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.

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

534. And the fifth angel sounded.- That this signifies influx out of heaven manifesting that the state of the church was altogether changed, is evident from the signification of sounding with a trumpet, as denoting influx out of heaven, and a change of the state of the church (see above, n. 502). Here it denotes, that the state of the church was altogether changed, for it was said just above, concerning the three last times in which the angels sounded, "woe, woe, woe, to them that dwell on the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound." The change described in that which now follows, is, that all truth was destroyed, and that falsity taking the place of it opened the hells, whence falsities issued forth.