Man's whole life is a struggle for deliverance from evil. He is born in unconscious bondage to evils of which he is made aware by degrees. No man can rise to any truly human qualities except by subordinating his selfish instincts and rebuking the thoughts which revolve about himself as a center. This is commonly recognized. Yet it is not generally acknowledged that of his own power man cannot defeat the love of self; nor is it realized that merely social motives can only sublimate that love into a subtle self-respect.
Therefore the Lord teaches us to pray for His help to deliver us from evil. Yet even when men pray to be delivered from evil, they mean—all to frequently—only the pains and dangers of natural life or the consequences of their own mistakes. They want to be protected against the disease and wants which are unpleasant to the flesh and that trouble the mind. The heart of man constantly yearns for worldly security; and the heavenly Father knoweth that we have need of these things. But what the Lord teaches us to pray for is shown by the context of the prayer: "Forgive us our debts ... and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." It is from the evils aroused in our own heart and spirit that we must ask to be delivered.
The Word tells of repeated deliverances of mankind from evil. Noah was delivered, by Divine instruction, from the Flood of Sin. Lot was delivered from the corrupt city of Sodom, the Israelites from Egypt and from other oppressor nations, and from the captivity in Babylon. At the Lord's first advent His followers were delivered from the yoke of the Pharisees. And by His second coming, the dominions of a spiritual Babylonia and of the Dragon of "Faith Alone" were overthrown in the spiritual world, in a new and final judgment.
But the Lord labors still, every moment, to deliver us in secret ways from the evils which we have invited. At times men recognize such Divine leading as special interventions of a merciful Providence. But they seldom reflect that the Lord's government is constant, and present in the most trivial events of every human life.
The aim of Providence is that men should be held in spiritual freedom. The word "deliver" is related to the word "liberty". Liberty, or free agency, sets mankind apart from brute creation and marks the way to spiritual progress. "Ye shall know the truth," the Lord said, "and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). Yet the spirit of man requires more than merely civil liberty, more than the cultivation of natural truth and learning such as men now boast of. It is an "arcanum" revealed to the New Church that the spirit of man, even while he lives on earth, is unconsciously also an inhabitant of the spiritual world and is present although not visible—among spirits and angels. The interiors of his mind are secretly affected by the angels of the three heavens. His sensual nature is moved and influenced by spirits and by devils. But his rational mind, whereby he determines his final character, is held in an equilibrium or balance between good and evil, in the world of spirits which is midway between heaven and hell.
It was to restore and maintain this balance in the world of spirits that the Lord came to earth and, by temptations subjugated the hells within Divine laws of permission, and ordered the heavens. For the same reason He made His second advent, by a revelation of the spiritual sense of His Word, by which He completed the basis on which human freedom could be assured henceforth.
By this last judgment, which was predicted by John on Patmos and actually witnessed by the Seer Swedenborg, the strongholds of evil spirits in the intermediate world of spirits were dislodged, and well disposed spirits who had fallen under the influence of the evil were released, instructed, and set free to find their heavens and enter into spiritual usefulness. On earth, the repercussions of that great spiritual liberation became observable as a remarkable growth of religious liberty, of freedom of thought, and as the dawn of a new age noted for increased communication and external progress among men. The New Church was established, as in heaven, so upon earth. And henceforth every spirit who enters the world of spirits through the gate of death is free to receive instruction in the way to heaven, and is delivered from the bondage of falsities and evils—unless he prefers their rule.
The redemption of mankind has been effected. Yet still we need to pray, "Deliver us from evil"; or, as the Greek phrase may be rendered, "Draw us out of evil!"
Even though man's rational mind—under the laws of Providence—is free to determine his real character and choose his final destiny; yet his native, inherited will is immersed in hell. The perverted love of self is from birth engraven in the fibres of his sensual and corporeal mind, into which the hells pour their passions and cruelties, their lusts, enticements and delights. Man's reactions and feelings are not always rational, but may burst forth from hidden depths of unmastered emotions. His understanding may be free to progress in the pursuit of truth, and his good intentions may bear fruit in a life of usefulness; and yet the submerged self of pride and of brooding rebellion and bitterness may still remain, unamended within. And then, whenever the natural man acts apart from conscience, or apart from the spiritual, evil comes forth! comes forth in its naked ugliness, or comes forth rationalized by excuses or disguised by seemingly good works and adorned with the pleasant things of sensual beauty and corporeal pleasures.
Evil is sometimes thought of as sporadic and passing, like crimes of sudden temper or like infectious diseases which strike and vanish. Many regard evils as mere blemishes, or as errors due to ignorance or environment. But the evil from which we pray to be drawn out is none of these things, but is a love—a steady motivation and lingering purpose. It can be recognized by certain signs: by contempt for others; by a desire for revenge; by envies or by inordinate hankering for the goods of others or for the wealth of the world; by seeking to profit by fraud or dishonesty; by claiming merit for oneself and by ingratitude to others; by the wish to take away the inner freedom of others; by domination; by deceit and unscrupulous cunning; by morbid self-pity; and by an interior impatience with the spiritual truths that teach of man's duties to God and his obligations to the neighbor.
By these signs, which become all too plain if man explores himself, every one may be convinced that his need for deliverance is great. For even when man disowns an evil love, it remains with him. Salvation consists in man's withdrawal from evil, and his being held in good. And this can be done only by the power of the Lord.
Man can indeed shun an evil which becomes obvious to him. But no one evil exists alone. Evils are bound up with each other into a monstrous whole which the angels think of as a Grand Monster and which the Scriptures speak of as the Devil or Satan and symbolize as the ancient Serpent or Dragon. Taken together, all the hells are a parody and a bestial perversion of the human form of the Lord's kingdom. Every society of hell is the abode of some specific
evil human virtue twisted out of shape. Yet every evil is entangled with other evils, and organized under the two ruling loves of hell—the love of self and the love of the world.
