“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.” Therefore He shall give them up, Until the time that she who is in labor has given birth; Then the remnant of His brethren shall return to the children of Israel. And He shall stand and feed His flock In the strength of the LORD, In the majesty of the name of the LORD His God; And they shall abide, For now He shall be great To the ends of the earth; And this One shall be peace. (Micah 5:2-5)

And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:1-7)

The knowledge of correspondences lasted among many eastern peoples down to the Lord’s coming, as may be proved from the wise men from the east who came to the Lord on His birth. So a star went before them, and they brought with them gold, frankincense and myrrh. And the shepherds were told, as a sign that they should know He was the Lord, that they would see Him in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes, because there was no place at the inn. For the star which went before them meant knowledge coming from heaven, since stars in the Word mean pieces of knowledge. Gold meant celestial good, frankincense spiritual good, and myrrh natural good, all worship being from these three sources. The manger in which the baby Lord was found by the shepherds means spiritual nourishment, because horses which feed from a manger mean matters of the intellect. The inn, where there was no place, meant the Jewish church, where at that time there was no spiritual nourishment, because everything in the Word and thus every detail of their worship was adulterated and perverted. This is why it is said that this should be a sign for them that it was the Lord (Luke 2:12). (De Verbo 7{5})

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed his people (Luke 1:68)

It never ceases to amaze me how the simplicity and innocence that surrounds the scene of the Lord’s birth into the world unfolds something new every time we take the time to reflect on it. The scene has the power to touch every heart open to the idea that the God of all that is seeks to connect in a very intimate way with each and every member of the human race. And to do that, He came to us clothed in innocence as a small vulnerable infant – harmless, non-threatening, and as one among us.

Children, particularly infants, draw forth from within us powerful affections that look to their care and protection. Such feelings remind us of the importance of protecting those things that are good and true in our lives because it is within these that the Lord is able to be present with us. One of the most important things we can do in regard to the spiritual life is to protect the sanctity of the Word in our own thought and conversation. If we do this from a desire to practice it and thereby connect with the Lord, it will take its place more and more at the centre of our lives.

Knowledge leads to understanding and understanding leads to Wisdom which is a product of Love. This progression is represented by the Magi of the East being lead by a star to the place where the Lord was born. All journeys in the Word speak of the progression of spiritual or mental states that we pass through as the Lord’s desire for the salvation of the human race unfolds for us. The wise men being led by a star speaks of the importance of living our lives according to the knowledge we have of spiritual principles or truths. Stars were vital for navigation across desert regions. They are reliable, fixed points of reference relative to the traveller. Yet this star that the wise men followed appears not to be fixed but went before them until it stood over where the infant lay. Stars in the Word correspond to our knowledge of what is good and true, they are like the principles that guide us in how to live our life. Such knowledge, while we are developing, is in a sense on the move as we grow in our understanding of what the heavenly life is about. As we grow in our understanding and knowledge of spiritual things so our views and perceptions undergo subtle and not so subtle shifts, guiding us closer and closer to states of innocence and love.

This is the purpose for which knowledge is given that we might come to learn what it is to love. The light from the stars in our own understanding beckon us onward to embrace the fullness that love has to offer. So it is that the star or our knowledge of what the Word teaches, that leads us according to our willingness to follow – it leads us to Bethlehem which means “house of bread”. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied the Scriptures declare. For those on the spiritual path are driven by a deep-seated need to be filled. Bread corresponds to the Lord’s goodness or love. The end towards which spiritual knowledge is drawn is always love. Goodness or love is the only thing that can fill the inner hunger or deepest longing of the human heart. We shall be filled when we are willing to follow the Lord in His Word, for it is obedience that opens the door for the Lord to transform our very being and life into one that delights to do His will.

When we finally come into the innocence and love we have been seeking we shall recognise it immediately. Like the wise men, we gladly pay homage to innocence and love as the promised King or ruling principle of our life. The wise men describe our spiritual journey or progression from knowledge about love to the perception of love in our very midst, as the source of our very life. They describe the movement of our understanding of spiritual things. But such shifts in our understanding that arise from practicing the Word don’t happen in isolation, for it is through a genuine practice that our affections also undergo a shift in their attachments.

