels may partake of this glory and of the power of God so far as they are willing to shun the evils which obscure the truth. If man wills the good of another and wills to transfer to the other as much as possible of what is with himself, he will be given spiritual power, which he exerts as if it was his own. If he wills to turn his intelligence of truth into service to God and man, so far spiritual glory will shed its beneficent light of charity and friendship over his life along with the gains and honors of uses done.
The Lord is constantly leading man away from mere appearances and toward the inner realities. For man's road to heaven is devious, leading through many apparent heavens of illusion and phantasy. The kingdom for which he prays is not always the Lord's. The name he desires to hallow is not always that of the Divine Word. The bread for which he petitions is not always that for which his state is ready. He asks forgiveness while hatred and envy still
smolder in his breast. With his lips he prays to be excused from temptation although his wandering gaze is still seeking it out. He cries, "Deliver us from evil," yet is blind to his own faults.
Nevertheless, whenever man stumbles, the Lord seeks to raise him up, providing him with the revealed Word as a staff and a lamp; when man falters, the Lord gives him a new vision of paradise as if it were closely ahead shows him a glimpse of the glory and power of heaven. Yet, so long as a man looks upon this heaven as a regard to be earned by his own merit, he can see only the portals of the kingdom, the outskirts of paradise. He sees only the natural heaven, where salvation indeed awaits, but not angelic life in its power and glory. For to follow the Lord for the sake of reward brings with it the seeds of self-glorification and blindness, which detract from the contentment of angelic life; the contentment which springs from a knowledge of self and from a profound humiliation such as is expressed in the words that are added to the Lord's Prayer in the Gospel according to Matthew: "For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory."
Therefore the Lord does not cease leading man onward through the ultimate heaven into the spiritual and, if possible, into the celestial state itself. And this is the reason why the Lord has now come "in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory," revealing the spiritual and the celestial meanings hitherto concealed in the Holy Scripture: and has raised up His New Church, the New Jerusalem, the crystal city of Truth "having the glory of God." (Rev. 21:11)
Power and glory are from the Lord's proceeding sphere of Divine truth, creating, preserving, and rejuvenating all things. In the literal sense of the inspired Word this Divine truth takes a fixed and final form. The Lord is there present in the holy ultimates of His own order with the power of salvation; and the sacred words are full within the glory of the spiritual sense. The internals of the Word, in which the Lord stands forth before the angels in His glory as the Divine Human, are now disclosed through the Writings to man's rational sight. And so far as man receives the Lord's influx through his spiritual mind into the rational and through this into the ultimate truths of the Word, the power latent in the Word is released for his use, and the glory of the Lord will enlighten him and dispel the illusions of self-power that hide heaven from his view (AE 726).
It is easy to acclaim the doctrine that all power and all glory are the Lord's alone. yet when we fall back into natural thought we think of our power and glory as our own. They who are wise will thank the Lord from their hearts that it is not so. For they know that if angels or men had a whit of power from themselves, the heavens would fall and hell would become a chaos and every man would perish on the earth. If the Lord's hands were withheld for a moment, every man would seek his own glory and the restraints upon evil would be unloosed. But the Lord is king of all the world. He orders the paths of our thought while we are unaware, lest we should cast away our precious gift of spiritual freedom He hides our enemies with the cloak of His providence lest we surrender without resisting. He instils His power into our nerves and tissues even though we clench our hands in sullen wrath against His heaven. And when we are near to despair over our iniquity and weakness, He throws the rays of His glory over our undeserving lives.
What can we do to acknowledge His mercies? For He is weary of vain oblations and asks not for burnt offerings. The heaven of heavens is His. What can we do but follow where He leads, to accept what He offers, and to worship Him in silence of heart. For His is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.
Matt. 6:13; Rev. 5; Matt. 6:1, 5-15; AE 726:1
