AC 10577 - Showing Grace, Showing Mercy; AC 10579 - "The Face of Jehovah"

AC 10577 [2]
 
That "to show grace"
denotes to endow with spiritual truth and good,
and "to show mercy"
to endow with celestial truth and good
is because "grace" is predicated of faith,
and "mercy" of love;
and the good of faith is spiritual good,
and the good of love is celestial good.

Therefore will Jehovah wait
to show grace unto you,
and therefore will He exalt Himself
to have mercy upon you.
(Isaiah 30:18)

AC 10579 [7, 8-9]

It was said above that by "the faces of Jehovah"
are signified the interior Divine things of the Word,
of the church, and of worship.
The reason is that the interior Divine things
of the Word, of the church, and of worship
are the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord,
thus are the Lord in heaven.
This is signified by the "face of Jehovah,"
where it is mentioned in the Word, as in these passages:

See that ye despise not one of these little ones;
for I say unto you,
that their angels in the heavens
do always see the face of My Father
who is in the heavens.
(Matthew 18:10)

The throne of God and of the Lamb
shall be in the holy Jerusalem;
and His servants shall minister to Him.
And they shall see His faces.
(Revelation 22:3, 4)

Jehovah shall make His faces to shine upon thee,
and shall have pity on thee;
Jehovah shall lift up His faces upon thee,
and shall give thee peace.
(Numbers 6:25, 26)

Everyone can comprehend what is here meant
by "the faces of Jehovah," namely, the Divine,
and whatever belongs to the Divine,
thus mercy, peace, and all good;
but in the universal sense the Divine truth,
because all good is in the Divine truth.
Both with man and with angel
the Divine good is in the Divine truth,
and without the latter there is not the former;
for truth is the recipient of good,
thus also of mercy and peace.
From this then it follows
that where Divine good is not in Divine truth,
there the face of Jehovah is not;
and it also follows
that where there is evil in falsity,
the Divine does not appear.
This is meant by Jehovah
"hiding and turning away His faces"
in the following passages:

Your sins have hidden the faces of Jehovah from you.
(Isaiah 59:2)

For their wickedness I have hid My faces from this city.
(Jeremiah 33:5)

Jehovah will hide His faces from them,
according as they have rendered in their works evil.
(Micah 3:4)

But be it known that Jehovah, that is, the Lord,
never turns away His faces from man;
but that the man who is in evil
turns away his face from the Lord.
And as the Divine is then behind him,
it appears as if this hides or turns itself away.
Moreover, it is an actual fact
that all infernal spirits turn their backs to the Lord as a sun,
whereas the angels always turn their faces to Him.
It is the same with a man,
in respect to his spirit,
during his life in the world.