AE 163 - Whatever Is Mentioned in the Word

AE 163 [8]    

. . . whatever is mentioned in the Word, 
even in the historical Word, 
is significative as to every expression. 
From this it is that the Word is spiritual 
in each and every particular, 
and therefore Divine from inmosts to ultimates.

 

AE 162 - Jezebel

AE 162 [2]

A person sees from the Word 
the truths of the church 
from the spiritual or internal person 
and from its intellectual, 
but he does not receive them 
except to the extent that he loves them 
so as to wish to do them. 
When person so wills, 
his internal or spiritual person calls forth 
and elevates to itself, 
out of the natural person and its memory, 
the truths that are there, 
and conjoins them to the love that is of his will; 
thus the internal spiritual person, 
where person's interior and higher mind resides, 
is opened 
and is successively filled and perfected. 
But if a person permits the natural delight, 
which is the delight of the love of self and the world, 
to have dominion, 
then he views all things from that delight; 
and if he then sees truths 
he applies them to his own love and falsifies them. 
When this is done 
the internal spiritual person is closed; 
for as this is suited only to 
the reception of such things as are in heaven, 
it cannot bear that truths should be falsified; 
consequently when truths are falsified 
it contracts itself and closes  . . .. 
When the internal is once closed, 
the love of self reigns, 
or the love of the world, or both together; 
and they form the external or natural person 
altogether in opposition to 
the internal or spiritual person. 
For this reason 
those who have falsified truths by applying them
to the delights of the love of self and the world 
are unable afterwards to turn themselves to truths.  
This is what is here meant by these words, 
"I gave to the woman Jezebel time 
that she might repent of her whoredom, 
and she repented not."
(Revelation 2:21)

  

AE 159 - When a Person Loves

AE 159 [2]

. . . when a person loves God above all things, 
and his neighbor as himself; 
then the Lord turns the interiors 
which are of a person's mind, 
or of his thought and intention, to Himself, 
thus turning them away 
from person's proprium [what is his own], 
and elevating them; 
and this without a person's knowing anything about it. 
From this it is that a person's spirit, 
which is the person himself, 
after its release from the body 
is actually turned to its own love, 
because that constitutes his life's delight, 
that is, his life.

 

AE 155 - Loving the Lord Is Acting

AE 155 [3]

Doing the Lord's will
is acting from the good of love;
for all good has reference to the will,
as all truth has to the understanding.

 

AE 152 - "Eyes" and the Understanding

AE 152 [1, 2, 12, 15]

All the wisdom and intelligence 
that angels and people have 
is the Lord's with them and not their own; 
and this is also well known in the church; 
for it is known that all good, which is of love, 
and all truth, which is of faith, 
are from God, and nothing thereof from a person; 
and truths interiorly seen and acknowledged 
constitute intelligence, 
and these together with goods interiorly perceived 
and consequently seen constitute wisdom. 
From this then it is that 
"having His eyes as a flame of fire" 
also signifies the Lord's 
Divine wisdom and intelligence communicated 
to those who are in the goods of love, 
and from that in faith in Him.

"Eyes" signify the understanding, 
because all the sight of the eyes 
with people and angels is from the understanding. 
That all the sight of the eyes 
is from the understanding 
must sound absurd to those who are ignorant 
of the interior causes of things, 
out of which effects are presented in the body; 
those ignorant of these causes 
believe no otherwise than that the eye sees of itself, 
that the ear hears of itself, 
that the tongue tastes of itself, 
and that the body feels of itself; 
when yet it is the interior life of a person, 
the life of his spirit, 
which is the life of his understanding and will, 
or of his thought and affection that, 
through the organs of the body, 
has sensation of the things that are in the world, 
and thus perceives them naturally. 
The whole body, with all its many senses, 
is merely an instrument of its soul, or of its spirit; 
which is also the reason that 
when a person's spirit is separated from the body 
the body has no sensation whatever, 
but the spirit afterwards 
continues to have sensation as before.

"If your right eye causes you to stumble, 
pluck it out, and cast it from you; 
for it is better for you to enter life with one eye, 
rather than having two eyes 
to be cast into hell fire." 
(Matthew 5:29; 18:9; Mark 9:47)

Here also, by "eye" is not meant the eye, 
but the understanding thinking; 
by "the right eye causing to stumble" 
the understanding thinking evil; 
"plucking it out and casting it away" 
is not admitting such evil, but rejecting it; 
"having one eye" is the understanding 
thinking not evil, but truth only, 
for the understanding can think the truth; 
if it thinks evil it is from the will of evil. 
It is said "the right eye," because "the right eye" 
signifies the understanding of good, 
and the "left eye" the understanding of truth.

. . . the Lord's Divine Providence, 
. . . is His government of all things 
in the heavens and on the earth 
by Divine wisdom; 
for the Lord
by Divine Providence 
sees all things, disposes all things, 
and looks out for all things.

 

AE 151 - Seeing the Divine in Human Form

AE 151 [2

. . . those who have thought 
of God under the human form . . . 
have all their ideas determined to the Divine, 
nor do their thoughts . . . 
wander in every direction. 
And as the Divine under the Human form, 
is the Lord's Divine Human, 
therefore the Lord bends and determines 
their thoughts and affections to Himself. 
This, because it is the primary truth of the church, 
unceasingly flows in out of heaven with a person; 
consequently it is, as it were, 
implanted in everyone to think of the Divine 
under the human form, 
and thus to see His Divine inwardly in himself, 
with the exception of such 
as have extinguished in themselves 
this implanted thought.

 

AE 150 - The Church in Thyatira

AE 150 [1,2]

"And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write,"
(Revelation 2:18)

signifies those of the church 
with whom the internal and the external, 
or the spiritual and natural person, make one. 
This is evident from what is written to this angel 
understood in the internal sense, 
which treats of the conjunction of 
the internal or spiritual person 
with the external or natural person, 
or concerning those of the church 
in whom these are conjoined.

Since there are these two in a person, 
and each separately must be opened 
by means proper to it, 
it is clear that unless the internal is opened 
by its proper means 
a person continues merely natural, 
and his internal in that case is closed. 
But those with whom the internal is closed 
are not people of the church; 
for the church with a person is formed 
through communication with heaven: 
and there is no communication with heaven 
unless person's internal is opened 
by its proper means, 
all which have reference . . . to love and faith. 
It is to be known, moreover, 
that with the person of the church, that is, 
the person who has been regenerated by the Lord 
by means of truths 
called truths of faith 
and by means of a life according to them, 
the internal and external 
or the spiritual and natural person are conjoined, 
and that this conjunction 
is effected by correspondences.