Truths teach us how we are to live. As we begin to live our lives in accordance with our understanding of the Word there is built up within us a sense of care for the spiritual well being of others. These are new heavenly affections that develop to allow the Word into our life and they are described by the “shepherds who watch their flocks by night”. Shepherds describe those aspects within us that look to the care and well being of the inner flock made up of innocent affections that look to be led by the Word as the Lord. Just as truth seeks love, so love seeks truths through which it can find its expression. For the shepherds, there is no star like we see with the Magi or wise men but an announcement from the angel of the Lord accompanied by a heavenly host.  Angels, when abstracted from the idea of being people, correspond to truths from the Word from which all knowledge concerning the Lord’s birth within us can be drawn.

Angels are more fully present with those who are actively shepherding a love for spiritual and heavenly things by consciously being engaged in a search for how they might love others more effectively. That they are described as, “watching their flocks by night,” teaches us that the important thing is not so much about getting it right, or being in clear light as to what it is we need to do, but rather that of being in the effort to act on the limited knowledge of spiritual principles we have.

So in the wise men and shepherds, we have described how the spiritual journey or progression affects the two faculties of the mind. With the wise men we have described those things that relate to our understanding of truths, and in the shepherds, we have those things that relate to the affectional or will part of the mind. The story shows us that both our understanding and will need to be brought together, to the Word as the Lord, who is found in a humble stable area lying in a manger because there was no room at the inn.

Both our will and understanding need to be connected to the Lord and this can only be achieved through the Word, for it is the Word with its love and innocence that is able to transform and recreate the human heart and mind. The building commonly described as the inn was probably not an inn at all, and most likely Joseph’s ancestral home. The Greek word used to describe this structure is kataluo and interestingly it is used for one other structure in the New Testament, that of the upper room in which the Lord held his final Passover meal with His disciples before being betrayed.

The Lord came into the world to get access to the kataluo and found Himself shut out. If we are to have our understanding of the Lord’s birth expanded in terms of its meaning for us we need to ask what is this kataluo might be within us. Again the Greek manuscripts provide us with some insight into what’s going on spiritually – the word room as in, “there was no room for them”, literally refers to no space being available due to it not having been being partitioned off. It contains the idea that the space was not available because it was non-existent. In the Word, the structures that people live in correspond to the human mind.

When the Lord as the Word first enters our consciousness it cannot access our kataluo because this level of mind at a personal level does not yet exist. All that is available to the Lord as far as we are concerned is the lowest reaches of our natural mind. The spiritual within the natural mind has yet to be formed, in that it has yet to be partitioned or separated off from what is natural. For example, when a person first hears the story of the birth of the Lord they see it from a purely natural historical perspective. These days many view this story as a myth or a simple story for children. Yet there is much more here, for it is a story of the way in which we experience the formation of what is spiritual from what is natural. It is the story of our reception of the Word as we enter each new beginning on the spiritual path. Until a spiritual mind is created within us we are limited to a natural, sense based, perspective of spiritual things. We begin our journey with the Word from the ground up. So it is that Joseph, our ability to reason, and Mary, our intuitive affectional faculty for knowing, are limited to a room below that level of mind represented by the kataluo. The kataluo is not an equivalent term for stable as we in the West might understand it. For in the East many houses had a lower floor where livestock was traditionally housed for protection from the elements in winter and other dangers. It also meant that those of the house had ready access to their animals and the products they supplied.

The Lord’s life on earth depicts the creation of a spiritual level of mind within us, hence prior to his death we see Him with His disciples in the kataluo preparing them for His departure which will move them from a sense based dependence upon His physical presence with them, to an opening of their spiritual perception of the reality of the Living God in their midst. That the Lord was born in that space preserved for the keeping of domesticated livestock is a beautiful image of the Word finding its place in our natural mind amidst the gentle natural affections for good represented by the uses that domesticated animals serve.

