Here we are in the 21st century. We know that the universe is an enormous place. We're just bursting with scientific knowledge. But how are we doing with the even-bigger ideas? Our human societies seem to be erasing them, or ignoring them - maybe we think we're too busy for them.

Here on the New Christian Bible Study site, we'll buck the trend. We want to explore the big ideas that give us a framework for living better lives. Here's a start on a list of big ideas from a New Christian perspective. For each idea, there is a footnote that lists some references in Swedenborg's theological works:

1. God exists. Just one God, who created and sustains the entire universe in all its dimensions, spiritual and physical. ¹

2. God's essence is love itself. It's the force that drives everything. ²

3. God's essence comes into being, that is, it exists, in and through creation. ³

4. There are levels, or degrees, of creation - ranging from spiritual ones that we can't detect with our physical senses or sensors, to the level of the physical universe where most of our awareness is when we're alive here. ⁴

5. The created universe emanates from God, and it's sustained by God, but in an important way it is separate from God. He wants it to be separate, so that freedom can exist. ⁵

6. God operates from love through wisdom - willing good things, and understanding how to bring them about. ⁶

7. The physical level of creation exists to provide human beings with an opportunity to choose in freedom, with rationality, whether or not to acknowledge and cooperate with God. ⁷

8. God provides all people everywhere, regardless of their religion, the freedom to choose to live a life of love to God and to the neighbor. ⁸

9. God loves everyone. He knows that true happiness only comes when we're unselfish; when we're truly motivated by a love of the Lord which is grounded out in a love of the neighbor. He seeks to lead everyone, but will not force us to follow against our will. ⁹

10. God doesn't judge us. He tells us what's good, and what's evil, and flows into our minds to lead us towards good. However, we're free to reject his leading, and instead opt to love ourselves most. Day by day, we create habits of generosity or of selfishness, and live out a life in accordance with those habits. Those habits become the real "us", our ruling love. ¹⁰

11. Our physical bodies die eventually, but the spiritual part of our minds keeps going. It's been operating on a spiritual plane already, but our awareness shifts - so that we become fully aware of spiritual reality. ¹¹

അടിക്കുറിപ്പുകൾ:

459. To these points I will add these memorable occurrences.

The first memorable occurrence. From far away I saw five halls. They were surrounded with different kinds of light. The first hall was surrounded with a fiery light, the second with a yellow light, the third with a bright white light, the fourth with a light halfway between daylight and twilight. The fifth hall was scarcely visible, because it was standing in the shadow of evening.

On the roads I saw some people on horseback, some in carriages, some walking, and some running and hurrying. The people in a hurry were headed for the first hall, the one surrounded in fiery light. Upon my seeing all this, a longing to go there and hear what they were discussing took hold of me and urged me in that direction. I quickly got ready and joined the people hurrying to the first hall. I went in with them.

Just picture the huge crowd inside. Some of them were heading to the right and some to the left to sit on seats arranged along the walls. Near the front I saw a low platform. The man who was the chairperson for the event was standing on it with a staff in his hand, a hat on his head, and a coat that was dyed the color of the hall's fiery light.

[2] After people had gathered, he lifted up his voice and said, "Friends, today we are discussing what goodwill is. As each of you may know, goodwill is spiritual in essence and earthly in practice. "

Immediately someone in the first row on the left side (the row where people with a reputation for being wise were seated) stood up and began to speak.

He said, "My opinion is this. Goodwill is morality inspired by faith. "

He supported his opinion in the following way: "Surely everyone knows that goodwill follows faith the way a female attendant follows her lady. Everyone knows that people who have faith are so spontaneously living the law, and therefore a life of goodwill, that they don't realize that the law and a life of goodwill are what they are living. If they realized this and then did it and were thinking they would be saved as a result, they would pollute the sacred faith with their selfishness and cripple its effectiveness. "

He said, "Doesn't this follow our dogma?" and looked at the people sitting at the sides, some of whom were clergy. They nodded.

