“Peace has in it confidence in the Lord: that He directs all things, provides all things, and that He leads to a good end.” - Arcana Caelestia §8455
Kempton New Church

Week 2
Day 3

    Listen:

Sunday Worship
What Spiritual States do our Rituals Represent?

And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven golden lampstand One like the Son of Man. Revelation 1:12–13 This signifies the Lord as to the Word… He represented Himself as the Word because the New Church is a church from the Word, and according to the understanding of it. Apocalypse Revealed 44

Why do we begin by opening the Word and reading a sentence from it?

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in a tabernacle among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

The opening of Thy words enlightens;
It makes the simple to understand. (Psalm 119:130)

TCR 214. In the Sense of the Letter of the Word, Divine Truth Is in Its Fullness, Its Holiness, and Its Power… because the two prior or interior senses, which are called spiritual and celestial, exist simultaneously in the natural sense, which is the sense of the letter.

TCR 215:5. Those who are in Divine truths, and in the belief that the Word inwardly in its bosom is the holy Divine, and still more those who are in the belief that the Word is such because of its spiritual and celestial senses, when they read the Word in states of enlightenment from the Lord, see Divine truths in natural light. For the light of heaven, in which the spiritual sense is, flows into the natural light in which the sense of the letter of the Word is, and illuminates the intellectual faculty of man which is called his rational, causing it to see and acknowledge Divine truths, both where they stand forth and where they lie hidden. With some people these truths flow in at the same time with the light of heaven, sometimes even when they are unconscious of it.

TCR 224. The inexpressible power of the Word. Hardly anyone at this day knows that there is any power in truths… and yet truth and good are the principles of all things in both worlds, the spiritual and the natural; also they are the means by which the universe was created, and through which the universe is preserved, and the means as well by which man was created. Therefore, these two are the all in all things….

TCR 224:3. From all this it can now be seen why God came into the world as the Word, and became Man, namely, that the work of redemption might be accomplished; for God then, by means of His Human, which was Divine truth, put on all power, overthrew the hells… and subjugated them, and reduced them to obedience to Himself, and this was done not by a spoken word but by the Divine Word which is Divine truth. Afterward He opened a great gulf between the hells and the heavens, which no one from hell can cross….

TCR 209:5. …In short, the power of the Lord proceeding from the Word is infinite.

TCR 234. By Means of the Sense of the Letter of the Word There Is Conjunction with the Lord and Affiliation with the Angels. There is conjunction with the Lord by means of the Word because He is the Word, that is, the essential Divine truth and good in it…. This conjunction is not apparent to man, but it exists in affection for truth and in the perception of truth…. The spiritual and celestial senses are unfolded from the natural sense of the Word when it is read by a man who regards the Word as holy. The unfolding is instantaneous; consequently, the affiliation with angels is also.

TCR 241:3–242. …In every larger society of heaven, a copy of the Word, written by angels inspired by the Lord, is kept in its sanctuary…. In the sanctuary where the copy of the Word is kept, there is a flaming and bright light that surpasses every degree of light in heaven that is outside of it. The cause is… that the Lord is in the Word.

TCR 243. The Church Is from the Word, and with Man It Is Such As His Understanding of the Word Is….

TCR 245. …It is not the Word that establishes and constitutes the church in particular in man, but a faith according to the truths, and a life according to the goods, which man derives from the Word, and applies to himself.

Points to Consider
  1. The Lord wants to dwell in a tabernacle with us, so that we may behold His glory, full of grace and truth, that He wants to share with us. This is the lofty ideal of what coming to worship should be like.
  2. Without the Word, could we know anything at all about God or the life after death?
  3. The Word is the way the Lord makes Himself known to us, and has conversations with us. It is where we can see the Lord “in the air or on the sea, spreading out His hands and inviting [us] into His arms.” (TCR 787).
  4. An opening sentence can be addressed to the Lord, like a prayer or a glorification of Him. In that case the priest faces the Word while reading it. Or they can be from the Lord to us. In that case the priest faces the people.
  5. We often say or sing “Amen.” This is the Hebrew word for “it is true.” We also sing “Halleluiah” or “Alleluia.” This is the Hebrew word (or the Greek translation of it) meaning “Praise Jehovah.” Jah (or -iah) is a shortened form of Jehovah, and hallelu- means “praise.”
  6. We are truly a church just to the extent that we each draw truths and goods from the Word and apply them to our lives. Nothing else matters.
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