If you read through the Old Testament, something you may be struck by is just how much of it consists of prophecies of the Lord’s advent. On the deepest level, the entirety of the Old Testament is about the Lord who was to come (cf. Luke 24:27). Why is so much of the Word devoted to this topic? It seems that the Lord really wanted His people to think about what would happen when He came to them.
We just started the Christmas season, which means that we’re getting ready to celebrate the advent that the Lord made a long time ago — but one of the teachings of the New Church is that the Lord’s advent is ongoing. He is waiting to be received, waiting to be — as it were — born to each of us individually. When we receive Him, which happens when we acknowledge Him as our God, that is His first coming (True Christian Religion 766). And over time, our acknowledgment of the Lord can change and deepen. When it does, He comes to us again: He enters our awareness in a new way.
This means that all of those prophecies of the Lord’s advent are about something that happened a long time ago, but they’re also about the Lord whom we receive, and about what goes on within our spirits when we receive Him. Again, this is something that the Word talks about a lot. When you look at the Word, and at just how many prophecies it contains, it stands out that the Lord wants us to think about His advent to us. Who is the God who is drawing near to us? What will it feel like when He comes close? We won’t be ready to receive Him if we’re expecting something other than what He really is.
In what follows, I’m going to explore three different prophecies of the Lord’s advent. They’re all very different — they have different tones, and emphasize different aspects of the Lord. Two things that you’re invited to reflect on as you read through these prophecies are:
1) That the Lord’s advent doesn’t always feel the same. He comes to us in different ways at different points in our lives. The tone of His advent has a lot to do with what’s going on inside of us. So what kind of advent do you need right now?
2) And, the Lord is many different things, but He is also one Lord. We can focus on His strength, or His love, or whatever we need to focus on. But to truly know Him, we need to understand that He is loving, and strong, and so many other things, at once.
First Prophecy: Isaiah 42:1-7
Throughout this prophecy the Lord is speaking of the humanity that He will take on when He is born on earth. The “Servant” that is mentioned in the first line of the prophecy refers to that humanity, because His human served the Divine that was within Him (Arcana Coelestia 2159).
This prophecy emphasizes the Lord’s gentleness and His compassion. It’s easy to see that the Messiah who is described here is the same person as Jesus Christ who is revealed in the gospel. The prophecy says that He won’t cry out or raise His voice (Isaiah 42:2). In the gospel Jesus does cry out occasionally (John 7:28, 37; 12:44), but for the most part He’s strikingly patient, and understated, and gentle. The prophecy says that He will bring justice to the gentiles, will open blind eyes and bring prisoners out of prison (Isaiah 42:1, 7). This is a picture of a God who comes to us as a healer and a savior. This is the God that we need when our hearts ache, when we’re in a rut and we know it, when we need to be comforted, and shown something we can hope in. The Lord comes to us to do exactly these things. The prophecy says that He is given as “a covenant to the people” and “a light to the gentiles” (Isaiah 42:6). He is light: His presence is a promise that heaven is within our reach.
One especially interesting detail in this prophecy is the statement that the Lord won’t break a bruised reed or quench a smoking flax. What this means, in the literal sense, is that the Lord won’t destroy anything — not even trivial things like reeds, not even if they’re already damaged. This is a picture of how He treats us. There are a lot of things inside of us that are damaged: motives that are flawed, ideas that are incorrect. But the Lord doesn’t break these things; instead, we’re told, He bends them towards truth and good (Arcana Coelestia 25). The Lord is gentle, even with the parts of us that are messed up. This is the aspect of the Lord that most people are most likely to think they need — a God who forgives them, a God who loves them no matter what. The Lord is exactly that. This prophecy describes one of the ways that He comes to us.
As a conclusion to our reflections on this first prophecy, here is a passage from the Heavenly Doctrine that talks about the Lord’s gentleness and respect for us. This passage also contrasts these Divine qualities with the behavior of the hells, who are the ones who try to keep us in a wounded condition:
The Lord’s presence entails freedom; the one follows the other…. On the other hand, the inflowing of hell by way of evil spirits is with force and an impulsion to dominate. Their whole intention is to subjugate a person to the point of making him nothing and themselves everything…. Consequently when the Lord is freeing a person from their yoke and dominion, conflict arises. But once he has been set free, that is, regenerated, he is led by the Lord through angels so gently that no yoke or dominion exists at all, for he is led by what is joyful and pleasing, and is loved and esteemed. (Arcana Coelestia 905)
Second Prophecy: Isaiah 59:15-19
This second prophecy is about the Lord’s battle with the hells. The image of the Lord that’s presented here is very different from the one we were given in the Isaiah 42 prophecy: here He’s revealed as a warrior and a redeemer. The context of this prophecy is a long description of the mess that the Lord’s people got themselves into: justice fell apart and nothing was safe.
