SS 27-29 - The Word's Literal Sense

The Word’s Literal Sense Is the Foundation,
Containing Vessel and Buttress
of Its Spiritual and Celestial Meanings

SS 27-29

Every Divine work has in it
a first, intermediate, and final element,
and the first one progresses
through the intermediate one
to the final one,
and so takes form and endures.
Thus the final element is the foundation.
Moreover, the first element
is present in the intermediate one,
and present through the intermediate one
in the final one.
Thus the final element is the containing vessel.
And because the final element
is the containing vessel and foundation,
it is also the buttress.

An educated person sees that these three elements
can be termed end, cause and effect,
also being, becoming, and expression,
and that the end is the being,
the cause is the becoming,
and the effect is the expression.
He sees, too, that as a consequence,
every complete entity has in it a trine
comprising a first, intermediate, and final element,
or an end, cause and effect,
and also a being, a becoming, and an expression.

Seeing this, he also sees that every Divine work
is complete and perfect in its final expression,
and also that the whole of any trine
is found in the final expression,
because the prior elements are at the same time
present in it.

It is owing to this
that the number three in the Word means,
in the spiritual sense,
something complete and perfect,
and everything together.

~ Shout and Be Glad ~

"Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion.
For I am coming, and I will live among you,"
declares the Lord.
"Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day
and will become My people.
I will live among you and you will know
that the Lord Almighty has sent Me to you.
The Lord will inherit Judah as His portion in the holy land
and will again choose Jerusalem.
Be still before the Lord, all mankind,
because He has roused Himself from His holy dwelling."

(Zechariah 2:10-13)
 

SS 18, 20 , 26 - The Spiritual Meaning of the Word

SS 18

The spiritual meaning is what causes the Word
to be Divinely inspired and holy in every word.
People in the church say that the Word is holy,
and this because Jehovah God spoke it.
But because its holiness is not apparent
from the letter alone,
therefore someone who once doubts
its holiness on that account,
later finds, when he reads the Word,
many things in it to confirm himself in that doubt.
For he asks himself then, “Is this holy? Is this Divine?”

Therefore, to keep this kind of thinking
from flowing in and prevailing among many people,
and so causing the conjunction of the Lord
with the church where the Word is to perish,
it has pleased the Lord now to reveal the spiritual sense,
in order to make known in what
the holiness in the Word lies.

SS 20

Every single thing found in nature
corresponds to something spiritual.
. . . For people who lived [in very ancient times],
the study of correspondences was the supreme study,
and so universal
that all their manuscripts and books
were written in terms of correspondences.

SS 26 [1-2]

The Word’s spiritual meaning is granted after this
only to someone who possesses
genuine truths from the Lord.
The reason is this:
because no one can see the spiritual meaning
unless he is enabled to do so by the Lord alone,
and unless he possesses genuine truths from Him.
For the Word’s spiritual meaning
deals with the Lord alone and His kingdom,
and that sense is the one possessed
by His angels in heaven.
It is, indeed, His Divine truth there.
It is possible for a person to violate that truth
if he has a knowledge of correspondences
and tries to use it
to explore the Word’s spiritual meaning
in accord with his own intelligence.
Applying some of the correspondences he knows,
he may twist its meaning
and use it to confirm even falsity,
which would be to do injury to Divine truth,
and to heaven as well.
If someone tries to lay open that sense on his own,
therefore, and not from the Lord,
heaven is closed,
and when heaven is closed,
a person either sees nothing,
or he becomes spiritually irrational.

There is also another reason.
Because the Lord teaches everyone by means of the Word,
and teaches him in accordance with the truths
the person already possesses
and does not infuse new truths directly,
therefore if the person is without any Divine truths,
or if he possesses only a few truths
and is caught up at the same time in falsities,
it would be possible for him to use those falsities
to falsify the truths —
as is also commonly known to be the case
with every heretic as regards just the Word’s literal sense.

Consequently, to keep people
from entering into the Word’s spiritual meaning,
or from twisting
the genuine truth found in that sense,
the Lord has set protections,
meant in the Word by cherubim.

~ The Lord Your God Is With You ~

The Lord your God is with you,
He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing."

(Zephaniah 3:17)

SS 5, 8 - The Word's Spiritual Meaning and Correspondences

SS 5

The spiritual meaning is not the sense
that shines from the literal one
when one is studying the Word
and interpreting it
in order to confirm some dogma of the church.
This sense is the Word’s literal sense.
Rather its spiritual meaning is one
not apparent in the literal one.
The spiritual meaning lies within the literal one,
like the soul within the body,
like thought within the eyes,
and affection within the face,
which operate in concert,
like cause and effect.

That spiritual meaning is what principally
causes the Word to be spiritual,
not only for people, but also for angels.
Consequently that meaning
is the means by which the Word
communicates with the heavens.

