787. This new church is the crown of all the churches which have up to now existed upon earth, because it will worship one visible God, in whom is the invisible God, as the soul is in the body. In this way and no other is God's link with man possible, because man is natural and so thinks in a natural fashion; and linking must take place in his thinking and so in the affection of his love, and this happens when a person thinks of God as man. Linking with an invisible God is like linking the sight of the eye with the expanse of the universe, the bounds of which are not to be seen. Or it is like looking out in the middle of an ocean, when the gaze falls on air and sea and is frustrated. But linking with a visible God is like seeing a man in the air or the sea opening his arms and inviting you into his embrace. For any linking of God with man must also be a reciprocal linking of man with God; and this second reciprocity is only possible with a visible God.
[2] The Lord too Himself teaches in John that God was not visible before He took on the Human:
You have never heard the Father's voice, nor have you seen His appearance. John 5:37.
And in the books of Moses it says that no one can see God and live (Exod. 33:22). He shows in John that He can be seen by means of His Human:
No one has ever seen God; His only-begotten Son, who is in the Father's bosom, He has revealed Him. John 1:18.
In the same book:
Jesus said, I am the way, truth and life. No one comes to the Father except through me. He who knows me, knows the Father, and he who sees me sees the Father. John 14:6, 7, 9.
The Lord teaches that linking takes place with the invisible God by means of Him who is visible, that is, by means of the Lord, in these passages:
Jesus said, Remain in me and I in you. He who remains in me and I in him, he it is who bears much fruit. John 15:4, 5.
On that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you are in me and I in you. John 14:20.
I have given them the glory which you gave me, so that they might be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, so that the love you loved me with might be in them, and I in them. John 17:21-23, 26; also 6:56.
He also teaches that the Father and He are one; and that we should believe in Him to have everlasting life. Salvation is dependent upon linking with God, as has been shown at length above.