Why Did Jesus Pray To God If He Is God?

Why did Jesus pray to God if Jesus is God? It's a great question. The idea that Jesus is God is fundamental to Christianity, but here [snorts] he is talking to God as if he's somebody else. Sometimes people [music] kind of hope that conundrum will go away, but in this episode, we're going to take it head-on and give you an answer that is consistent, logical, and clear. I'm excited for this episode cuz I want to learn from you how this whole thing works.

>> Mhm. So, if if you don't mind, if you don't mind, no pressure at all. But, this is a central conundrum to the whole Christian thing. Yeah.

>> Which is that you have Jesus, and Jesus is God, and yet he's saying, "Hey, can you please help me?" He sometimes says he's one with the Father, sometimes he's talking to the Father, sometimes he's sweating blood and like asking the Father to not do stuff. So, how is that one God? And why is he doing that? And what's going on with that, you know?

Yes, that's right. So, it's gone into many discussions by theologians over the centuries about is there three persons in the Godhead, and how does that work, and when did they come about, and all kinds of things. Just trying to solve this problem.

Yeah, right. And the persons in the Godhead kind of falls out of that cuz it's how do you make sense of it? But, it's I mean, like, is that is that a satisfying explanation? Persons in the Godhead, and and one that's clearly subordinate to the other. Yes. Cuz in Gethsemane, he's saying, "Please take this away, but you make the call." That's right. And then at the end, and end of Matthew, he says, "All power is given to me in heaven and on earth." Which would mean that the Father now has no power, and the Holy Spirit has no power, you know, like, it's not fair. What is going on there?

Okay, so what we're going to do in this episode is we've got the architecture, the explanation as far as I know, the most robust explanation of this >> Mhm. that exists anywhere Really the >> yeah. the theological philosophical writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Um and in here what we're going to do in this episode is to answer this like give a thorough answer to this question. So we're saying, here's the mechanics of what was going on with Jesus. Here's how it reflects the same design that's in everything including in you and me. Here's why God incarnated in this particular way. You know, let's see if we can build a case that people will say oh, maybe.

So there's this is just a little summary from Swedenborg's book New Jerusalem 47, which is the some of the background we need to understand if you're going to get what's going on with this Jesus and God and thing. So the spiritual world and the earthly world are joined together in us. Okay. Wow. We start talking about us. Start talking about us. So basically that would be consciousness and matter are joined together in us. I mean, right? I I love that place to start. That's really interesting cuz it gets to what is a human being.

>> Uh-huh. You know, not just Jesus who is obviously special in a whole bunch of ways, but but what is any person made of? And the idea that spirit and matter, which are to Swedenborg two distinctly separate things, are both in us. We we're we're a a meeting point of those two things.

>> That would be his explanation for the hard problem of consciousness. Why why can't we quite figure out consciousness? Because you're you're one one reality ends and the next begins, but they they interface. Yes.

So then Swedenborg goes on to say this means we have the ability to look upward toward heaven and downward toward Earth. The inner self which is spiritual and the outer self which is earthly are completely distinct from each other. Again, this is just me and you, but

>> In in each person, like this is in one person. Yeah. Yeah, so you can and we see human nature is like I can be good and look up to the or I get this this self-centered and materialistic and look down. Yeah, and you can have a part of yourself that goes listen to me. I sound like I know anything about this. Yes.

>> Right. So in order to have that, you've got a part that's yacking away at the cocktail party and you've got a part that's going Yeah.

>> Oh, come on. You know.

>> [laughter]

>> This is for posters. I'm not going to sit here and let myself talk like that.

>> [laughter]

>> Have a good weekend. You too. Oops, you're not having a So like that that whole like why did I say that? What am I Right. Like like enjoy the show. You too, but you're talking to the concession person. This would be

>> [laughter]

>> I did that once. That's a great example. That's right.

>> I did that once. I was like you know, can I have my gummy bears? Yeah, enjoy the show. You too. Oh, you have to sit out here.

>> You're stuck out here.

>> [laughter]

>> Um that would be the observer effect? Um no, not the observer, but the observer in mindfulness. It's like hey, by the way Yes.

>> you have your and then you have your guy who can see your thoughts. That's the To Swedenborg by definition, those are separate parts because the eye can't see itself. Your own eye Okay.

>> can't see your own eye. You know, it takes another eye to see what's what's going on.

>> So this is going on in each person. The inner self is spiritual and the outer self is earthly. The outer self was designed and created to serve the inner self. The outer self needs to correspond to the inner in order for the two to be joined together. So, these can be so different and you see this in the especially in the epistles in the New Testament the idea that the inner self and the outer self can actually be at war with each other. They can be in very have very different agendas.

>> Can they be at peace with each other? They can.

>> [laughter]

>> All right. Tell me Tell me. What doesn't just happen automatically um because the outer self has its own agenda. I mean, we've all seen ourselves, you know, I've I've gone to like wedding receptions and I decided ahead of time I'm not going to eat anything. I don't know where the food came from. I don't know what's in it. So, you know, and then I just watch myself grab it off the plate [laughter] uh cuz cuz there's another part that says uh Oh, but it looks so good, you know, and just grabs it and doesn't care what that other If I can wiser part of myself is saying. The the number of times in the last 2 weeks when I got done my last Instagram Reels scroll and I looked at the time I was like I'm never doing that again.

>> [laughter]

>> All right. Yeah, New Year's resolutions is a great example of where you know, some part of yourself as you're launching into a new year thinks this is my chance to really get on top of this issue. And then after 2 weeks you know, it's it's out the window. So, this is true, dear friends who are what Right? And what we're describing is a is a feature of existence.

>> observable feature of yourself.

>> This all these things we just talked about. Like you That's happening and that's groundwork. These things you must know as we explore why the Jesus thing happened like it happened. Yeah, because we're in the image and likeness. Right? Like we're wearing Yeah. We're wearing the map. That's another thing. The image and likeness. That's another problem with the persons in the Godhead thing. Yes, it is. I sure ain't three persons human head. I'm I'm a person. Yeah.