SS 8

Since the Word is inwardly spiritual and celestial,
it has therefore been written solely
in terms of correspondences,
and something written solely
in terms of correspondences
is written in its outmost sense
in the kind of style found
in the Prophets and Gospel writers.
Even though this style seems to be an ordinary one,
still it conceals in it Divine wisdom
and all the wisdom of angels. 

~ His Holy Temple ~

"Of what value is an idol,
since a man has carved it?
Or an image that teaches lies?
For he who makes it
trusts in his own creation;
he makes idols that cannot speak.

"But the Lord is in His holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before Him."

(Habakkuk 18, 20)

SS 3 - The Word

SS 3

The style in the Word is such
that there is something holy
in every sentence and in every word,
indeed in some places in the very letters.
Because of that
the Word conjoins a person with the Lord
and opens heaven.

There are two emissions emanating from the Lord:
Divine love and Divine wisdom.
Or to say the same thing,
Divine goodness and Divine truth.
For Divine goodness is a property of His Divine love,
and Divine truth a property of His Divine wisdom.
In its essence the Word is both of these.
And because, as we said,
it conjoins a person with the Lord and opens heaven,
therefore the Word fills a person who reads it
prompted by the Lord, and not by himself simply.
It fills him with the goodness of love and truths of wisdom —
his will with the goodness of love,
and his intellect with truths of wisdom.
The person has life as a result through the Word.   
______________________________________________

SS = The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem
         Regarding the Sacred Scripture

~ The Lord Will Have Compassion ~

Do not gloat over me, my enemy!
Though I have fallen, I will rise.
though I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be my light.
Because I have sinned against Him,
I will bear the Lord's wrath,
until He pleads my case and establishes my right.
He will bring me out into the light;
I will see His righteousness.

Who is a God like you,
who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnant of His inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy.
You will again have compassion on us;
You will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
You will be true to Jacob,
and show mercy to Abraham,
as You pledged on oath to our fathers
in days long ago.

(Micah 7:8--9, 18-20) 

DLord 63 - The Church, a Bride and Wife

DLord 63

People know that a bride and a wife mean the church
when the Lord is meant by the bridegroom and husband.
The church is a bride when it wishes to receive the Lord,
but a wife when it does receive Him.

~ The Mountain of the Lord ~

In the last days
the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and peoples will stream to it.

Many nations will come and say,

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us His ways,
so that we may walk in His paths."
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He will judge between many peoples
and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nations will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
every man will sit under his own vine
and under his own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
for the Lord Almighty has spoken.
All the nations may walk in the name of their gods;
we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
for ever and ever.

(Micah 4:1-5)
 

DLord 59 - The Divine Humanity Called the Son of God

DLord 59

. . . the Lord assumed a humanity in the world
that was conceived of Jehovah,
who is the Lord from eternity,
and born of the virgin Mary.
He possessed, therefore, a Divinity and a humanity —
a Divinity from His Divinity from eternity,
and a humanity from Mary, His mother in time.
This latter humanity, however,
He put off, and put on a Divine humanity.
The humanity He put on
is what we call His Divine humanity,
and which in the Word is called the Son of God.

~ Jonah Prays to the Lord ~

From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.
He said:

"In my distress I called to the Lord,
And He answered me.
From the depths of the grave I called for help,
and You listened to my cry.

"When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered You, Lord
and my prayer rose to You and to Your holy temple.

"Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to You.
What I have vowed I will make good.
Salvation comes from the Lord."

And the Lord commanded the fish,
and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

(Jonah 2:1-2, 7-10)

DLord 51, 54 - There Is One God and That God Is the Lord

DLord 51 [3, 5]

Because the Spirit of Truth or the Holy Spirit
is the same as the Lord,
who is the truth itself.
It also says “There was not the Holy Spirit yet
because Jesus was not yet glorified”.
(John 7:39)
This is because after His glorification
or full union with the Father,
which was accomplished by His suffering on the cross,
the Lord was then divine wisdom itself
and divine truth-therefore the Holy Spirit.

The reason the Lord breathed on the disciples and said
“Receive the Holy Spirit”
was that all of heaven’s breathing originates with the Lord.
Angels breathe just as we do, and their hearts beat.
Their breathing depends on
their acceptance of divine wisdom from the Lord
and their heartbeat or pulse
depends on their acceptance of divine love from the Lord.

When “the Holy Spirit” is used in speaking of the Lord
it means His divine life and therefore Himself,
and specifically it means the life His wisdom gives us,
which is called divine truth;
therefore the spirit of the prophets,
which is also called the Holy Spirit,
means divine truth that comes from the Lord.

Since, then, the Holy Spirit means specifically
the Lord’s divine wisdom and therefore His divine truth,
we can see why it is that people say of the Holy Spirit
that It enlightens, teaches, and inspires.

DLord 54

It is now apparent from this
that it was Jehovah, the Lord from eternity,
who spoke through the prophets,
and that wherever the Holy Spirit is mentioned,
it means the Lord Himself.

So we conclude that
there is one God in both person and essence
and that that God is the Lord.