[3] "But is spontaneous goodwill," he continued, "anything other than the morality into which everyone is initiated from early childhood? This morality is intrinsically earthly, but it becomes spiritual when faith is the inspiration for it. Who else but God can tell from people's moral life whether they have faith or not - given that everyone lives morally? God alone, who infuses faith into us and seals it there, is able to recognize and tell the difference. Therefore I submit that goodwill is morality inspired by faith. Morality that comes from our faith is intrinsically effective for our salvation. Every other type of morality does not bring us salvation, because we practice it in order to earn merit. Therefore people who mix goodwill and faith all find themselves without lamp oil - - that is, people who connect goodwill and faith inwardly rather than attaching them together outwardly. Mixing and connecting goodwill and faith would be like a servant standing by the back seat of a carriage in order to get in beside a church leader. It would be like bringing a doorkeeper into the dining room to sit at the table next to a powerful, influential person. "

[4] Then someone from the first row on the right stood up and said, "My opinion is that goodwill is religious devotion combined with compassion. I support this opinion as follows: Nothing can appease God more than religious devotion from a humble heart. Religious devotion constantly asks God to give us faith and goodwill. The Lord says, 'Ask and it will be given to you' (Matthew 7:7). Therefore what we are given has both faith and goodwill in it.

"I say that goodwill is religious devotion combined with compassion, because all true religious devotion feels compassion. Religious devotion moves our heart to the point of groaning; and what is that groaning but compassion? The feeling does indeed pass after we are done praying, but it nevertheless returns when we pray again. And when it returns there is a religious quality to it, showing that we have goodwill.

"ow, anything that advances our salvation our priests attribute solely to faith and not to goodwill. What is left for us then except to ask for both faith and goodwill with religious devotion and fervent prayer?

"When I read the Word, all I could see was that faith and goodwill are the two means of being saved; but when I consulted the ministers in the church, I heard that faith is the only means and goodwill is nothing. Then I saw myself as being at sea on a ship that was being tossed between two rocky outcroppings. Since I was afraid that the ship would be smashed, I climbed off into a rowboat and set forth. My rowboat is religious devotion - which, by the way, avails in every difficulty. "

[5] After that person, someone from the second row on the right stood up and said, "My opinion is that goodwill is doing good to everyone, whether honest or dishonest. I support this opinion as follows: Goodwill is goodness of heart. A good heart has good intentions toward all, both the honest and the dishonest. The Lord said that we are to do good even to our enemies. So if you withhold your goodwill from someone, doesn't that part of your goodwill become no goodwill? Aren't you then like a person hopping along on one leg because the other leg has been amputated? A dishonest person is just as much of a person as an honest one is. From the perspective of goodwill, people are people. If someone is dishonest, what difference does that make to me?

"Goodwill is like the warmth of the sun. It gives life to animals both wild and tame. It treats wolves and sheep alike. It makes trees grow whether they are harmful or beneficial. It treats thorn bushes the same as grapevines. "

At that point the speaker picked up a grape and said, "Goodwill is like this grape. Split it and what's inside will fall out. " He split the grape and its contents fell out.

[6] After that statement someone from the second row on the left stood up and said, "My opinion is that goodwill is doing all you can for your relatives and friends. I support this opinion as follows: Surely everyone knows that goodwill begins from ourselves. We are each neighbor to ourselves. Our goodwill then moves outward from ourselves to the people closest to us - first our brothers and sisters, and then our other family members and relatives. Goodwill's progression has built-in limits then. People who are more remote than this are foreign to us. Deep inside ourselves, we don't recognize foreigners. They are alien to our inner selves. Siblings and blood relatives, however, are connected to us by nature. Friends are connected to us by familiarity, which is a second nature; therefore these too become our neighbor. Goodwill connects us to people on the inside and then on the outside. People who are not connected to us on the inside should be called only acquaintances of ours.

"All birds recognize their family members. They use sound rather than plumage to tell. At close range they also tell by the living aura emanating from the bodies of their family members. In birds this innate love and sense of connection is called an instinct. But we have the same thing. In relation to our loved ones this is truly an instinct of human nature.

"Does anything make for compatibility except blood? The human mind or spirit senses a blood relationship as if it could smell it. In this compatibility, and the harmonious feeling it generates, lies the essence of goodwill. On the other hand, incompatibility that causes antipathy is like having no blood relationship and therefore no goodwill.

