Respect for Life

by Rev. Robert S. Jungé

I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. John 11: 25.

It is absolutely essential that life appear to man as if it were his own. Yet man is only truly man when he confesses the reality: "With thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light." (Psalm 36: 9) Respect for life then, is respect for the Lord's active presence with us. If we are to understand life, it cannot be viewed as a gift from the distant past, from the time of creation, nor even from the time of birth. It is not something that happened, it is something that is being perpetually renewed. Life is from Him who is and who was and who is to come. Life is the sustaining and ever present influx of the Divine love.

Only the Lord through the Word can reveal the presence of His sustaining life, particularly in the stages of what so often seems a long and arduous journey. Human prudence, human reasoning, science, logic, none of these can reveal life as the Lord gives it to us, nor inspire our reverence for it. If we view our existence simply from what is merely human we will never know the Lord's presence, nor how to respond to it. So far as we fail to go to the Word to try to see the purpose and thrust of His sustaining life, so far we will remove ourselves from the sphere of His Divine love. "If therefore, you wish to be led by the Divine providence use prudence as a servant and minister who faithfully dispenses the goods of his master." (DP 210) "As man orders the externals so the Lord orders the internals; thus in one way when man orders the externals from himself, and in another way when he orders the externals from the Lord and at the same time as if from himself." (DP 181)

There are many hard questions in ordering the steps of our lives as we try to subordinate our prudence to the teachings of the Word. Yet as free agents, it is given us to respond to the Divine love throughout the whole thread of our existence. If we will, we can see the presence of the Lord's Divine love from first conception to resurrection and eternal usefulness.

Starting from the beginning we read, "In man's seed there lies hidden the inmost of his life, and thus the rudiment of a new life; and for this reason it is holy." (AE 1005: 2)

The Lord conjoins Himself to man in the womb of the' mother from his first conception, and forms man.... That life itself is present from first conception and is what gives form, follows from this, that in order to be the form of life which man is, and in order to be an image and likeness of God, which man also is, and in order to be a recipient of love and wisdom, which are life from the Lord, thus a recipient of the Lord Himself, man must be formed by life itself. . . . Will and understanding with man do not begin until the lungs are opened, and this does not take place until after birth; then the will of the man becomes the receptacle of love and the understanding becomes the receptacle of wisdom. . . . From all this a conclusion may be formed about the quality of the life of the foetus in the womb, in which only the heart performs its motions, and not yet the lungs, namely that nothing of the life of the will and nothing of the life of the understanding is present in it; but the formation is effected solely by the life from the Lord by which man afterwards is to live.... There is life in the embryo before birth, but the embryo is not conscious of it. . . . The life from which the embryo in the womb lives is not its life, but the Lord's alone, who alone is life. (Wis. 111: 1, 5, 6)

We cannot help but feel a sense of awe as we consider the ordered process of the development of the human body under the direct auspices of the Divine providence. (Cf. DLW 6)

That the Lord's providence is infinite and regards what is eternal may be seen from the formation of embryos in the womb . . . one lineament is always a plane for another, and this without error, until the embryo is formed: and after it has been born, one thing is prepared successively toward another . . in order that a perfect man may come forth, and at last such a man as to be capable of receiving heaven. If all the details are thus provided during man's conception, birth, and growth, how much more must this be the case with regard to spiritual life. (AC 6491)

That oft repeated process of gestation is so ordered, so responsive to the Divine influx as to prefigure regeneration in every detail, even to mirror every step of the glorification of the Lord Himself. "A woman when she is in travail bath sorrow, because her hour is come, but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." (John 16: 21)

With the first breath, the corresponding spiritual organs of will and understanding take up their active use, never to cease, and man feels life as his own. "And the Lord God formed man . . . and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2: 7)

As we reflect upon the Lord's purpose and inflowing life during infancy, we think of the words: "In the Divine providence of the Lord this child was born into the world, and he is committed to your care that by life in the world he may be prepared for life in heaven; and it is given you to cooperate with the Lord to this end," (General Church Liturgy, 1966, page 67) But this effort does not cease with infancy, for "remains are all the states of the affection of good and truth with which a man is endowed by the Lord from earliest infancy even to the end of life." (AC 1906) The more remains that a man receives in the life of the body, the more delightful and beautiful do the rest of his states appear when they return after death. (Cf. ibid.) "When a man is being regenerated he then receives new remains . . . thus new life." (AC 1738) New life! "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3: 3)

For the sincere, the kingdom of God cannot be separated from the thought of the conjugial. During youth the Lord's life stirs a desire for an eternal conjunction with those "who from early youth had loved and desired and asked of the Lord a legitimate and lovely companionship with one, and had spurned and detested wandering lusts as an offence to their nostrils." (CL 49e)

As love is such that it desires to communicate its joys to another whom from the heart it loves, . . . infinitely more then does Divine love. . . . Therefore [the Lord] from the inmosts infused into men conjugial love, into which He might bring together all the blessedness, happiness, joys and pleasures that together with life proceed and flow . . . into those who are in love truly conjugial, for they only are the recipients. (CL 180; Italics added)

Together with life they flow in. Just how fundamental this love is can be seen from the fact that "the excellence of the life of everyone is ac cording to his conjugial love." (CL 510) "Two universal spheres proceed from the Lord ... one of which is the sphere of procreating, and the other the sphere of protecting what is procreated. (CL 386) When the husband and wife respond to these two universal spheres they receive the sphere of conjugial love and the love of infants.(CL 387) Through the mutual reception of these spheres the husband and wife become one in the Lord's eyes. But this is not accomplished all at once in the beginning efforts to bring the Lord into their lives.