We now come to the Lord Himself who makes His presence felt within our hearts and minds as one in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes. If we are searching for the Lord this is where He is found. A manger is a vessel from which livestock is fed. We have already seen that domesticated animals correspond to the gentle living affections that make up the life of those who love what is good. Affections are desires and as such serve to motivate us to search for what might fulfil them.

We can see this in natural bodily desires such as hunger and thirst. Higher spiritual affections work in a similar way and motivate our seeking of truth to fulfil our spiritual thirst and love to fulfil our spiritual hunger. The Lord is love incarnate and the swaddling clothes represent ideas of innocence within which love can be found. Our ideas of innocence when drawn from the Word are able to envelop and support tender affections and draw them forth within our consciousness as feelings of peace and tenderness.

To feed spiritually is to learn truths in order that we might know how to love appropriately. The doctrines for Spiritual Christianity teach that we cannot learn to love from a truly spiritual perspective of ourselves but are in need of truths and principles to guide our thinking, feeling and acting. Our view of God, whatever it may be, forms the centre of our mind and exerts its influence to structure our thinking and perceptive faculties so that our experience of life supports this view. How important then is it that the view we develop is able to capture those qualities depicted in the Nativity story. It teaches us that above all else the ruling idea we are to draw from the Word concerning the Lord is one of love and innocence. The manger corresponds to those truths that provide us with a true picture of the Lord as the Divine Love and Wisdom that is constantly looking to our eternal welfare.

May we be inspired to carry the spirit of the Christmas story in our heart – to seek the Lord so that we might have our minds recreated into His image and likeness.

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the name of the virgin was Mary. And the angel coming in to her said, Hail, thou who art graced! The Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women. But when she saw him she was disturbed by his word, and reasoned with herself what manner of greeting this was. And the angel said to her, Fear not, Mary; for thou hast found grace with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son, and shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give to Him the throne of His father David. And He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end. But Mary said to the angel, How shall this be, since I know not a man. And the angel answering said to her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that which shall be born of thee Holy shall be called the Son of God. (Luke 1: 26-35)

The Lord is present with every man, urging and pressing to be received; and His first coming, which is called the dawn, is when man receives Him, which he does when he acknowledges Him as his God, Creator, Redeemer, and Saviour. From this time man’s understanding begins to be enlightened in spiritual things, and to advance into a more and more interior wisdom; and as he receives this wisdom from the Lord, he advances through morning into day, and this day lasts with him into old age, even to death; and after death he passes into heaven to the Lord Himself; and there, although he died an old man, he is restored to the morning of his life, and the rudiments of the wisdom implanted in him in the natural world grow to eternity. (True Christian Religion 766)

The Lord is ever pressing to be born into the world of our thoughts and affections. The Christmas story is a universal story in the sense it represents the supreme hope that all might be born from above and, in being spiritually born, might have the kingdom of heaven established in their hearts. It is the story of the Lord’s provision for the salvation of the human race. And because this is the case He chose to be born into the world as an infant and to grow and develop according to the laws that govern natural life and, through being subject to those laws, was exposed to the violence and hatred that lay within the human heart and condition. When we talk of the salvation of the human race we cannot avoid facing up to our own responsibility for the unregenerate condition of the human heart, from which the Lord seeks to deliver us all. Every aspect of the Lord’s birth into the world as recorded in the Word corresponds to what must take place in the mind of every human being if He is to truly become their Saviour.

The doctrines for Spiritual Christianity teach that the Lord came into the world to deliver us from the influence and power of the hells by fighting against them and defeating them by His own power. This work of redemption is set before the world in detail where it is dealt with in what is termed the internal historical sense of the Word. This sense works on a level that describes the final states of decline and last judgment upon the Jewish Church and the states of the newly arising Christian Church. This sense of the Word is called the internal historical sense because it deals with the state of the beliefs and affections that are active within a Church at a particular time in human history. It is a way of reading Scripture that keeps the mind in historical associations tied to events in the external world. So in the case of the Lord’s Advent, the focus is often on what was happening in the Church at that point in time and what the events surrounding the Lord’s birth represented in that context. What is termed the internal historical sense is but one step away from a purely natural understanding of the Scriptures, in which everything is understood according to the literal meaning of the words themselves.