>> Right. Yes, that's right. So, but we are starting to see, okay, people do have an inner and an outer self. Okay.

So, Jehovah God manifests on Earth. That This is from Swedenborg's True Christianity 82. Jehovah God came down and took on a human manifestation in order to redeem people and save them. Okay.

>> Nice of you. The following passages show that Jehovah God himself came down and became a human. Not a separate Son of God from eternity is kind of what he's saying. Like, read between the lines. Right. And he he knows about the Trinity. Like, the the the Lutheran like the three persons in the Godhead was alive and well in Swedenborg's day. He was risking something saying that it was this. I mean, that's like a that's a no And saying that this is actually what the Bible teaches is that that wasn't a separate person. That that's Jehovah God.

Okay, so first, this is from Isaiah uh also in Matthew. Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a son who will be called God with us. A child is born to us, a son is given to us, authority will rest on his shoulder, his name will be called the wonderful God hero, father of eternity, prince of peace. Strange thing to call

>> Jesus Jesus the father of eternity. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. And God. Yeah, yeah. It will be said in that day, "Behold, this is our God. We have waited for him to free us. This is Jehovah whom we have waited for.

>> Whoa. Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation." Oh, that's pretty clear. That's a prophecy about Jesus. And but it's in Jehovah the Father?

>> Yeah, isn't it's I mean that's that's what you hear that that that Yahweh or however you want to put it, the Lord in small caps in the Old Testament is So there are many more passages like that in Isaiah, Zechariah, Jeremiah, it's all over the place. So God, it seems like the text is indicating God the God God comes as a human. Yeah. That's right.

That So even if you're God and you want to manifest you follow the design. The same design that's in human beings because as Swedenborg asserts elsewhere God is divine order. Like that's that's your design. Why is there a design? Cuz God wants, you could say, there to be this design so he follows it cuz it is him. That is the design. This is from True Christianity 89. In the process of taking on a human manifestation God followed his own divine design. Now because God came down and because he is the design there was no other way for him to become an actual human being than to be conceived, to be carried in the womb, to be born, to be brought up, and to acquire more and more knowledge so as to become intelligent and wise. That's seems to fit with at least the little little hints you get in the biblical story of Jesus as a baby seemingly like other baby, you know, there's there's a lot of wonderful um you stories, prophecies about him and Simeon and Anna in the in the temple, you know, they're rejoicing and all that. But he's just a baby and then at 12 years old he said intelligent, kind of precocious kid but he's just asking kid questions about what does this mean? What does that mean? And And this is tough for the multiple people in the Godhead true model to deal with because it seems extraneous or superfluous. Why would if you're already just one person in the Godhead from eternity Right.

>> and you want to come to Earth, why go through why jump through all these hoops? Yes, I get it. It's miraculous that there was a virgin conception, but then again, why don't you just appear already born? Why don't you appear as an adult after Jesus is crucified? He's able to walk around in a spirit body that you you could have just shown up at 33. Why go through all of this?

>> through that? It doesn't seem to make sense. It doesn't seem to it seems less miraculous. It seems like it wastes time. Why do that? And it seems that uh this may be behind one solution, which is that people have said, "Well, there's a a divine there's the sort of the word the logos, you know, the word that was made flesh. And then there's the Jesus you almost split the so you've already got three, but then you split number two into two pieces to have sort of the divine part and the human part are separate in Jesus because there's problems with you know, like So people say that?

>> Some some people say that. Well, nobody told me. Okay. So yeah, so I think what it points to is that the text is confusing. The text I think people have been puzzled by it. It's not self resolving. I would say some assembly required. Isn't that what they say? Yes.

I I think an important point to make next is like why? Why did he do this? Why did God do this? Um because there's there's a opinion out there that it was to placate the father. Um, so this is what Swedenborg says. Yeah. God could not have redeemed people, that is rescued them from damnation and hell, without first taking on a human manifestation. Redemption was a matter of gaining control of the hells, restructuring the heavens, and then establishing a church. Despite his omnipotence, God could not accomplish these things except through his human manifestation, as one cannot do work without arms. In fact, in the word his human manifestation is called the arm of Jehovah. That's true. Isaiah 53. That's right. And other places. You're right. It is Isaiah 53 and 40. That's pretty good.

>> Oh, thank you. The word as well makes it clear that having a human manifestation gave God the omnipotence to do this divine work. God is in the inmost and purest realms. There you go. There was no other way he could cross over to the lowest levels where the hells exist and where people were at that time, just as a soul cannot do anything without a body. You can't get there from here. People had removed themselves so far from what was divine that even though you had all this divine omnipotence over here, and one factor that I don't think Swedenborg mentions in so many words is that you couldn't safely you couldn't do it without cooking everybody and frying everything. Yeah. You know, to bring down the divine as it is in itself every every everything would have just exploded and vaporized. Nice.

Okay, I've got two little paragraphs left in here. Let me read those and then can you give me like what's the big picture here?

>> Okay, great. As if I'd never heard of this.

>> Okay, great. To redeem people without a human manifestation would be as impossible as growing trees on heat and light alone if air had not been created as a medium through which they travel and earth had not been created in which the trees could grow. Not many trees in outer space. Given Jehovah's inherent nature, despite his omnipotence, he could not touch any individual devils in hell or any individual devils on earth and control them or their rage or tame their violence unless he could be present in the farthest realms as he is in those closest to him.

>> Ah, there you go. In his human manifestation, he is in fact present in the farthest realms. This is why the word refers to him as the first and the last, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. Yes, okay.

Okay, hit me with it. What's going on here? What are we talking about? Well, an analogy that occurred to me a while ago was that if Okay, so let's say you've got power generation that goes on at Niagara Falls, let's say. You know, a tremendous amount of water going over it just creates an enormous amount of electricity. And so you're shipping this out. I don't know anything about this, so it's I think they do I think Niagara Falls powers like a lot of like United State like New York State and this kind of thing.

>> I I think so. How would I know?