"Man, from his birth, is in the midst of infernal societies" (AE 1163). It is his inborn love, inherited from forebears, that is there. When he later dilates his evil affections, he extends himself into these societies. From them he draws the delight of his life, as a babe sucks milk from its nurse's breast or a tree draws sap from its roots; and without this influx he would indeed wither away (AE 1162). Thus it is clear that no man could of his own power disentangle himself from hell.
This is the reason why we must beseech the Lord, in prayer, to draw us out from the evil that holds us in its grip; and why we must renounce the old man so that the Lord may create a new man within us.
This new man or new will is born in the rational, which is formed above hell, in the sphere of the world of spirits, where man is free. By this rational understanding man can extend his thoughts and affections into all the vistas of the spiritual world, thus also into societies of heaven. With an infant, who cannot think from reason, the Lord mercifully closes off the evil will, although it yet acts as a conduit which adapts the inflowing life to his sensual man. And the infant is surrounded with impenetrable spheres of innocence, to prevent the excitation of the native will until the understanding is formed.
When man comes into the freedom of his own reason, his spirit walks freely through the many societies in the world of spirits, where heaven and hell meet. In his thought he can separate himself from his native will, and extend his life as from a central society where he abides. As he traverses the mental world, with invisible companions on all sides, he becomes attached as by elastic cords of sympathy with various spiritual associates. These attachments measure out and limit the space wherein he can move, still he feels in perfect freedom. Although bound, his mind walks free, as his chosen affections dictate. Yet in all his wanderings, "the Lord leads him as if by the hand, permitting, but withholding so far as man is willing to follow in freedom." Man's own affections tend to draw him into infernal societies, into dark, deceptive morasses of falsities and into pungent jungles of unworldly and angry emotions; but he can still be led forth by degrees if he looks to the Lord, who knows the road out of hell. If man knew these roads he might wish to lead himself and return to evil in the persuasion that he could always escape again (AE 1174).
Man can never know the intricate pattern of life. Too great assurance never finds the way to heaven. But—the Doctrine tells—"it is enough for man to learn truths from the Word, and by means of truths to learn what good is, and from truths and goods know what evils and falsities are, so that he may be affected by truths and goods and not be affected by falsities and evils..." (AE 1174). Only when a man knows truths and loves them, can he see evils and falsities as something outside of himself, as something coming from hell even when they seem to well up from his own heart. Thus the Lord can "lead man in freedom ... in opposition to himself" (DP 211).
The Lord delivers us from evil by bending our affections to love truths. From this love man can freely desire to shun the evils of his own heart. Under no circumstances can evils be removed from man unless he resists them as if from himself (AE 1164). Yet in every case, the withdrawal of man from his evils is the work of the Lord alone. Man gives his consent by exercising self-compulsion. If this be lacking, or if it be relaxed, the evil remains, or returns. Man's part is simple, touching only the conscious surfaces of his mind. The Lord's part is infinitely complex involving the simultaneous government of all the societies of the heavens and the hells. Every man, yea, every angel also, would from his own proprium gravitate into the lowest hell, unless the Lord continually withdrew him and uplifted him. And this can be done only by gradual separations, such as we see pictured in the marvelous processes by which the interiors of the human body are constantly and secretly purified from harmful things, which in turn are made to serve for digestion and tempering. For the Lord tempers the states of spirits and men, permitting the evils of one to counteract the excesses of another, diverting their natural affections toward a lesser evil whenever they cannot be bent toward good.
Yet the Lord never expels evil by evil, but removes evil by good. This law men find it hard to comprehend. But it was revealed to Swedenborg while he was praying the Lord's Prayer (SD 1878). In the Lord's sight, evil is as an utter nothing (SD 3939). His kingdom is a kingdom of uses in which even the devils are unconsciously contributing to the ends of creation. For even they are drawn to perform uses—however vile and lowly; and this from necessity and from natural bent and for the sake of honor and gain (Love xvii). And while so occupied they too are in a sense delivered from evil.
It is by the good of uses that the Lord liberates man from self-centered thinking and leads him into the redeeming currents of the Divine providence. It is in the process of adjusting oneself to the manifold needs of others that new affections can be born and a wider point of view be established. Selfish ambitions lose their glamour; the raptures and vanities of yesteryear begin to seem absurd and hollow; the illusions of inexperience pass away, unmourned.
Yet this deliverance from the chains of the past, and the breaking, one by one, of the thousand cords that hold man dependent on the hells, are possible only by a persistent shunning of new evils as sins against God; new evils of a subtler kind which he discovers and resists while he seeks to merge his life into that of his family, his community, his profession, his country and his church. And all the while his regenerating spirit is being inserted into heavenly societies, by the sphere of which the interiors of his mind are touched with self-less delights, inspired by the vision of eternal uses, and stored with heavenly treasures—angelic societies to which he is attached by a common love of spiritual charity.
For where the treasure is, there shall the heart be also. Deliverance from evil means more than an empty freedom. It means new loyalties, new bonds of one's own choosing. It means a spiritual home, a place in our Father's house, wherein the Divinely taught prayer is fulfilled: a heaven of mercy and freedom where the Lord's truth rules and His will is done, as in heart so in life; where there is no lack, and sin is forgiven and temptation removed and the love of truth has made us free from the allurements of evil; a heaven which is His kingdom, established by His power for our salvation but to His eternal glory.
Luke 11:4; Psalm 44; Matt. 11:11-30; AE 1164 (2, 3)