This level of meaning is provided to support us when we are bound to thinking naturally about spiritual things. But there comes a time when we must lay aside natural things if we are to enter into the spiritual things that lie within natural things. To understand the Lord’s birth into the world in the light of the revelation that is offered in the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity, involves understanding the Word in a way that is more aligned with how things are understood by the angels, who, being purely in the spiritual meaning of the Word don’t entertain anything belonging to ideas of person, place, space and time. Think about that for a moment, the angels have no concept of persons, places, spatial relations, or historical facts when contemplating the Lord’s Advent. This is because these things belong to the natural mode of thought and we know that angels don’t think naturally, they think spiritually. In other words, they don’t think in terms of historical events when they think of the Lord’s Advent, rather they think solely in terms of mental events or states of mind. This means that angels have no idea of the persons in the world mentioned in the Word. They can’t form concepts of people mentioned in the Word as historical figures, whether that’s Joseph, or Mary, the wise men, Herod or anyone else including the infant Jesus.

…the angels in heaven never fix their thoughts on specific persons; that would restrict their thoughts and remove them from that all-inclusive perception of real things that lies behind angelic speech. This explains why the things that the angels in heaven say are indescribable, far surpassing human thought, whose range does not extend to seeing things in their totality but is restricted to particular aspects. When one reads therefore in Matt. 8:11 that many will come from the east and the west and recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, the angels perceive the Lord’s presence and the way people make the truth and goodness emanating from His Divine Human their own. (Arcana Coelestia 6804)

…in the Word it is customary to speak of persons; but those who are in its spiritual sense, as angels are, do not think of persons at all, but their thought is abstracted from persons, and has respect therefore solely to things. The reason is, that it is material to think of persons, but spiritual to think apart from the idea of persons; (Apocalypse Explained 100)

If angels can’t form an idea of Mary as a historical figure then they can’t form ideas connected with the historical events that she was involved with including giving birth to a child. So we see that for angels the historical events surrounding the Lord’s birth into the world are simply not something they have any interest in. Now as radical as this idea may seem to the sensibilities of the natural mind, it doesn’t mean that the historical events as described in the Gospels didn’t take place. They did, just as they are described, yet from an angelic or spiritual perspective they are not where our focus should be when contemplating the wonder of the Lord’s Advent and His love for the salvation of the human race.

The sense of the letter of the Word, with its historical focus, serves a vital use for communication between the heavens and the earth. That use is such that when people in the world read the Word it provides the basis for a spiritual influx into their minds and, if they are receptive of that influx, they are able to be enlightened by the Lord…

The sense of the letter of the Word is the basis of Divine truth in the heavens, and without such a basis the Divine truth would be like a house without a foundation, and without such a basis the wisdom of the angels would be like a house in the air. It is the sense of the letter of the Word in which the power of Divine truth consists. It is the sense of the letter of the Word through which man is enlightened by the Lord and through which he receives answers when he wishes to be enlightened. It is the sense of the letter of the Word by which everything of doctrine on the earth must be confirmed. In the sense of the letter of the Word is the Divine truth in its fullness. In the sense of the letter of the Word the Divine truth is in its holiness. (Apocalypse Explained 1066{4})

What this is saying is that it is the sense of the letter of the Word that provides the means by which naturally minded thinking can be joined with what is spiritual. However, the power of the letter lies not in its literal meaning, but in its ability to bring naturally mind thought into contact with the spiritual ideas within it when it is understood according to teachings that unfold its interior meaning. The historical events and people depicted in the story of the Lord’s Advent all point to a deeper, or higher, spiritual understanding of these things. The Word and the Word alone, as we have it in the letter, through the internal meaning this conveys, is able to lift our vision out of a natural understanding based on historical events into a spiritual understanding of how the Word works in our minds to bring forth the Lord anew. When angelic thinking contemplates the Lord’s Advent it doesn’t understand His birth into the world in a material body but instead as the process by which the Divine Goodness or Love is made visible in the natural mind through truths from the Word.