>> And and I don't know, but I imagine it's like 200,000 volts or so, you know, some enormous amount of power that's going out in those lines from there. Great power, that's just what you need. But if you're trying to, you know, vacuum something or or you know, play play a radio or something like that, it's way too much power. It'll fry the vacuum cleaner, it'll fry you, it'll burn down the whole house. There's no way to apply that power as it is in its essence without destroying everything. So what you need is a voltage, you know, something that takes that voltage down just like household Okay, this was 200,000. We're going down to just 220 or 110 or or 240 or depending on where you live and you know, we're going to we're going to get that power down into a manageable safe amount. So, what you need for that voltage thing is you need something that can take the 200,000 Mhm. you know? Yeah. But can put out a steady nice safe 220 or 110. And that's Jesus like Jesus could have that divine side coming in, but could sort of down regulate or I don't know what I'm talking about the the voltage. So,

>> Electricians at home right now.

>> Yeah, yeah, just absolutely smacking [laughter] their This guy has no idea how I think about

>> alone.

>> [laughter]

>> But I know the end result is that you can plug a radio in or you could, you know, plug in the vacuum cleaner and things don't get fried. It's it's a you don't get shocked, the house doesn't burn down. Um that that to me is is a way that I understand why you know, Jesus had to be was able to handle that divine voltage, so to speak. Because he was divine in his soul. Right. But the body was what sort of could take that voltage down to it a usable level where he could tame the hells, stop their rage, the violence and all that stuff. Put them back in there without nuking everybody, you know, without wiping them off the face of the earth. Yeah, I you know, the hells Swedenborg is here talking about demons and stuff. Um in Swedenborg's terminology, that just means all the people who love to be bad. That's people. And you know, what? Who loves all the people? It's God. So, even though like I guess this is back little Swedenborgian backstory is that the thing that precipitated or like made necessary the incarnation was that hell which is the sum total of everyone who's choosing bad was getting so out of control and powerful and bad that everybody's threatened. Yeah. However, it is not acceptable to God to to get a solution to that that harms hell. It destroys the people in hell. So cuz those are he loves those people, too.

>> those people. Um He actually wants something that's good. It's actually better for the evil spirits to be more contained and not to act out.

>> Yeah. You know, they sort of go insane. They go into like a rage or something. Let's get let's calm things down. So it's to help it's to help you as well as help the other people who would be adversely affected by your rage and violence.

>> Okay. And I'm just getting self-conscious cuz in the intro in the intro I said this is going to be rational and clear. It's going to be straightforward. You can you can see that for yourself in these years. So I feel [clears throat] like we should be able to as we go Einstein this. Okay. He was if you can't explain it to a 6-year-old, you don't know what So so we started by talking about how we've you are a certain way. You have like the You have an inside and outside. You have an inside and outside. Right. And that's because there's this big pattern that is the like the imprint of God's nature in everything. In a way we all have we're not divine inside I know lots of people think we are but we're not infinite inwardly. We have a finite soul. But we still are sort of transformers or what whatever you call them. You know, things that can take that voltage down and can translate between these two worlds. So, Jesus is just what you call it when God follows that same pattern in order to be able to come into the the outer realms of creation where all of the negativity is happening and navigate those and clean them up without frying them all. Yeah. And he wanted to do that cuz he loves you.

Then, the next you know, thing on the timeline is that the Lord brought his outer self, if you think of Jesus is like God's outer self, into alignment with his inner self. In Swedenborg's book The Lord, which is like it's all about this.

>> That's right. This is the Lord 33. The Lord made his human nature divine by the trials to which he made himself vulnerable and by then constantly being victorious. Yeah, so part of the deal there is that uh being a human being, just an ordinary mortal with all the mortal weakness and everything uh allowed him an access to hell to evil spirits cuz we know that he was tempted. It talks about it in the in the New Testament, right? He you know, he's temptation in the wilderness tested by the by the devil and that that kind of thing. And uh so it gave him an access, but every time he was successful he was successful in that, right? He has the right answer. He's quoting scripture and the devil's quoting scripture and he gets the right answers and everything and all that goes away and angels come and comfort him. He gets a little more divine. You know, so he's he's both doing this process that being human allows him to do, but it's also improving this outside self to the point where you get this image in the book of Revelation that his feet are bronze and that's a weird thing to say. But bronze means outermost kind of goodness. So that he's loved even on the like polished Doesn't it say something like polished brass or polished bronze and and that that's an image of even in its outermost self it became purified to the point where it was God all the way down to the toenails. There is some sense in which God became I don't know if you want to say more present but more more present is that right? Yeah, more more accessible. Yeah, cuz it used to be that you would be close to God by being high up in heaven and you know, you're in a lofty state and you're very receptive and so that that brings you close to God. Um Okay, in effect, but he needs to reach all the other people, you know, the people who have turned their back and are and are far away and everything. That's what he wants to reach.

>> So I got to say something. I got to say something. Um you know, you can get a little bit like weirded out by the idea of God having to go through any sort of just write the rules just rewrite some rules and Yeah. just be where you are. Right. But all of us go through this process. So the the battles it's talking about Jesus go through goes through. Everybody knows you struggle being a human being, right? And the idea that you know, God is strengthening you, purifying you, grow growing closer to you through the hard things in life. Yeah. That's that's like why that's way beyond Swedenborg. That's in culture.

>> Yeah. Uh religion, spirituality. There's There's quite a lot of that. So, if we take that as true, that God really does, you know, bring us higher, re- regenerate us, make us reborn, uh purify us, whatever it is, through these struggles. Those struggles aren't fun. They're miserable.

>> miserable. If God could just write new rules for himself and get the same end result, he should be doing that for us.

>> For everybody. Yeah. So, if cuz otherwise it's mean. Yeah. Cuz why why make me go and suffer? So, the fact that we all have to get that we all have to actually live through the process would I think be just as much an indication on the nature of God as the fact that God had to live through the process to actually get to be Right. what he was needed to be to do this, right?

