9300. 'The first of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of [Jehovah] your God' means that every truth of good and every good of truth is holy because it comes from the Lord alone. This is clear from the meaning of 'the firstfruits of the ground' as the truth that the Church's forms of good and its truths must be attributed to the Lord alone (for these are meant by 'the firstfruits', see 9223, and the Church by 'the ground', 566, 1068), the expression 'the first of the firstfruits' being used because that truth must be paramount, since forms of good and truths receive their life from the Lord, that is, they receive it from the Lord when they are attributed to Him; and from the meaning of 'bringing into the house of God' as bringing them to the Lord, in order that they may be holy (for 'the house of God' is the Lord, see 3720, and everything holy comes from the Lord, 9229). From all this it is evident that 'the first of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of your God' means that every truth of good and every good of truth is holy because it comes from the Lord alone.

[2] The terms 'truth of good' and 'good of truth' are used because in the case of a person who is being regenerated, and especially of one who has been regenerated, truths emanate from good, and forms of good emanate from truth. For the truths compose the life of his understanding, and the good the life of his will. And with the person who has been regenerated understanding and will form a mind that is one, communicating reciprocally with each other; the truths which belong to the understanding communicate with the good which belongs to the will, and the good belonging to the will with the truths belonging to the understanding. There is a mutual flow from one to the other, scarcely any different from the flow of the blood from the heart into the lungs, and from them into the heart again, then from the left side of the heart into the arteries, and from these back again through veins into the heart. One can form an idea similar to this regarding the reciprocal flow of the good and truth with a person from his understanding into his will and from his will into his understanding. The reason why the heart and lungs can give us an idea especially of the reciprocal activity of the truth of faith and the good of charity in the understanding and the will is that the lungs correspond to the truths belonging to faith and the heart to the good belonging to love, 3635, 3883-3896. So it is also that 'the heart' in the Word means the life of the will, and 'the soul' ¹ the life of faith, 9050.

[3] The reason why those two organs can help us to form an idea regarding truths belonging to the understanding and good belonging to the will is that all things which are aspects of faith and of love are accompanied by ideas formed from such things as a person knows. For without ideas formed from things that can be known and things that can be perceived by the senses a person has no ability to think. And a person thinks properly, even about aspects of faith and love, when he does so from objects that correspond; for correspondences are natural truths in which spiritual truths are reflected as in a mirror. Therefore to the extent that ideas in the mind regarding spiritual realities are conceived of but not by means of those correspondences, they are formed either from the illusions of the senses or from absurdities. What a person's ideas are like regarding aspects of faith and of love is transparently evident in the next life, for people's ideas there are plainly perceptible.

[4] The statement that the truths of faith belong to a person's understanding and the good of charity to his will may seem to be nonsensical to people who say and are convinced that having a belief in matters of faith is all that is necessary. This is because the natural man and his power of understanding has no grasp whatever of things of that nature, and because faith comes not from a person himself but from the Lord. But those same people nevertheless acknowledge and believe that a person is enlightened by truths and inspired by good when he reads the Word, and that when he is enlightened he perceives what is or is not the truth. They also speak of those who excel others in uncovering truths from the Word as the enlightened. From this it is evident that those who are enlightened see and perceive within themselves whether something is the truth or not; what is then enlightened within them is their understanding, and what is then inspired within them is their will. But if that which enlightens them is the authentic truth of faith and that which inspires them is the authentic good of charity, it is the internal man's understanding that is enlightened and the internal man's will that is inspired. The situation is different if the truth of faith, or the good of charity, is unauthentic.

[5] People governed by these, and even those ruled by falsities and evils are indeed able to give their assent to the Church's truths; yet they have no inner ability to see and perceive whether they really are truths. So it is that most people keep to the teachings of the Church in which they were born but go no further than giving their assent to them. They would assent even to extremely heretical beliefs such as those of Socinianism or Judaism if they had been born from parents holding such beliefs. From all this it is evident that the understanding is enlightened in the case of those with an affection for truth arising from good but not in the case of those with an affection for truth arising from evil. In the case of those with an affection for truth arising from good the internal man's understanding is enlightened and the internal man's will is inspired, whereas in the case of those with an affection for truth arising from evil the internal man's understanding is not enlightened nor is the internal man's will inspired, for the reason that they are natural men and women. As a consequence of this they maintain that the natural man has no ability to grasp any thing which is a matter of faith.

[6] The fact that the understanding is what is enlightened by the truths of faith and the will is what is inspired by the good of charity in the case of those with an affection for truth arising from good, who are therefore more internal or spiritual men and women, is evident from the same kind of people in the next life. Those who are there are able to understand all matters of faith and to will all that constitutes charity, as they themselves also clearly perceive. Consequently intelligence and wisdom beyond description are theirs; for after they have cast aside the body they enjoy that more internal understanding which was being enlightened in the world and that more internal will which was being inspired in the world. But they could not perceive during that time how they were being enlightened and inspired because during that time their thinking took place within the body and was founded on such things as belong to the world. From all this it is now clear that the truths of faith compose the life of the understanding and the good of charity composes the life of the will, that is, that the understanding ought to be present in those things which are matters of faith and the will in those which are aspects of charity. Or what amounts to the same thing, those two powers of mind are what faith and charity from the Lord flow into; and these are received according to the state of those powers. Thus the Lord's dwelling-place with a person is nowhere else than within those powers.

