Continuing with the Gospel of John, Jesus calls himself the light of the world. This week we explore the differences between the physical sun in our solar system that is needed for all the plants in the Garden Church to grow and compare this with the Son of the Soular system known as heaven. In this close reading of the Gospel of John, we also learn more about human versus heavenly standards of judgement. Come join us this Sunday to learn more about the true Light of the World!
John 8:12-20
Jesus the Light of the World
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” Then the Pharisees said to him, “You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.” Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is valid, for it is not I alone who judge but I and the Father[d] who sent me. In your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is valid. I testify on my own behalf, and the Father who sent me testifies on my behalf.” Then they said to him, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” He spoke these words while he was teaching in the treasury of the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
Divine Love and Wisdom 89
From the sun arising from Divine love and wisdom emanate heat and light. The spiritual world where angels and spirits dwell has in it heat and light just like the natural world where people dwell. Moreover the heat is also felt as heat and the light seen as light in a similar way. But still heat and light in the spiritual world and heat and light in the natural world differ so much that, as said above, they have nothing in common. They differ from each other as something animate and something inanimate. Heat in the spiritual world is, in itself, animate, and so, too, light, whereas heat in the natural world is, in itself, inanimate, and so, too, light. For heat and light in the spiritual world emanate from a sun which is pure love, while heat and light in the natural world emanate from a sun which is nothing but fire; and love is animate, and Divine love is life itself, while fire is inanimate, and solar fire is lifelessness itself. We can call it that because it has not the least speck of life in it.
- Emanuel Swedenborg
In Faith,
Rev. Dr. David Brown
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