>> Right. You're reminding me of James chapter 1, if memory serves, where it says uh count it all joy when you go through diverse temptations, something like that. Yeah. You know, and like everybody No, that's that's horrible uh when you go through that. And yet he says, "Oh, that that's joyful." And I think that's the same thing that Jesus is talking about when he says, "Take up your cross and follow me." That what he's going through, we go through in our own sort of finite, limited human way, but we go through a development as well. And he was kind of showing us how it's done, which was an additional benefit because we have to deal with our our demons. We have to kind of get our hell taken care of. We need to get our heavens kind of restructured. You know, we have to go through sort of a mini version of this. Cuz we're a microcosm. As we got that whole world inside us. But don't isn't like one of the main ways that people relate to Jesus? And this is something that a huge percentage of the human race does is like when things are not good, you say like help me Jesus. Isn't that like I wonder if you could get the stats on you know, what's the most common time when human beings uh like extend an invitation to what they believe you know, to God. How much of it is like help me Jesus? Uh yeah. Some of the best prayers I've ever heard about that made the biggest difference in people's lives were you've got to help me, you know, to to God. Like you've got to help me.

>> Yeah. Yeah. They've like the footprints uh poem. Yeah. Yeah. But [clears throat] and even even uh the the um the the 23rd Psalm these are even things that that stand out of outside Christianity into the the global culture of the human race just because So, isn't it meaningful to know that God not just understands but has been through it as well. Has been through it.

>> Is that replicable? You know, I without doing it like epistemologically, I don't know. It really is amazing to be able to um connect in that way meaning that I know there some other religious systems that you know, this there's a a force in the universe or things like that. But uh the idea of a God who has suffered who walked the earth who goes through the same stuff, was mocked and ridiculed and misunderstood and you know, uh uh it's when you're going through a difficult time, very meaningful to think about, oh no, I I know you've you've been like, when you're going through something, you want if you have any medical emergency or you're going through some sort of mental health crisis or whatever it might be, you want somebody who's been through it. Right? Isn't that who you don't want somebody who goes, well, I've never heard of that, but I think I can help you.

>> I in my in my studies, I read up on

>> I read someone who went through something like that. Um, and and if it's just a if God's just a force that never had to Who's the more compelling character? Yeah. Yeah. The human or the and it can't be without it is. It can't be that the the humans have the heavier burden. Like how is that a good parent? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, saying you go through it, I'm going through the TSA precheck line over here. I'll see you on the other side of security, you That's it. The TSA precheck of of existence. Let's let's forge forward and then we'll check back in and see if we're if we're creating something that makes sense.

This is from the Lord 35. Step by step, Jesus took off the human nature he had taken on from his mother and put on a human nature from what was divine within him. Mhm. Which is the divine human nature and the son of God. Now, since from the beginning, the Lord had a human nature from his mother and took this off step by step. While he was in this world, he therefore experienced two states. Oh boy, here we go. Yeah. One called the state of being brought low or being emptied out and one called the state of being glorified or united with the divine called the Father. Oh.

I'll pause there. There's more, but what does it mean? What are we talking about?

>> I I love this wisdom. I love this wisdom. So many movies are trying to capture what is it like to, you know, the the matrix or something, how does Neo become Neo or, you know, so many things are trying to say, how do you develop, how do you Harry Potter, whatever, like how do you find your power? This is such great wisdom to say, well, what actually happens is that you kind of have to pour out what's in there now and then fill it up, you know, with something divine. Then you then you you pour a bit by bit. So, the emptying out or being humbled is so good for that outer self to say, okay, okay, I'm going to open up as a vessel, cuz you can be all full of, you know, that lower self, we've all experienced it. You have to don't you know who I am or, you know, I I demand, you know, service or whatever, you know, you can be full of yourself, we can all do that. And that needs to be emptied out and become humbled and then this divinity flows in. It's kind of a constraint release model, which is that there's things that are in the way. So, that mere humanness is so useful to what Jesus is doing, but it's still it needs to be laid aside and then you can receive more of that divinity, more more of the love and the compassion that are that are flowing in. And bit by bit. And so, and you see this, I'm sure Swedenborg's going to say this, you see this in Jesus has sort of modes where he's kind of like, suffering on the eve of the crucifixion and as you say, sweating like great drops of blood. And and then there's other times where he's he's in his power, he's raising the dead, he can't even be touched, the soldiers come to arrest him, they all get blown back and thrown to the ground. He says, I am and you know, he he's he's in his power. So, you have those two modes, in your power and then in your weakness that's leading to more more power. You do those are pretty distinct if you start looking for them in the text. Yeah, that's right. Is there's the the the Jesus that is looking for help and the Jesus who is that seems like divine. Yeah, sometimes he's speaking as God. Yeah.

>> You know, he's making prophecies about centuries of what's going to happen in the future. He's He's saying, "I am the light of the world." You know, he's making like huge huge things about who he is. Yeah.

>> that don't at that moment, if you don't buy it, doesn't sound humble or something. You just say, "I'm the or every You know, I am the light I'm the resurrection and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." And but then there's other sides where he's he's saying, "Help me. I don't know how to get through this. Nevertheless, your will, not mine, be done." Yeah.

So, the basic dynamic is that we're saying that the Jesus {slash} God thing is the same I already used the word dynamic. Is the same template that is in every single one of us with the inner and outer mind. Yes.

>> The the observer and then the I don't want to say monkey mind because that would Well, I think so G Sort of an insult to monkeys for one thing. Uh it would Yeah. [laughter] But, for Jesus, he started with a regular human monkey mind. Mea- meaning probably had all the kind of negativities that we had. Confusion also, yeah.

>> Well, and that That gets down to like what are we as human beings uh metaphysically? According to Swedenborg, we are You said that, you know, we're not divine. Meaning we're not infinite. True. However, we don't generate a scrap of the life that's actually in us. That is the divine itself coming into We are like a we're like a computer that the electricity comes into and like we doesn't generate its own electricity but

>> Don't don't no. the same electricity coming into this computer and that computer different results.

>> do different things.

