The Humanity of Jesus (Part II)

Why Jesus does not have a wife

Continued from previous blog post...

The extraordinary Humanity and Personhood of God, which is different from our ordinary humanity and personhood, does not prevent Him from appearing in an ordinary human form to humans and humanoids on the physical and spiritual planes. But this is just a projection for the sake of communicating with and communing with humans and humanoids. When He does so, it may be in a form that can be touched and felt as any human body. However, he does not, as such, abide in a human body somewhere in His multi-dimensional Creation. That solves the issue of why Jesus does not have a human wife (or any wife) at present. When he lived in the physical plane in first century Israel, He did have an ordinary human body like ours - but he chose not to marry, even though he could have.

Swedenborgian Monasticism
Conjugial love and eternal marriage are essential principles of New Church doctrine. However, it does not mean that everyone should (or can) marry when on earth. Swedenborg did not. When there is a natural disaster, people might focus on dealing with the emergency rather than bother with any other matter. Some folks might see the problems in the world as being enough reason for them to fully focus on creating a shadow of the Kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven". They might not have the time or mental bandwidth for married life. A vow or intention of celibacy might be acceptable on earth even though it is not recommended in Heaven according to the Heavenly Doctrines. Such a vow is aligned with Divine Order as long as it is not a vow of eternal celibacy. In other words, I will not censure a monk or nun who intends to marry in heaven. I define this as Swedenborgian monasticism.

Jesus' Humanity

Let's speculate. Is Jesus married?

Since Jesus is both Divine and Human, is His Humanity different from ours? If not, then He has a human body. Since conjugial love is one of the key features of Heaven, Jesus as Human is married - to a human woman. And this woman is not Divine as Jesus is, she is just human like the rest of us.

I can hear cries of protest that Jesus is married to the church (the New Jerusalem, Revelation 21:2). But that is a metaphor. Do not confuse metaphor with reality. One cannot have conjugial union with an abstraction, just as one can be married to one's work only in metaphor.

Is Jesus married? The Da Vinci Code gets an F- in history and another F- is theological speculation. There is nothing but a few Gnostic gospels (which are not part of the Word) to substantiate Mary Magdalene being Jesus' wife. And the Gnostic gospels are not even good myth ... except for a few modern liberals who think they are some a great spiritual breakthrough.

The only resolution is that the Humanity of Jesus is a completely different genre of humanity, and that Jesus no longer retains a human body (see my next blog post). In this case, the Humanity of Jesus is a synonym for His Personhood. Jehovah is God as ineffable Reality. Jesus is the same God manifest as a Person.