In the Word of the Old Testament, in the spiritual sense of the prophetic portion, and also in its natural sense wherever the spiritual sense shines through, the subject is the Lord alone, namely, His advent in the fullness of time, a time when the goodness of charity and the truth of faith would no longer be present in the church, whose state then is called a consummation, a being laid waste, a desolation, and a cutting off. It includes as well His battles with the hells and victories over them, which constitute also the last judgment that He executed, and after that the creation of a new heaven and the establishment of a new church, which are the Lord’s kingdom to come. All of this is found in the Word of the New Testament, too, in the portion called the Gospels, and in particular in the book of Revelation. (Apocalypse Revealed 478{2})

It is through coming into an understanding the spiritual meaning of the Word and its application to the life of our mind that the historical things in the Word serve their true use. In giving us access to a purer spiritual understanding of things the historical aspects of the letter are able to support the work of our salvation through the regeneration of our mind. The Lord makes His First Advent as the Divine Truth or the Word and this is only possible with those in whom the affection for truth is active. This affection for truth is active when a person is motivated to seek out truths from the Word and apply them to the life of their mind. The affection for what is good and true is what is meant by a virgin in the Word. In the case of Mary, we have represented the affection for truth that is open to receiving the Word which is what is meant by…

The angel said to Mary, Behold thou shalt conceive in the womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call His name Jesus; He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High. But Mary said unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? The angel answered her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; wherefore also the Holy One that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:30-35).

These verses describe the full progression of those states of mind a person moves through as they go from understanding the Word as something from the Lord through to it actually being perceived as the Lord in all His fullness (True Christian Religion 6). By the angel speaking to Mary, spiritually is understood heavenly influx. This is received into the mind and brought into our awareness from truths present there that we have drawn from the Word through the operation of the affection for truth represented by Mary. The genuine affection for truth looks to the Word as the basis for its life. As we apply these truths to the life of our mind the promise of something higher to be conceived begins to dawn in our awareness. And so it is that through the practice of the Word from the affection for truth, or what is the same, through the work of shunning evils as sins against the Lord, a person enters into the doctrine of genuine truth. This doctrine formed in the mind becomes a womb through which the Lord can be brought forth to view as the spiritual sense of the Word in the natural plane of our awareness. For true doctrine, affirmed and illustrated through the spiritual practice of self-examination and repentance forms the basis for lifting our minds out of the historical aspects of the letter of the Word into its spiritual sense. This is what is meant by Mary bringing forth a son…,

“A son, a male” signifies the doctrine of truth for the church which is called “the New Jerusalem,” because “son” signifies truth, and “a son, a male” signifies the truth of doctrine from the Word, consequently the doctrine of genuine truth which is for the church. (Apocalypse Explained 725)

This doctrine is the son that shall be called Jesus or Jehovah our Saviour. This doctrine is the the Holy One.. who is ...called the Son of God. This is how the angels of heaven understand those things belonging to the Lord’s Advent for they are not concerned with persons and events in time as naturally minded people are, for they are with the Lord, forever focused on eternal things that have to do with the regeneration of the human mind. To enter into the true spirit of Christmas is to behold the Word as the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth, this is our God and He alone is our Saviour. Apart from the acknowledgment of truths through their practise no one can be saved for…

…every man is reformed and regenerated by means of truths, for without truths man does not know what is good, or what is the nature of good, thus does not know the way to heaven, so truth, which is what is first born from the marriage of truth and good, was sanctified to Jehovah. This truth first born is also the doctrine of truth, for that which is first is the all in what follows, thus is in all truth, and all truth is doctrine. But it must be carefully noted that “the firstborn” signifies the truth that is of the good of charity, consequently it signifies the good of charity in its form and in its quality, and therefore truth. For truth is the form of good and the quality of good. This is signified by “the firstborn,” because from the good of love, which is signified by the womb and the infant in it, nothing else can be born but the good of charity; and this good does not become good until it has been formed and qualified, that is, until it is in the form in which it has its quality, and its form is called truth, and yet it is good in form. (Apocalypse Explained 725{4})