>> So that we are like a receiving vessel. That's right. And we shape that electricity. Yeah, and the vacuum cleaner does a vacuum thing with it and the radio does a radio thing. Yeah.

>> That's right. So different results. So that Jesus is um somehow like the full presence of the divine coming into the same sort of human vessel that we all have. Yes. And and

>> Which is a wild thought by the way. And what the work of that the divine is is it starts out in the same kind of yeah outer self monkey mind that we have but whereas we are in a little tiny way trying to open ourselves up to that change or something God is replacing that with like the perfect outer mind. The like the the divine outer mind. That's what Jesus is becoming. Like you know, right? Right. And I really get the sense from a number of things that Swedenborg says that and from observing life that the nature of divine energy is that it's always both absolutely loving you as you are and also kind of making little improvement. Oh, here I can straighten that. Oh, here I'll do your hair. You know.

>> [laughter]

>> Yeah. And really because for your joy wants to turn you into a vessel Swedenborg even says that we're sort of born with our we've got vessels to receive divine life but they're they're the wrong way up. They're upside down and and that energy itself will come in and turn those vessels Here, let's just put those vessels the right way up. You know, okay, now you can say, "Okay, you're receiving compassion. Okay, this is good. We like what's going on." Just can hardly help it. Just always does that improving thing if we're at all receptive to it.

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The state of being brought low occurred when and to the extent that he was primarily conscious of the human nature received from his mother. And the state of being glorified occurred when and to the extent that he was primarily conscious of the human nature received from his father. Oh, with capital N. nature. The Yeah, Right.

>> But that's sort of the better human nature and and the And we just said a couple sentences above, the divine is called the father. So, when he's saying the father, he means the divine itself.

>> itself. Not a separate person. Right. Just There's only one divinity. In his state, okay, this is sort of the crux of the episode here, right? In his state of being brought low, he prayed to the father as someone other than himself. While in his state of being glorified, he talked with the father as if talking with himself. In this latter state, he said that the father was in him and he in the father and that the father and he were one. While in his state of being brought low, he bore trials, suffered on the cross, and prayed that the father would not forsake him. Yes. This is because his divine nature could not be subject to any trial, let alone suffer on the cross. Yeah. The divine nature is like that's like well, I'm going to throw a stick at the sun. That's going to really hurt the sun. You know, the stick will just be burned up but that you you can't hurt the sun. But human flesh, you can absolutely hurt. It's very very vulnerable.

>> I don't know if it ever clicked. So, what's going on with there's these two states and one of them is I mean you could say is this is God voluntarily saying, "I need to put myself into a state where I forget that I'm God."

>> God. That's right.

>> Because when I'm in that state I can be attacked. I can suffer. I can have these trials.

>> Evil spirits can be close and attack me. I can have doubts. I can have despair, which when Swedenborg back back to the what you and I go through in in our little lives, the these trials of the dark nights of the soul, the despair is a crucial element in it Yeah. because of the way it frees you from uh pride and uh you know self-sufficiency like you don't believe there's a

>> That's right. a God. So, it it and and really like makes you it just opens the gates for love to come in. Your empathy goes up. All this sort of stuff.

>> Yeah, empathy and compassion.

>> mysterious.

>> else going through this. Right. Yeah. So, that's another piece. But the there were there's these two states and the state of the God help me from Jesus is when God does some kind of magic trick where he can like all right I can even though somehow the divine nature is still running everything and aware I Oh, guess God's not in time, right? So, I don't I don't know. I don't know how you divide it out, but there's something to um I need to create a this miracle that makes it so I forget that I'm God. So much so that hell can kind of pile on and I can Right.

>> go through this purification process or do whatever I need to do without destroying hell and cuz otherwise they couldn't even get close to me. It's so It's so good. And I think if people look this up in in themselves as they say don't we I I certainly relate to that that there's just times where I'm surprised like if I'm doing a a performance or or you know, a musical performance, something like that I'm just like in my element. I'm firing on all cylinders and it's it's just great. The next day often kind of a basket case, [laughter] you know. I just It's hard for me to tie my shoes or get anything [laughter] done. Uh you know, try to get traction on life cuz I've just sort of like, you know I'm not really going to say this, but pretend I was like, "Oh, did you have a show last night?"

>> [laughter]

>> I never say that. Thank you. It's too rude. It's too rude. But I I know that like

>> [laughter]

>> I was like, "Jonathan would appreciate a joke like this." So

>> right. Yeah, actually this this is the good version right now believe it or not. But [laughter] Uh but uh uh uh Yeah. I definitely find that there are states where I'm surprised that wow, this is really going well. You know? And then there's states like wow, I am stuck as you say just just just stuck on you know, scrolling on my phone or whatever it is. Just mindlessly can't seem to get out of a out of a rut. Sometimes physically can't can't get off the couch or something like that. I'm just like besieged in my mind or something. can't can't function and and uh oh so I kind of it's nice again to have the divinity that that you can kind of relate you know you can relate to sometimes being in the zone being in your strength and sometimes relate to oh I must be being emptied out right now cuz this is really humbling and giving me compassion for for everybody who goes through this you know a lot like we're all subject to this

Well isn't it sort of a cliche like you know highly regarded relationship therapist they're struggling their own marriage Yeah. Or or they're like life having your life together guru life is a mess or like spiritual spiritual teacher you know is caught yelling at their assistants you know Yeah or or uh contractor who does the brilliant work on other people's houses their own house has this sort of mess in the back that they've been meaning to get around to on the weekends but they're kind of tired and I I don't know if this is the same thing or or different but definitely this feeling of yeah you're you're on and then you're off there's there's two states in your life even like you you mentioned playing a concert and and I can imagine that like oh yeah you're on like I sometimes like there's every once in a while I give talks like speeches and so I've seen you

>> Yeah that's great.

