The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained/Chapter8
VIII.—The Doctrine of the Cross.
By most Christians—by all, indeed, who have assumed the title of "evangelical"—the doctrine of the Cross is esteemed the most precious and vital of all the doctrines of Christianity. There is no other doctrine so much dwelt upon by the religious press, so often introduced into pulpit discourses, or so strongly emphasized by teaching ministers, as this. But the doctrine as commonly held and taught, is not the true doctrine—far from it. It is the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice—the doctrine of "substitution"—interpreted to mean, that the physical agony which Christ endured on the cross, was the price of redemption, the penalty demanded by an angry God as the sole condition of pardon and forgiveness of sin; and that all who accept this doctrine, do thereby have their sins blotted out, and receive the Divine forgiveness through the merits of Christ's sufferings and death.
The doctrine as thus interpreted, is seen to be purely naturalistic. There is nothing spiritual in it, and nothing that helps us spiritually. It is suited to the apprehension of the merely natural man; and we can easily understand why it is held to so tenaciously and prized so highly, and why those who have once confirmed themselves in it, find its rejection so difficult, and the bare thought of such a thing so terrible. For the denial of this doctrine (as they have received and understood it), deprives them of the hope of salvation—leaves
their heavy debt of sin unsatisfied, its penalty unpaid, their pardon unsecured. No wonder, therefore, that it is a hard doctrine to get rid of when once accepted and confirmed.
The New Doctrine on this Subject.
What, now, is the New Church doctrine on the subject? According to its teachings, the passion of the Cross was the consummation of that stupendous series of spiritual conflicts whereby the Lord subdued the hells, wrought deliverance for man by restoring the equilibrium of the moral universe, and glorified the humanity He assumed. It was the final and combined assault of the infernals upon the Prince of peace—the last and crowning act in the sublime work of redemption and glorification.
And thus the Cross becomes a symbol full of heavenly—yea, of divine significance. It symbolizes those spiritual conflicts—conflicts between heaven and hell in the soul, or between the spiritual and the natural man—which every one who enters the kingdom of heaven by being born from Above, is called to endure. This inward conflict between good and evil, is spiritual temptation. It is the battle of the Lord, sometimes fierce and desperate—always more or less painful to the soul of him who engages in it. But it is indispensable to the soul's purification and complete development—indispensable to the unfolding of the highest and noblest life, or to the final victory of the spiritual over the natural man—inseparable from and indispensable to our regeneration. It is the spiritual warfare of which Paul speaks, and which every regenerating soul must endure—a warfare needful to the purifying and strengthening of the soul, and necessary, therefore, to its entrance into the kingdom of heaven.
From this we may learn what is the true meaning of taking up the cross, and why the Lord says: "He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me;" and "if any one will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." When we see and acknowledge our evils, and strive with the Lord's help to overcome them, or to bring them into complete subjection to the revealed lays of our higher or heavenly life, we are doing the very thing which is signified in the spiritual sense by "taking up our cross." And as it was in this way that the Lord overcame the hells which infested his assumed humanity, and so made that humanity Divine, we are really and in the true sense "following" Him, when we thus deny self and take up our cross.
Thus the doctrine of the Cross, as held and taught in the New Church, is at once rational and spiritual, and eminently practical. It involves the doctrine of Christ's glorification, and of our regeneration which is its image and likeness. It involves, further, the doctrine of our entire dependence on the Lord for strength to overcome our evils, as well as for wisdom to engage in the conflict therewith. Rightly understood, therefore, and practically viewed, this doctrine is seen to be one of supreme importance.
"By taking up the cross," says Swedenborg, "is meant to undergo temptations." (Ap. Ex. 893.) And spiritual temptations are conflicts between good and evil, or heaven and hell in the soul. "The Lord while in the world and in his human there, did, of his own proper ability, sustain and overcome all temptations; differing in this from every man, who in no case sustains and overcomes any temptation of his own proper ability, but from that of the Lord in him. . . . In spiritual temptations there is a dispute as to dominion, or as to which shall have the supremacy, the internal or the external, or what is the same, the spiritual or the natural man—these being entirely opposite to each other. When man is in temptations, his internal or spiritual man is under the Lord's rule by means of angels, but his external or natural man is under the rule of infernal spirits; and the combat between them is what is perceived in man as temptation." (A. C. n. 3927.)
"The ends to which temptations are conducive, are these: They gain for good dominion over evil, and for truth, dominion over the false; they confirm truths in the mind, and conjoin them to good; and they disperse evils and the falsities thence derived. They serve also to open the internal spiritual man, and to bring the natural into subjection to it; to destroy the loves of self and the world, and to subdue the lusts which proceed from them." (N. J. D. n. 194.)
"Regeneration has this for its end: that the life of the old man may die, and the new life which is celestial may revive or be established. Hence it may be seen that there must at all events be conflict; for the life of the old man resists, nor is it willing to be extinguished; and the life of the new man cannot enter unless where the life of the old is extinct. . . .
"He who thinks from an enlightened rational principle, may see from this that man cannot be regenerated without combat, that is, without spiritual temptations; and further, that he is not regenerated by one temptation, but by many; for there are many kinds of evil which constituted the delight of his former life, that is, the old life; and all these evils cannot be subdued at once and together, for they inhere tenaciously, since they were rooted in the parents for many ages back, and hence are become innate in man, and confirmed by actual evils of his own from childhood; all of which evils are diametrically opposite to celestial good which is to be insinuated and to constitute the new life." (A. C. n. 8403.)