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THEOLOGY IN 1743 AND 1744. 1103
could God suffer, unless He became a man, and thus in the body
resisted temptations and suffered the punishments themselves which
are spiritual, and more refined than any one of the human race
could perceive in his mind. These punishments also the Only begotten
Son of God had to sustain, until Jehovah, His Father, took pity
on Him, and, out of pure mercy for His Only Love, snatched Him
from the very damnation to which He had exposed Himself for the
sake of the human race; and by this means the Justice of his
Father Jehovah was satisfied, and the human race restored to grace;
yet only by the Son, and on account of Him, who had become
Justice, so that whoever believed in Him, should have it imputed to
him as righteousness ; thus by faith in the Messiah, as we read
concerning Abraham, and by no means by the works of the law”
(Vol. I, no. 614, p. 413). And "In order that heaven and the world
might be conjoined, or the human race be vindicated (vindicaretur)
for heaven, all power in heaven and on earth was given to the
Messiah who had become Justice or Righteousness ; for without such
power those things which had become disjoined, could never be
reunited" (Ibid., no. 616, p. 414). And, finally, "Since Messiah sits
at the right hand of His Father Jehovah, i. e. since all power was
given Him in the heavens and on the earths, He began a new
creation ; or, He undertook to create man anew, to plant a new
paradise in a new Eden, and thus to establish a new kingdom of
God; and hence to establish anew what would otherwise have gone
to ruin, which is equivalent to creating a new heaven and a new
earth" (Ibid., no. 616, p. 414). The same thing Swedenborg expressed
in another passage : "The Ancient Paradise was planted and created
by Jehovah God, i. e. by all the three persons of the Divinity, God
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; when therefore that
garden was totally cut down, Messiah, the Only begotten Son of
God, became the new Creator, who planted the new paradise again ;
but only from new men, i. e. from those who will be regenerated
by the Holy Spirit” (Ibid., n. 499, p . 343).
These very same views on the atonement we find expressed in
the Diary for 1744, in the passages quoted below in nos. vi to viii,
as well as in the following words :
"The Son of God is love, and for the purpose of doing good to
mankind, He took upon Himself their sins, even to their heaviest
punishment; for if there is justice, mercy must exist by love" (no. 150).
"Christ is omnipotent and the Only Mediator" (no. 40).
VI. The blood and merit of Christ. We read in the Adversaria
(Vol. I, no. 425, p. 292), "The life and soul of the blood of Messiah
which appeased the Father, could not have been the blood itself,
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