>> so I definitely will like beforehand I'll be like I feel anxious and I do wish I wasn't doing this and then when I go up there I'm doing it it will just kind of flow and even sometimes I will be like on the stage and I'm talking and I can see that little clock there and I kind of have this sort of like okay I'm getting through it right now even while I'm talking like okay so I was like all right this is going great this is I can tell the program's kicked in Cool, there's this many minutes to go, you know? Like it's it is this

>> I know what you're talking about, yeah. That's right. Yeah, where it's part of me part of me is deep into the song. Another part sort of glancing at the setlist going, "Okay, three more songs and then we've got that one." And Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Right. So, there's this weird

>> This does happen in humans. Yeah. And there's a strange thing before a a gig like that or whatever you want to call it where I'll kind of almost feel my lower self being kind of pushed aside or sometimes I go through fear and anxiety, you know, pretty intensely uh and then when it kicks in then I'm having a great time like I like like this is who I really am, you know? And you feel bulletproof. I don't know, you know, it feels great.

>> Uh so, it's so funny cuz like you know, we have these sort of public-facing personas. I yeah I'm in we've made like thousand more than thousand like 2,000 videos and I'm in most of those and and I'm always like sitting here, you know, talking spiritual and like this is and you got to, you know, there's bigger things and why is this and that. And then that's great. And then in my private life like I'm just like very anxious and like struggle to accomplish things. It just like definitely there's like the And sometimes and and not always. Sometimes I'm on a roll like, "All right, I'm doing this. I'm thinking I believe in these you know, sort of freeing concepts that buoy me above the" And then like a lot of times it's not. You definitely like you're on and you're off, you You're on and you're off. You're on and you're off. And so, I guess the implication for what we're talking about today is that Jesus actually kindly showed us his on and his off.

>> Yeah.

>> And you can kind of tell when he's in these two If you don't understand the two states, it's really like, "What is happening?" He's also inconsistent.

>> What is so inconsistent? Like how can you one one minute be saying, "I don't want to go through the crucifixion." when that was the whole reason you came on the planet, you know, and another time you're saying, you know, "I'm the son of man and there's all this apocalyptic huge stuff is going to happen in the future be through the son of me, you know, judging the the all the people and it's massive things.

>> Well, okay, and you mentioned Gethsemane before that that's remarkable cuz he's actually not just but saying, "Can we please not do this?"

>> not? Isn't it true that or is it right after? I don't know, but they they come up in the garden and one of his everyone comes to take him Yes. and one of his disciples cuts off the ear of the person and he that would be a great time for him to say, "Oh, yeah, protect me or even to say not to stop it and just to say to God, sorry, I tried to get crucified. These people say like protected me too much." But he stops and says, "No, don't stop this from happening. Heal the ear. Let's go forward." What Which one is it? Like you [laughter] could have gotten out of it right there.

>> Right. And he's doing this absolutely divine miraculous thing of healing this ear.

>> Yeah. Divine from the point of view of sort of knowing how to reattach somebody's ear, you know, and divine from the compassion to somebody who's in the

opposite side from you. This is your enemy, you know, they like he's the servant of the high priest who's coming to arrest you and you're being very, very kind to him and saying, "No, we shouldn't hurt this guy. He's a great guy." Oh, and also, if you can heal somebody's ear that gets cut off. Uh, if you get crucified or something, you can just be healing yourself. Like, well, that's what happens.

>> Even they say, say the number, oh, if you're the son of God, you know, just jump down off the cross. Like you can do that. They're almost taunting him with the with the fact that he had has this divine connection. Continuing in that number. By means of his trials and the subsequent constant victories and by means of his suffering on the cross, which was the final trial, he completely subdued the hells and completely glorified his human nature.

>> Mhm. So, what was the point? The point wasn't to jump off the cross. That would have gotten him out of that then, but the point was to subdue the hells and you can't do that unless that you can get in there amongst them without frying them. You and and they've got to attack. There's all kind, they've got to attack to a certain extent because then they've consummated like the freedom thing. And completely glorified the human nature. So, to to to fix up the human nature, to put it through these steps so that it got where that was the point. You you missed that point if you jump down off the cross. You don't You don't do the thing.

>> You don't do the thing.

>> It's okay. In in >> And and and that's a completely selfless act to benefit everybody because by having that divine human, having an actual thoroughly divine human being will be good for everybody forever. Like it'll it'll do really, really great things for everybody.

>> So, not well, I was going to say not comparing myself to this, but we're we're allowed to compare ourselves to this because we all the whole point is that we are many versions of this, but this is also a frivolous example even within my relatively frivolous life, which is that I

>> [laughter]

>> I was I was running a race on Sunday. Uh-huh. Two days ago. Two days ago. And it was one that I like. It was a stretch for me. This is farther than I've ever had to run. And you know, it's a it's the actual like big event like you people will, you know, you got to do it. Oh, it's on the news and everything. So so tons of other people there and I was there and it was getting toward the end of it and there was like a mile or two miles left or something and I was starting to really feel like this is a lot. And so, you know, that jumped down off the cross like, well, yeah, you're tired and your legs feel very, you can stop and just walk. Just quit. You could just quit.

>> Nobody's holding a gun to your head. Right now. But the thing is like, no, the whole point of this is for me to finish it because then the the whole point was to get me motivated to get running and get like, why would you want that? Does not help what we're trying to do. That's like this like jump off the cross. Like that's not why we're here. That's not why you're here. We're like to like jump off the cross and come at you guys and nuke the entire Roman Empire and then go into hell and atom bomb, divine atom bomb. That's not what we're doing. That's not the point. So that's why I won't jump off the cross. Yeah. It's cuz that would that would you'd miss the whole point. You wouldn't get what you needed. Yeah. He actually, I mean, Herod wants him to do miracles. And he just he won't even say anything.

>> [laughter]

>> Let alone do anything. Herod's really excited about, oh, you do miracles. Oh, could you do one for me right now?

>> Yeah. Won't do it. Won't do it. That's not what we're here for. We are assured that the Lord's human nature was glorified by what it says about his glorification in the Gospels such as the following from John. The hour has come for the son of humanity to be glorified. He said, "Father, glorify your name." A voice came from heaven saying, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again."

