that thought was not rooted in any acknowledgment that even in his
human manifestation the Lord is God, they contorted and twisted their
lips to the point of exasperation and tried to force their mouth to enunci-
ate the words, but they did not have the power; because all who are in the
spiritual world find that the words they speak match the ideas that arise
from the things they have acknowledged. If those ideas do not exist, the
words are impossible, because speech is ideas turned into words.
[ 7 ] 4. Then the following passage was read to [the Protestant clergy]
from teachings that are accepted in the entire Christian world: “The
divine nature and the human nature in the Lord are not two but one. In
fact, they are one person, united like the soul and the body in one human
being.” This is part of the belief that was stated in the Athanasian Creed
and ratified by councils. They were told, “From this passage you had
every opportunity to form and acknowledge an idea that the Lord’s
human nature is divine because his soul is divine, for this is part of the
church teachings you acknowledged in the world. Furthermore, the soul
is the very essence of a person and the body is the person’s form, and
essence and form are one, like underlying reality and manifestation, or
like the cause that produces an effect and the effect produced.”
[The Protestant clergy] held on to that idea and tried on that basis to
say “divine-human,” but they could not. Their inner idea of the Lord’s
human nature expelled and destroyed this new “supplemental” idea, as
they were calling it.
[ 8 ] 5. There was a further reading to them from John: “The Word was
with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh” (John 1 : 1 ,
14 ). And this: “Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life” ( 1 John 5 : 20 ).
Also a passage from Paul: “All the fullness of divinity dwells physically in
Christ Jesus” (Colossians 2 : 9 ).
They were told to think like this, meaning to think that God who was
the Word became human, that he is the true God, and that all the fullness
of divinity dwells physically in him. This they did, but only in their outer
thought. A resistance in their inner thought made it impossible for them
to say “divine-human.” They openly stated that “divine-human” was an
idea they could not have. “God is God,” they said, “and human is
human. God is a spirit, and a spirit to our thinking is no different from
wind or ether.”
[ 9 ] 6. Finally they were asked, “Don’t you know that the Lord said, ‘Live
in me and I [shall live] in you. Those who live in me and I in them bear
much fruit, because without me you cannot do anything’ (John 15 : 4 , 5 )?”
§111 the lord the redeemer & redemption 153