AC 2332 - When the Lord Presents Himself; AC 2333 - The Internal Sense When We Read His Word

AC 2332

. . . when the Lord presents Himself
to the view of any person, or even of any angel,
He miraculously moderates and tempers
the Holy that proceeds from Him,
so that they may be able to endure it;
or what is the same,
He applies Himself to their natural.
This then is what is meant in the internal sense
by these words which Lot said to the angels:
"Wash your feet."
And this shows what the nature is
of the internal sense,
for that this is the meaning cannot be seen
from the sense of the letter.

AC 2333

And in the morning you shall rise and go on your way.
(Genesis 19:2)

In the Word "morning" means the Lord's kingdom
and whatever belongs to the Lord's kingdom,
thus principally the good of love and of charity . . .;
and a "way" means truth;
for which reason it is said
that after they had been in his house
and had passed the night there
(by which is meant that they had an abode
in the good of charity that was with him),
they should "rise in the morning and go on their way,"
by which is meant being thereby thus confirmed
in good and truth.

From this, as from other passages,
it is evident how remote from the sense of the letter,
and consequently how much unseen,
is the internal sense,
especially in the historical parts of the Word;
and that it does not come to view
unless the meaning of every word
is unfolded in accordance with
its constant meaning in the Word.
On this account,
when the ideas are kept in the sense of the letter,
the internal sense appears . . .
as something obscure and dark;
but on the other hand
when the ideas are kept in the internal sense,
the sense of the letter appears in like manner obscure,
indeed to the angels as nothing.
For the angels are no longer
in worldly and corporeal things,
like those of people,
but in spiritual and celestial things,
into which the words of the sense of the letter
are wonderfully changed,
when it ascends from a person
who is reading the Word
to the sphere in which the angels are,
that is, to heaven;
and this from the correspondence
of spiritual things with worldly,
and of celestial things with corporeal.
This correspondence is most constant,
but its nature has not yet been disclosed until now
in the unfolding of the meaning
of the words, names, and numbers in the Word,
as to the internal sense.