>> Yeah. It says I have both glorified it and will glorify it again because the Lord was glorified step by step. Again, after Judas went out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of humanity is glorified, and God is glorified in him. God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him immediately."

>> You're like, "What? You're You're tell You're talking cellular biology to me. What do you What What?" Until you understand, "Oh, yeah, this is a This is an incremental process."

>> Yeah. Again, Jesus said, "Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son so that your son may also glorify you." And in Luke, was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer this and enter into his glory? These things were said about his human nature. The Lord said, "God is glorified in him, and also God will glorify him in himself, and glorify your son so that your son may also glorify you." The Lord said these things because the union was reciprocal. The divine nature with the human nature and the human nature with the divine. That is why he also said, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. And all that is mine is yours, and all that is yours is mine."

So, the union was full. Complete union and reciprocal, which is the same thing that happens on a more finite level with us and God is that, you know, there's many scriptures about that the the Lord in us and and we in the Lord, Yeah. Kind of thing or or Jesus says, "I stand at the door and knock, and anyone who opens the door, I'll come in and dine with them and they with me." It's It's It's reciprocal. Oh.

And so, that's why it's important. That's why the Trinity took the risk of, you know, why why it was expressed as a Trinity is because the Jesus part really was something new. It wasn't the same old thing. There had there had been oh, divine truth in in God. When it says that, you know, the logos participated in creation, all that stuff. Yes, there there there was the divine truth, the word in the beginning was the word. That had always been there, and all sorts of creation had happened between that love and truth, but this embodiment in the world was a was a new thing. It was an upgrade. It was something very different. And the Holy Spirit is also meaningful because that's basically just the universal accessibility of this new, you know, and that's why it says the Holy Spirit was not yet because Jesus was not yet glorified. You know, until that process was completed, you didn't have the universal availability of this, but that spiritual availability everywhere of this divine humanity is what the Holy Spirit is about. So, you can you can have your Trinity and your one God. It's it's it's possible to do it, and it's like us again that you have a a soul and a and a spirit. You have a body that's running a a race or or doing whatever. And then, there's YouTube shows and text messages and songs you write and you know, books you write that are radiating out in the world, and after you're dead and gone, the people will still be able to feel your spirit in the in the things that you wrote because they have that Curtis essence in there.

>> And that's just different than any other essence.

>> Or worse, yeah. Yeah, for better or for worse. That's right.

>> So, that I love what you said about the the human God like there's the same thing that that uh is happening with this these two steps is happening in us, but also also happens between the two parts of our mind. We talked about the inner and the outer mind. Swedenborg is always about there are some things that are lower, but ultimately they're supposed to be properly aligned with and and harmonious with the higher. He wouldn't say like, you the point of life is to banish and destroy your outer mind.

>> No. It is to get it to where it's it's got this reciprocal dwelling together, which is I guess what we're hearing about with this glorify, glorify, dwell with that Jesus is is talking about with the Father. And so much emphasizing sometimes it almost gets heady with the pronouns and everything, but it says that I and the Father, the Father and me, and I and you, and you and me, or we're we're going to be in you. You know, it's not just that those two that inside the outside get together in the divine, but also the idea is that we're we can become part of that. We can we can participate in that.

>> Yeah, because the Lord, which is what Swedenborg ends up calling, you know, this is what he calls God once this process is

>> of glorified Jesus, right, resurrected.

>> That that's the thing that we then are joining with.

>> Yes, that's right. That's right. Because that's the accessibility. That's why it says that no one comes to the Father except through me because the the if you're Muslim or Jewish or any any religion on the face of the earth, that's who you're actually that that is the face of God. That's the upgrade. Everybody gets the upgrade, you know. You don't have to know the name to to know that that's there is an accessibility that wasn't there before Jesus went through that process. So, we're saying we six-year-old that there is not three persons of God. There's not three gods. There's one God. Just like you are one person, but with different parts of yourself. You know, just like you have an observer mind and a uh lower mind and a sensory uh field. There's you can you can do these things which are op- you can look at optical illusions. And it will say like, "Can you believe it? These are actually the same color. Cover this up and you'll see." And you get to the point where your your inner self, like your rational self, gets, "Oh, yeah, those are the same color." But your sensory field absolutely cannot report that. There's There's There's clearly distinct parts of you there. And all I think what this is saying is is that Jesus is the That's That's like a It's the same structure in God that we have in ourselves. And the process of Jesus going through all this is like um It's almost like if you had a bunch of knowledge about how to be the best basketball player ever. Jesus is like actually getting out on the court. Yeah. Yeah.

So the the reason for those prayers is A, that that's actually Jesus's experience at that time. He's not sort of faking it. You know, he really does feel like he's been forsaken by God. You know, in the in those worst moments where he's really being tempted and tested and Well, okay, yes, good point. That's what we are supposed to do in those moments. It's It's showing you how it's done. That's right. That's w- because I So Swedenborg, who started to have these major temptations that that written about in the journal of dreams, That's right.

>> where he's going through all this pain and suffering and fear, uh which was

>> shuddering and everything, yeah.

>> the genesis of his whole spiritual phase, um in there he comes to the conclusion that he's supposed to get you cast everything on God and and depend on God for help.

>> Yeah. And that is the key. That's the key. That's right.

>> So, that and why why does that work? Well, because that's how you get out of hell. That's for some reason that's the orientation that makes you hell has nothing to grab onto. Yeah. And so Jesus is doing the same thing. So some for some reason that matters that in those moments Jesus is doing the same thing we're supposed to do. Yeah. So God's outer mind is looking to the inner mind. Like well, I guess I guess that would be like remember your training. If you if you've trained hard to be a Navy SEAL and you you know how to like control your heart rate and something something. If somebody's drowning, you know how to when you get into that situation, you're not supposed to look at your outer mind anymore, which is the oh no, I'm there's water in it. You're supposed to move back into your training.

>> Right.

>> that is like the outer mind of God who's being subjected to all these swirling forces just like we are, but falling back to the to the true to the training that the the divine inside, which is why you the outer mind of God could be being tortured and killed and yet could out of his mouth could come forgive them cuz they don't know what they're doing. Uh right? Isn't that what that is? That's what that is.

