Meditate | Trust to Transform

Meditate is a monthly column in which Chelsea shares insights she has gained from meditating on the Word. You can too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column -Editor.

“Asking the Lord a question is done by consulting the Word. For the Word has the Lord present within it. He is present there because the Word consists of divine truth that comes from him” (Arcana Coelestia 10548).

“Surely everyone realizes that you cannot inject mercy into ruthlessness, or innocence into revenge, or love into hatred, or harmony into discord. Doing so would be mixing heaven and hell.

People who have not been reborn are, in spirit, like panthers and eagle-owls; they can be compared to brambles and stinging nettles. People who have been reborn are like sheep and doves, and they can be compared to olive trees and grapevines. Please consider, if you will, how panther-people could possibly be converted into sheep-people, or eagle-owls into doves, or brambles into olive trees, or stinging nettles into grapevines, through any assignment or attribution or application of divine justice. Would that process not sooner condemn them than justify them? In reality, in order for that conversion to take place the predatory nature of the panther and the eagle owl and the damaging nature of brambles and the stinging nettles must first be removed and something truly human and harmless implanted in their place. The Lord in fact teaches in John 15: 1-7 how this transformation occurs” (True Christianity 642).

Swedenborg just casually throws it out there that the answer to the weighty question, “How are we transformed?” is taught plainly in John 15: 1-7. Well, I had to explore.

John 15: 1-7: Jesus is the true vine and “My Father the vinedresser. Every branch that doesn’t bear fruit HE takes away; and every branch that bears fruit HE prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (1-2).

Going into reading this I had in mind what I’d just read in True Christianity, that the hurtful nature needs to be removed first and then “something truly human and harmless” can be implanted in its place. My first thought on reading this was that it is something I have to do. But John 15: 2 makes it entirely clear that the work is done by the Lord. HE takes away unfruitful branches (removes hurtful nature) and prunes the fruitful ones (implants heavenly nature). Okay, reading on.

“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you” (3). So somehow knowing or internalizing the teaching of the verse before makes us clean. Wow. We’re already clean, but there’s still a transformation that needs to occur. Hmm.

“ABIDE in ME, and I in you…If anyone does NOT abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered…If you ABIDE in ME and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you” (4, 6, 7). So abiding in the Lord is key. Abiding in the Lord seems to be the requisite foundation for any of the other promises He’s making to be real—to have the unfruitful branches taken away, the fruitful ones pruned, and a core state of cleanness throughout.

These first seven verses I categorize as the ‘first part.’ Abiding in ‘Me’ results with the unique ability to ask for and get what you desire; “it shall be done for you.” Interesting that Swedenborg says that we are taught in just the first seven verses of this chapter how the transformation occurs. Going by this, I’d say the simple answer is: trust in the Lord, He’s making it happen. But chapter 15 doesn’t end there, so I decided to venture on, to see what else I’d learn.

Verse 9: “As the Father loved me, I also have loved you; abide in My LOVE.” This is a different command. We learned about abiding in the Lord; now we’re reading about abiding in the Lord’s love. What’s the difference? In verse 10 we learn how to abide in the Lord’s love: “if you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love.”

Verse 11: “These things I have spoken to you that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” “These things” I think is specifically referring to abiding in the Lord’s love, in contrast to abiding in Him. Verses nine to eleven I categorize as the ‘second part.’ Abiding in ‘My love’ results with the Lord’s joy remaining in us and our joy being full.

Abide in Me → Ask and it will be granted to you.

Abide in My love → Have full and lasting joy.

So what’s the difference between abiding ‘in Me’ and abiding in ‘My love’? In a phrase, “Assurance, then action” or another one, “Trust and repent.” First we trust. We trust in the reliable responsiveness of our relationship with the Lord: ask and it shall be granted. We need that springboard. From that springboard, we do something; we live His truth, His Word, and the result is that we experience joy, full joy.