[7] An idea of what more there is to all this may be gained from what has been stated about the internal man and the external man in 6057, 9279, namely this: The internal man has been created so as to conform to an image of heaven, but the external man so as to conform to an image of the world; and those whose internal man has not been opened up see nothing from a heavenly point of view. And what they see from a worldly point of view regarding heaven is thick darkness, as a consequence of which they cannot have any spiritual idea about such things as are matters of faith and charity. As a result of this furthermore they fail so completely even to see what Christian good is, that is, what charity is, that they entirely suppose that the life of heaven consists solely in truths, which they call the truths of faith, and also that this life can be imparted to anyone at all with whom the assurance of faith exists though not the life of faith.

[8] How blind these people are regarding the life of faith, which is charity, is plainly evident from the consideration that they pay no attention whatever to thousands of things taught by the Lord Himself regarding goodness of life, and that when they read the Word they instantly toss them away behind the back of faith, thereby concealing them from themselves and from others. So it is also that anything which has to do with good, that is, with charity and its works, is banished by them from the teachings of the Church to that lower body of teachings which they call moral theology, and which they regard as natural, not spiritual. But in reality the life of charity remains after death, and faith only in the measure that it accords with that life, that is, thought regarding the truths of faith remains in the measure that there is a will to do good in accordance with them. Those who have faith that arises out of good are able to use any factual knowledge whatever to corroborate things for themselves and thereby make their faith stronger, see 2454, 2568, 2588, 4156, 4293, 4760, 5201, 6047, 8629.

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3720. 'This is nothing other than the house of God' means the Lord's kingdom as it exists in the ultimate degree of order. This is clear from the meaning of 'the house of God'. In the Word 'the house of God' is referred to in many places, and in the external sense, that is, literally, it means a building where holy worship takes place. But in the internal sense it means the Church, in the more universal sense it means heaven, and in the most universal the Lord's kingdom. In the highest sense however it means the Lord Himself as regards the Divine Human. But in the Word sometimes the expression 'House of God' is used and sometimes 'Temple'. The two are similar in meaning, the difference being that the expression 'House of God' is used when the subject is good but 'temple' when the subject is truth. From this it is evident that 'the House of God' means the Lord's celestial Church, and in the more universal sense the heaven of celestial angels, in the most universal the Lord's celestial kingdom, and in the highest sense the Lord as regards Divine Good; whereas 'the Temple' means the Lord's spiritual Church, and in the more universal sense the heaven of spiritual angels, in the most universal the Lord's spiritual kingdom, and in the highest the Lord as regards Divine Truth, see 2048. The reason why 'the House of God' means that which is celestial and the dwelling-place of good, while 'the Temple' means that which is spiritual and the dwelling-place of truth, is that 'a house' in the Word means good, see 710, 2233, 2559, 3128, 3652, and among the most ancient people used to be built of pieces of wood for the reason that 'wood' meant good, 643, 1110, 2784, 2812, whereas 'the Temple' means truth because it was built of stones - 'stones' meaning truths, see 643, 1296, 1298.

[2] These meanings that 'pieces of wood' and 'stones' possess are clear not only from the Word where they are mentioned but also from representatives in the next life. For people who assume that merit lies in good works seem to themselves to be cutting wood, and those who assume that it lies in truths, that is to say, people who have believed that they knew more truths than anybody else and yet have lived wickedly, seem to themselves to be breaking up stones. I have often seen such people wood-cutting or stone-breaking, from which the meaning of 'wood' and of 'stone' was made clear to me - that good is meant by 'wood' and truth by 'stone'. It has in like manner been made clear to me from the fact that when I have seen a wooden house the concept of good has instantly presented itself, and when I have seen a stone house the concept of truth has done so. And I have also learned from angels about this matter. This is why, when in the Word 'the House of God' is mentioned, the concept of good presents itself to angels, the kind of good depending on the nature of the subject that is being dealt with. And when 'the Temple' is mentioned, the concept of truth presents itself, the kind of truth depending on the subject that is being dealt with. From this one may also deduce how deeply and inwardly concealed the heavenly arcana lie in the Word.

[3] The reason 'the House of God' here means the Lord's kingdom as it exists in the ultimate degree of order is that the subject is Jacob who, as often shown already, represents the Lord's Divine Natural. The natural exists in the ultimate degree of order, for the natural encompasses all interior degrees and includes them all together within itself. And since they are included all together within the natural, and so countless things are beheld as a single whole, obscurity exists there compared with other degrees. This obscurity too has been dealt with frequently.