Friday 21 December 2018

Jacob Boehme on the Inner Christ

There is no doubt that, as some will have it, the legend of the descent of the Redeemer is the description of an astrological process; but this theory, far from disproving the incarnation of divine wisdom into a human form, confirms it; because that which takes place in the macrocosm produces corresponding effects in the microcosm. In man is the sun, the moon, the stars, and the whole of the zodiac. In the microcosm is represented every part of the macrocosm in its material a...nd spiritual aspect. When man sees the external sun rise in the outer world, the sun in him arises and gives joy to his heart. Any individual person, or also humanity as a whole, may become either a god or a devil incarnate.(Franz Hartmann, Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme, 226:2)

The Christ can never be born or revealed in any impure soul. A soul wherein regeneration is to take place must be an immaculate virgin, having no intercourse with any external god; but executing the will of God dwelling within herself. 229:1

"God lives also in man." (Threefold Life, xi. 106.) Each human being (if he is not godless) carries God and the Christ, the Holy Spirit, the virgin Mary, together with the angel Gabriel and all the rest of the angels and spirits within himself. It is, therefore, of little use to seek for all that in history. We can find it nowhere except within ourselves. 235:2

Whenever I speak of the man Christ, and of what a triune God and man He is, I make a distinction between the human creature, that came from us human beings, and the triune Divinity, the revealed word of the power and omnipotence. Not that they are separated from each other, but the Spirit of God is higher than the being to which that Spirit gives birth in its outbreathed word. I do not say that the sweet and beloved Christ is the man, but it is the holy sunshine in the flame of love in the man; for whenever I see a holy Christian man stand or walk I do not say, "Here stands or walks Christ;" but I say, "Here stands and walks a Christian man in whom shines the sun of Christ." (Jacob Boehme, Stief. 421.) 237:2

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