>> Because the the outer mind if it was just drawing on itself, even God is that that outer structure is the like um, you know, uh threat detection, eye for an eye, fight or flight. Yep. But to have that actually over like subjected to the the love that completes the circuit. That's right. When he's going through it, he says beautiful thing when Jesus is going through the crucifixion or on the way there and everything carrying the cross and he says, "Don't weep for me, weep for yourselves." It's got you know, like he's being compassionate. He in one gospel, he's even sort of getting uh his mother to adopt one of the disciples, you know,

>> [laughter]

>> I mean, he's doing really loving things and forgiving and not doing the sort of rage against your enemies, you know, get revenge. Like he just doesn't do it.

>> Yeah. Yeah. So, let's let's close by talking more about why these two states are necessary.

>> Mhm. The reason why the Lord experienced these two states, the state of being emptied out and the state of being glorified, is that no other method of achieving union could possibly exist.

>> Okay. So, it's the only way.

>> the only way. Only this method follows the divine design, and the divine design cannot be changed. The divine design is that we arrange ourselves for receiving God and prepare ourselves as a vessel and a dwelling place where God can enter and live as if we were his own temple. We have to do this preparation by ourselves, yet we have to acknowledge that the preparation comes from God. This acknowledgement is needed because we do not feel the presence or the actions of God, even though God is in fact intimately present and brings about every good love and every true belief we have. This is the divine design we follow and have to follow to go from being earthly to being spiritual.

>> Whoa. Okay, so let's let's hang on that for just a second. So, the divine design is that you have to make it God is going to come and live inside you. And that's the same thing as saying, you know, love and peace and everything good is going to come and live inside you. Right. Um you have to that can only happen if you voluntarily made room for it. You have to believe though that actually God is is the one making the room in you because you can't tell you even when God is the one who is giving you the ideas and the motivation and the you can't feel that as coming from you. It just seems like it's coming from you. So you unless you have this intellectual acknowledgement of it you come away from that with a false picture of what happened which just is a hurdle to God actually coming in, right?

>> Yeah, and it's reminding me so much I've been editing the um the story in Exodus of the Tabernacle instructions that God gave about all that and it goes on for chapters and chapters and then the and so God gives you gives Moses instructions for how to build the whole thing. But God doesn't build it. Moses gets Bezalel and people who know all this stuff and they get all the gold and the silver and the and and they get cloth materials and they make the the Tabernacle. And then at the very end of Exodus chapter 40 the divine spirit, you know, comes down like this amazing cloud and fills the whole Tabernacle and the and it works. But it only worked when people did what they followed the instructions. Yeah, right.

>> But it it God could have just well, I made a Tabernacle and I went and lived in it. No, we, you know, you have to be involved in gathering the materials and and doing that making it and then the divine can come and dwell in there. So this really is the the story of the whole Bible. It is is about this. The Lord had to go through the same processes to make his earthly human manifest manifestation divine. This is why he prayed to the Father. This is why he did the Father's will. This is why he attributed everything he said did and said to the Father. This is why he said on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" In this state, God appears to be absent. After this state comes a second one, the state of being in a partnership with God. In this second state, we do basically the same things, but now we do them with God. We no longer need to attribute to God everything good that we intend and do everything true that we think and say in the same way as we used to because now this acknowledgement is written on our heart. It is inside everything we do and everything we say. In the same way, the Lord united himself to his Father and the Father united himself to the Lord. In a nutshell, the Lord glorified his human nature, meaning that he made it divine in the same way he regenerates us, meaning that he makes us spiritual. It's beautiful.

So, we have to clear ourselves out, invite God in. That is done in this way of hey, I need your help. Yep. And Jesus is doing that same thing because the process that's happening is the divine being invited into the the human, the outermost level.

>> That's right. I I love that point in there because it's so true in the New Testament. You can see it again and again that he says the the words that I'm telling you are not my words. You know, I'm saying what what the Father gives me to say, that's what I say. Um the works that I do, you know, that's all all comes from the one who sent me into the world and uh so, that's the humble He's showing the humble side of it again to say this doesn't come from himself. He's doing everything that the book says to do because he's making himself a tabernacle, a dwelling place. Right. And it works. You know, the divine fully moves in and he becomes one with the with the divine.

Okay. So, if we were to explain to a six-year-old the whole thing, the whole show, uh we would say you have a uh uh uh everybody is like they are because this is God's design for how people should be. And part of what it is is like you've got sort of stuff deep in your heart and then stuff that's out here, you know, your your inner beauty and your outer beauty and those things need to connect. You need to get to where you're you all the way through. Yes. You're you all the way through. Your best you. Yeah. And uh then when you are it's like you really you're you're there. Like you're really present. There's not a part of you that's kind of hiding away. It's like you're really present. God uh needed to be really there. Needed to become present in a way that he never had before because there was a need. He needed to be there. He needed to rush off and and rescue us. So, in order to get to where we are, he had to uh become like us in a new way. And he did that it in the same way that all of us become ourselves, um but just on the the cosmic level. So, just like God is the our creator, always knows what's going on with us, and envisioned our lives before we were born, is the source of our lives. This is all according to Swedenborg. And yet, we walk around saying, you know, is there Does God even exist? Will you Will you help me? Where are you? What are you doing? Yeah. Um Uh so, that's just a part of it. And sometimes you feel confident, and sometimes you don't. Uh so, that's but it's through this process of living life that you form that connection. That's the process Jesus was going through. So, you have times when it's he he sees it for what it is, and there's times when he doesn't. And he needed to be like God God needed to put himself into that box so that he could do this important thing. That's pretty long. Six-year-old lost it probably lost interest by the end of that. But But it's, you know, there's a logic. Yeah, and you can say check back in when you're 12 and

>> Yeah, we'll We'll talk then. Yeah, this is definitely Our Our show is more aimed at 12-year-olds anyway.

>> That's right.