At face value, the Ten Commandments can seem intense and unforgiving. But Emanuel Swedenborg’s understanding of the internal sense of the Bible—spiritual meanings that lie beneath the literal words—can give us a new perspective on these familiar rules.

In this episode of their Swedenborg and Life web series, hosts Curtis Childs and Jonathan Rose study the inner meaning of the first commandment.

(Verweise: Apocalypse Revealed 950; Arcana Coelestia 8864, 8865, 8868, 8869, 8875, 8878, 8879, 8880, 8881)

135. 'And thou holdest fast my name.' That this signifies acknowledgment of the Divine in the Human of the Lord, and of all things of love and faith towards Him is evident from what has been shown above concerning the signification of the name of Jehovah, of the Lord, and of Jesus Christ (n. 102). The reason why by the name of the Lord in the Word is meant primarily the acknowledgment of the Divine in His Human is that all things of love and faith are therefrom. For the Divine goods of love, and the Divine truths of faith, proceed from the Lord alone; and those things cannot flow into man unless he thinks of the Divine of the Lord at the same time that he thinks of His Human; nor is His Divine separated from the Human, but is in the Human (as may be seen above, n. 10, 26, 49, 52, 77, 97, 113, 114). I can assert, from all my experience of the spiritual world, that no one is in the truths of faith and the goods of love but he who thinks of the Divine of the Lord at the same time that he thinks of His Human; as also that no one is spiritual, or an angel, but he who had been in that thought and acknowledgment while in the world. Man must be conjoined to the Divine in his faith and love, in order that he may be saved. And all conjunction is with the Lord; and to be conjoined only to His Human, and not at the same time to His Divine, is not conjunction; for the Divine saves, but not the Human without the Divine. (That the Human of the Lord is Divine, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 280-310.)