The Lord saw that there was no justice, and it displeased Him (Isaiah 59:15).
He saw that His people were alone — that there was no one to intercede for them — so He Himself went out to fight for them. “His own arm brought salvation for Him” (Isaiah 59:16).
He armored Himself for battle, and clothed Himself with zeal as with a cloak (Isaiah 59:17).
We don’t always like to think of the Lord as a warrior, but that’s at least partly because we don’t always like to think about just how scary hell actually is. But evil is real, and when we meet it — either in the outside world or within ourselves — and we realize that we’re looking at a spirit that means only harm, that’s when we might realize that we need the Lord who is revealed in this prophecy. When you’re losing to your enemy, there is nothing so good as the arrival of an ally who will fight for you — a God who is strong enough to take you out of the enemy’s hands. He is stronger than the hells: that’s part of who He is, and that matters so much.
Something else that’s a little challenging is that this prophecy talks about the Lord seeking vengeance (Isaiah 59:17, 18): we need to understand that that’s just an appearance. The truth is that the Lord loves even the hells, and never seeks vengeance — but when He goes out to protect His people, the hells feel like He’s out for vengeance. There is a kind of ferocity to the Lord’s zeal. In the Heavenly Doctrine we’re told that the breastplate of righteousness with which the Lord arms Himself stands for “zeal for rescuing the faithful from hell and the Divine love of saving the human race” (Apocalypse Explained 577:3). Think about it: if someone that you loved was in hell — literally in hell — but they wanted out, and you could get them out, wouldn’t you also clothe yourself with zeal, and go to meet the hells with a countenance that might frighten them?
The prophecy says that when He — the Lord — “comes in like a narrow river, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard within Him” (Isaiah 59:19). A standard means a banner, and when we’re in the midst of a battle, the arrival of a banner is a sign that help has come. When the Lord comes to us with that banner, He is like a narrow river. His power pours into us like a rushing river. The power that He has against the hells is overwhelming — and we have no idea how much we need it, until we learn just how much we need it. In the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church we’re told:
If anyone knows the nature of hell, and how high it rose to flood the whole of the world of spirits at the time of the Lord's coming, as well as the power the Lord used to cast it down and scatter it, and afterwards to reduce it, together with heaven, to order, it must make him cry out in wonder that that deed was entirely Divine. (True Christian Religion 123)
Third Prophecy: Malachi 3:1-3
This prophecy speaks first of a “messenger,” and then of the “Messenger of the Covenant” (v. 1). The messenger is John the Baptist, who prepared Judea for the coming of the Lord (see Luke 7:27; True Christian Religion 688). The Messenger of the Covenant is the Lord Himself. The prophecy says that He will, “suddenly come to His temple” (Malachi 3:1). His temple means His body, or the humanity that He took on when He was born on earth (see John 2:21; Apocalypse Revealed 882).
The things that this prophecy says next are kind of challenging: “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears?” (Malachi 3:2). The implication is that the Lord’s advent is frightening. The reason for this is that He is “like a refiner’s fire, and like launderer’s soap” (Malachi 3:2). A refiner’s fire is used to purify metals, and soap — obviously — is used to cleanse things. The things that need to be purified and cleansed are the Lord’s people. “He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver” (Malachi 3:3). The Heavenly Doctrine says that the sons of Levi symbolize people who belong to the Lord’s spiritual church (Arcana Coelestia 8159:2, 9293:6). We might be in the Lord’s spiritual church — or at least trying to be. The idea that the Lord is coming to purify us like fire and cleanse us like soap is challenging.
Prophecies that take this tone are probably the ones that we’re least likely to reach out for as we prepare ourselves for the advent of the Lord. We might not want to hear this sort of prophecy at Christmas time. But the fact of the matter is that most of the time, what stands between us and a new advent of the Lord is us — something in us that needs to be burned away. We’re told that a refiner’s fire symbolizes temptation (Arcana Coelestia 8159:2). The Lord doesn’t tempt us, but when He comes close to us He gives us the power to withstand temptation. So sometimes His arrival triggers a spiritual crisis — now that He’s here, we’re ready to deal with something that we couldn’t have dealt with before. So something painful is brought to light — and that’s part of the process of healing. Letting Him come close to us might feel like moving into that refining fire. His love burns bright and it will illuminate the jagged edges of ourselves — and that’s okay. It’s part of the process. If we’re going to receive Him, we need to be willing to be changed.
But we can’t forget the other aspects of the Lord that are revealed in the other prophecies. Yes, the Lord asks us to change — and even as He asks this, He is fighting for us with all His strength, and looking at us with more love than our hearts can hold. He is many things; He is Wonderful, Counselor, God, the Mighty One, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).
[Adapted from the sermon delivered at the Pittsburgh New Church on December 1, 2024]