It sounds like a promise. It sounds like the Lord is wanting to make it clear that our process of repentance is going to happen, that it does happen, on a backdrop that is the LORD, His salvation. If we’re abiding in Him then no matter how threatening hell is, no matter how convinced we feel of our failure or our incapability to ever overcome, WE CAN and WILL by abiding in the Lord. Trusting this we can live by the Lord’s commandments and face the battles, the temptations that will surely arise.

In verse 15 we read, “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” In this I hear the Lord saying, “Pay attention! I’m telling you really important things right now!”

The Lord tells us the point of telling us all this in the first verse of chapter 16: “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble.” It feels like a secret message that is made plain if we take what it says seriously. By truly acknowledging what we’re told in John 15, we won’t have cause to stumble. That’s quite a promise!

So in this chapter the Lord is saying how our transformation from a hurtful nature to a heavenly nature occurs. The first part is that we have to understand and acknowledge that all power is the Lord’s: He takes away unfruitful branches and prunes fruitful ones. But the second part is the ‘as of self’ part. We abide in His love and live His commandments (i.e. do the work of repentance in our lives) with an inner peace and confidence in His total care.

All power is the Lord’s. All real action or progress is the Lord’s. In 15: 5 the Lord tells us that, “without me you can do nothing.” So we need to acknowledge His power and how all true work is done by Him, but we still have to do our part: live ‘as of self.’ We need to live by His commandments and love one another. And we do this with the assurance that even in the face of tribulation the Lord will not let us fall. It is in this reciprocal relationship that our joy becomes full.

We’re given a sort of recap in verses 16-17: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you [1st part]. These things I command you, that you love one another [2nd part].” So the idea of asking and being given is restated and the point about loving one another is restated.

The Lord ‘chose’ us, but we still need to abide in the Lord. So the Lord is trying to communicate to us something about the nature of our spirit. We are a branch of the Lord already, but a branch “cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine” (4). There’s a necessary reciprocation being underscored in all this.

I read John 14 and 16 to gain some context. The entire concept is stated succinctly in John 16: 24: “Until now you have asked nothing in My name [“abide in Me”]. Ask, and you will receive [1st part], that your joy may be full [2nd part].” Our joy will be full by living the Lord’s commandments (i.e. practicing repentance) within the context of His presence and protection, a context of complete trust.

Later in chapter 16, verse 33, He again begins His phrase with “these things.” This time I take “these things” to include everything He’s been saying for the past three chapters. “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world [in our lower self] you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” This verse refers back to 15: 2, that “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away.” We have to abide in the Lord, and when we do, we can trust that the Lord is doing work in us, He’s making the transformation happen—He’s already overcome the ‘world.’ This trust gives us peace.

It’s just like the five Universal Principles of Alignment in Anusara Yoga. The first is “Open to Grace;” the second, “Engage Muscle Energy.” The principles have this order on purpose. It is taught in this style of yoga that you can’t take any true and lasting action in your life without first making the heart acknowledgement of trust in the Divine. Your effort is in a sense barren without this initial expansion into a bigger perspective. You expand into a trust in Grace’s power, presence, and fullness in you, then engage muscle energy, an ‘as of self’ effort, and then you can face tribulation ‘in the world’—in the outermost, in your lower self—with an inner peace; like taking your seat in the eye of the storm.

By abiding in the Lord, we trust in Him. By abiding in His love—by living His commandments and practicing repentance—we reciprocate, we do our part to complete the circle, the covenant.

“Abide in Me” ↔ “Abide in My love” (John 15: 7, 9)

“You in Me” ↔ “I in you” (John 14: 20)

Trust, understand, acknowledge ↔ Live by commandments, as of self, repent

In thinking about all this I was left with the question, “What does this look like or how does it pan out when you’re really in the thick of tribulation?” My one thought is that it is a practice of remembrance. We work on remembering what the Lord teaches in this chapter and hold it as a higher truth than the input we’re receiving from our lower self and external senses. That’s what I got.

Chelsea Rose Odhner

Chelsea writes the monthly column Meditate for New Church Perspective. In addition to mothering her two young children round the clock, she is an editor for New Church Connection and New Church Perspective.