Monday, May 5, 2008

A Good Discussion of the Lord's Resurrection Body

From early on in the New Church people have been arguing about the nature of the Lord's resurrection body. I recently really enjoyed reading a series of articles from 1982 New Church Life (compiled by Rev. Grant Odhner) in which Rev. Bruce Rogers and Rev. Erik Sandström, Sr. debate the issue—particularly because at the end they articulate what the essential apparent paradox is and what they agree on.
Sandström: We are concerned with an apparent paradox. But it is not uncommon for the Writings to speak in apparent paradoxes when presenting the most profound doctrines. Indeed, I submit, they can do no otherwise, for a merely natural logic stops short at the door of the Infinite and of the Divine processes that proceed from it. ....

[O]ur immediate concern is with the apparent paradox of the Lord glorifying that which He expelled, or rising with that which He cast off. In its most succinct form we have it in Arcana Coelestia 2159: “Until He had put it off and made it Divine the human that was with the Lord was nothing but a servant.”

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Rogers: I believe Mr. Sandström and I have more points of agreement than disagreement. .... We do have in common the wish to emphasize the need to think of the Lord as a Person, and the necessity of thinking of that Person from the Divine essence, not the reverse. And this, after all, is the important point. I would not want our differences over the process to obscure our agreement on the result, especially when the result, the vision of God made manifest in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, is the centerpiece of the revelation to the New Church.

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