Particularly during the middle years man realizes that to make himself receptive involves cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.

In consequence of the hereditary evil into which man is born, and of the actual evil which he acquires, [the rational and natural vessels in man] are in a contrary position within him relatively to the inflowing life, `yet in so far as the life which flows in can dispose the vessels to receive it, it does so dispose them. . . . [But] this cannot possibly be effected so long as man is in that state into which he is born, and to which he has reduced himself; for the vessels are not obedient, being obstinately resistant, and hardening themselves against the heavenly order according to which the life acts. . . . Therefore before they can be rendered compliant and fit to receive anything of the life of the Lord's love, they must be softened. This softening is effected by no other means than temptations." (AC 3318)

How often we must come up against our own obstinate and hardened hearts? But it is a powerful and wonderful thing to realize that temptations are permitted that we may have life, and that we may have it more abundantly. "As man prepares himself naturally to receive the Lord, so the Lord enters and makes all that is within him inwardly spiritual, and thus alive." (TCR 359) Over the years it is hoped that there will be a softening and compliance at least as to intention even if not always manifestly. Man's uses blossom and mature. If life from the Lord is within them, they bear richer fruit by far than he can see or feel within the confines of this world.

But this seedtime looks to harvest. While men are passing through their ages even to the last, the angels think only that they are successively putting off what is human and putting on what is heavenly. "For human life, from infancy to old age, is nothing else than a progression from the world to heaven; and the last age, which is death, is the transition itself." (AC 3016) The eternal state of man rests on the whole course of his life. (AC 8991: 2) Indeed, "Man is so created that when he grows old and becomes like a little child, the innocence of wisdom conjoins itself with the innocence of ignorance which he had in infancy, and so he passes into the other life as a true infant." (AC 5608: 7) For the same reason, "when a man becomes old he dwindles in body and becomes again like a child, but like a wise child, that is, an angel." (HH 278) Ideally the cycle of innocence is completed and man departs this world, in the full sphere of willingness to be led by the Lord.

Thus, "If when he lives in the body, the man himself longs for heaven, he thinks no otherwise of death and the sickness which precedes it than as being resurrection into life; for when he thinks about heaven, he withdraws himself from the idea of the body, especially when he is sick and comes near to death." (AC 6221. Italics added) Still the orderly process of death seems to be a state of tranquility and as in sleep - simply a taking away of the breath. (Cf. SD 580, 623) We read, "If mankind had lived in a state of good, then a man would wane, even to the utmost feebleness of age; and then when the body could no longer minister to the internal man, that man would pass away from its earthly body, without disease." (SD 4592) Death then is ordained to be a peaceful transitional process. If it should by chance be violent, we know the vital elements will be preserved and the spirit's state of peaceful transition will still be watched over by the Lord's highest angels. (SD 1099) Nevertheless what happens during death has an effect later in the world of spirits, for we read, "Whatever happens in the last hour of death remains for a long time before it disappears." (SD 1337) Man has no right from his own gross prudence to intrude himself upon the order of the Lord's providence as best he can discern it. "The Lord from mercy leads every one who accepts Him, and he accepts Him who lives in accordance with the laws of Divine order . . . The mercy that is meant, is to be thus led by the Lord from infancy to the last period of his life in the world and afterwards to eternity." (HH 420)

The operation of the Divine Providence for the salvation of man is said to begin at his birth and to continue right on to the end of his life. And in order to understand this it should be known that the Lord sees what the nature of man is, and foresees what he desires to be, and thus what he will be; and in order that he may be a man, and therefore immortal, the freedom of his will cannot be taken away. . . . Therefore the Lord foresees man's state after death and provides for it from his birth right on to the end of his life (DP 333)

Evidently then, "the death of man is merely his passing from one world into another. And this is why in the Word in its internal sense death signifies resurrection and continuation of life." (HH 445)

After the subtle motions of the heart and lungs cease, man is resuscitated; but we are reminded that "this is done by the Lord alone." (HH 447) Death which seems so much to be the opposite of life, is in reality the fulfillment of natural life. When viewed from use, as a process, it too is ordered, even fostered, by the inflowing Divine life, so that the eternal purposes of Divine love may be fulfilled. Just as a tender infant should be cared for with gentleness and warmth so an old man, with deep respect, should be gathered to his fathers in peace. In both cases we must remember that while caring for the physically helpless, the real end is the Lord's leading of that innocent person to their eternal home.

While man is an embryo, or while he is yet in the womb, he is in the kingdom of the heart; but when he has come forth from the womb, he comes into the kingdom of the lungs; and if through the truths of faith he suffers himself to be brought into the good of love, he then returns from the kingdom of the lungs into the kingdom of the heart in the Grand Man; for he thus comes a second time into the womb and is born again. (AC 4931: 3)

Thus man, the only creature capable of freely responding to the Divine life is eternally sustained by it. We must not allow a materialistic and corporeal attitude towards death to cloud our responses to it. Nothing of the real man is lost by the transition we call death. His states of reception simply become a permanent basis for the development of his eternal use in heaven.

On this basis, after a final preparation in the world of spirits, man enjoys a new kind of freedom. The struggle to bring an unyielding external into compliance with Divine life is over. The burden of free choice between good and evil is past. Man enters into the joy of his Lord, as he feels the Divine life truly as his own. "The Divine is life itself, and is eternal; and that which has been conjoined with life itself and with what is eternal, cannot die or be consumed, but remains to eternity and is continually perfected." (AC 7507) "And the Lord said. . . , Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever." (Genesis 13 : 14)

-New Church Life 1976;96:41-46

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