~ A Famine ~

"The days are coming," declares the Sovereign Lord,
"when I will send a famine through the land --
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
Men will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it."

(Amos 8:11-12)

DLord 46 - The Holy Spirit

DLord 46 [4]

. . . the Holy Spirit is the Lord's presence in a person
by means of angels and spirits,
by which and in accordance with which
a person is enlightened and taught.

~ Seek Good, Not Evil ~

For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins.

You oppress the righteous and take bribes
and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
Therefore the prudent man keeps quiet in such times,
for the times are evil.

Seek good, not evil, that you may live.
then the Lord God Almighty will be with you,
just as you say He is.

(Amos 5:12-14)

DLord 45 - God Is One, and the Lord Is God

DLord 45

On the basis of the quite ample number
of passages from the Word . . .,
we can determine that the Lord is called Jehovah,
the God of Israel and of Jacob, the Holy One of Israel,
Lord and God, as well as King,
[Jehovah’s] Anointed, and David,
all of which enables us to see
(though as yet through a kind of veil)
that the Lord is God Himself,
the source and subject of the Word.

All the same, it is generally acknowledged
everywhere in the whole world
that God is one,
and no one of sound reason denies this.
What now remains to be done, then,
is to support this from the Word
and further, to show that the Lord is God.

The following passages from the Word show that God is one.

Jesus said, “The first of all the commandments is
‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one;
therefore you are to love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul.’”
(Mark 12:29-30)

Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah;
you are to love Jehovah your God
with all your heart and with all your soul.
(Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

Someone came to Jesus and said,
“Good Teacher, what good thing should I do
in order to have eternal life?”
Jesus said to him,
“Why do you call Me good?
No one is good except the one God.”
(Matthew 19:16-17)

... so that all the kingdoms of the earth may acknowledge
that You alone are Jehovah.
(Isaiah 37:20)

I am Jehovah and there is no other.
There is no God other than me.
[I have prepared you] so that people will know
from the rising of the sun to its setting
that there is no God other than me.
I am Jehovah and there is no other.
(Isaiah 45:5-6)

Jehovah Sabaoth, God of Israel,
dwelling between the angel guardians,
You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth.
(Isaiah 37:16)

Is there any God other than Me?
Or any other Rock?
I do not know of one.
(Isaiah 44:8)

Who is God, except Jehovah?
Who is the Rock, if it is not our God?
(Psalms 18:31)

The following passages from the Word
show that the Lord is God.

God is only among you,
and there is no God except Him.
Surely You are a hidden God,
O God of Israel, the Savior.
Isaiah 45:14-15)

Am I not Jehovah?
And there is no God other than Me.
I am a just God,
and there is no Savior other than Me.
Look to Me so that you may be saved,
all you ends of the earth,
because I am God and there is no other.
(Isaiah 45:21-22)

I am Jehovah, and there is no Savior other than Me.
(Isaiah 43:11)

I am Jehovah your God.
You are to acknowledge no God other than Me;
there is no Savior other than Me.
(Hosea 13:4)

Thus says Jehovah the King of Israel,
and Israel’s Redeemer, Jehovah Sabaoth:
“I am the First and the Last,
and there is no God other than Me.”
(Isaiah 44:6)

Jehovah Sabaoth is His name,
and the Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
He will be called the God of the whole earth.
(Isaiah 54:5)

On that day Jehovah will become king over all the earth.
On that day Jehovah will be one, and his name one.
(Zechariah 14:9)

Since the Lord alone is Savior and Redeemer,
and since it says that Jehovah and no one else is that one,
it follows that the one God is no other than the Lord.

~ The Lord Is the Head of His Army ~

The Lord thunders at the head of His army;
His forces are beyond number,
and mighty are those who obey His command.
the day of the Lord is great . . ..

(Joel 2:11)

DLord 37 - The Lord is the Origin and Subject of the Word

DLord 37 [1-2]

I have been granted to go through
the Prophets and the Psalms of David
and to examine each verse
and see what the subject is there,
and I saw that the subjects were nothing else
than the church established by the Lord
and the church to be established,
the Lord’s advent, His battles,
His glorification, redemption and salvation,
and the heaven established by Him and to be established,
and at the same time their opposites.

Because these are all works of the Lord,
it was apparent that the Holy Scripture throughout
has the Lord as its subject,
and that the Lord therefore embodies the Word.

However, this can only be seen by people
who are enlightened by the Lord
and who are acquainted as well
with the spiritual sense of the Word.
Angels in heaven all possess this sense.
Consequently, when a person reads the Word,
that is the only meaning the angels comprehend.
For a person has spirits and angels with him continually,
and because they are spiritual,
they understand spiritually everything
that the person understands naturally.

 

~ The Righteous and the Rebellious ~

Who is wise?
He will realize these things.
Who is discerning?
He will understand them.
The ways of the Lord are right;
the righteous walk in them,
but the rebellious stumble in them.

(Hosea 14:9)