AC 9380 - The Worship of the Golden Calf

AC 9380

That they were in what is external
without what is internal,
is very manifest from the worship of the golden calf
forty days after this time.
They would have acted differently
if they had been at the same time
in what is internal, that is,
in the good of love to and of faith in Jehovah;
for this is what is internal.
Those who have been conjoined by this
cannot go away to the worship of an idol,
because their heart is far from it
and because that people
was conjoined with the Lord merely by external things,
by which they represented internal things,
therefore it is said "the people shall not come up,"
by which is meant
that there is no conjunction whatever
with an external that is devoid of an internal.
The representations that are devoid
of the knowledge, faith, and affection
of the interior things that are represented,
conjoin the thing,
but not the person.

The case is the same with those
who remain in the mere literal sense of the Word,
and gather from it nothing of doctrine;
for they are separated from the internal sense,
because the internal sense is doctrine itself.
The conjunction of the Lord
with the external things of the Word
is through its interior things;
and therefore
if the interior things have been separated,
there is possible no other conjunction of the Lord
 with the external things
than as with a gesture of the body
without any agreement of the heart.
It is the very same with those
who are perfectly acquainted with
all the particulars of the doctrine of their church,
and yet do not apply them to life.
These also are in external things
devoid of what is internal,
for with them the truths of doctrine are outside
so long as they have not been inscribed on their life.
The reason why
there is no conjunction of the Lord with their truths,
is that the Lord enters into a person's truths of faith
through his life;
thus through the soul which is in the truths.