"And because familiarity is a second nature and it too produces compatibility, it follows that goodwill is also doing good to our friends.

"If we have been at sea and then we dock at some port and hear that we have arrived in a foreign land whose language and customs we do not know, we feel out of tune with ourselves and have no enjoyable feeling of love for the local people. But if we hear that it is our own country, with a language and customs we know, we feel in tune with ourselves and have an enjoyable feeling of love, which is also the enjoyable feeling of goodwill. "

[7] Then someone from the third row on the right stood up and said in a loud voice, "My opinion is that goodwill is giving donations to the poor and helping the needy. This is definitely goodwill, because the divine Word teaches that it is. What the Word declares allows for no contradiction.

"It is a pointless display to make donations to the rich and wealthy. There is no goodwill in it; instead the purpose is to be paid back. In it no genuine feeling of love for our neighbor is possible; it is an illegitimate feeling that may work on earth but does not work in heaven. Therefore poverty and need are to be the focus of our donations, because then the idea of a personal payback does not arise.

"In the city where I live, I know who the honorable and the dishonorable people are. I have observed that all the honorable people, when they notice a poor person in the street, stop and make a donation. All the dishonorable people, on the other hand, when they see a poor person off to the side, keep walking as if they were blind to the poor person and deaf to his or her voice. Everyone knows that the honorable have goodwill but the dishonorable do not.

"Someone who gives to the poor and helps the needy is like a shepherd who leads starving, thirsty sheep to something they can eat and drink. Someone who gives only to the rich and well-off is like someone who entertains the elite and presses food and wine on those who have had far too much already. "

[8] After that, someone from the third row on the left stood up and said, "In my opinion, goodwill is building hospices, hospitals, orphanages, and hostels, and maintaining them with donations. I support my opinion as follows: These forms of benefit and aid are public. They are leagues beyond private giving. In this case, goodwill becomes richer and more packed with an abundance of good things, and the reward we hope for on the basis of promises in the Word becomes enlarged - as we prepare and sow the field, so we reap. Isn't this a way of giving to the poor and helping the needy on a large scale? Who would not want glory from the world as a result, and also praises in the humble voices of the grateful people we have helped? Doesn't this lift our heart to its peak, and with it our feeling called goodwill?

"Rich people who ride instead of walking through the streets have no opportunity to turn their eyes toward the people sitting against the walls at the curbs and to hand them coins. Instead they make donations to places like these, which help many at once. Lesser people, however, who walk the streets and don't have these kinds of resources, do something else. "

[9] Upon hearing this, someone from the same row suddenly drowned out this person's voice with an even louder tone and said, "Nevertheless, rich people shouldn't value the generosity and excellence of their goodwill more than a pittance that one poor person gives another, because we know that all who perform any action do so according to their role in society. A monarch does something worthy of a monarch, a commander something worthy of a commander, an officer something worthy of an officer, and an attendant something worthy of an attendant. Goodwill is not essentially measured by the excellence of one's role or of the gift itself, but by the fullness of feeling that led to it. Therefore a manual laborer who gives a single coin can be making a donation with more abundant goodwill than a ranking official who gives or wills an extensive collection of valuables. This fits the following statement: 'Jesus saw rich people placing their donations in the treasury. He also saw a poor widow throwing in two mites. He said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow threw in more than all the others"' (Luke 21:1-3). "

[10] Then someone from the fourth row to the left stood up and said, "My opinion is that goodwill is providing church buildings with an endowment and benefiting its ministers. I support this opinion as follows: People who do this have something holy in mind and act on that holiness. They make their donations holy as well. Goodwill demands this because it is intrinsically holy. All the worship that takes place in church buildings is holy, for the Lord says, 'Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them' [Matthew 18:20]. As his servants, the priests minister for him. Therefore I conclude that donations to priests and to church buildings count for more than donations to other people and other things. Furthermore, part of the work of the ministry is blessing, which means that the donations are sanctified.

"Afterward nothing makes the mind more elated and cheerful than seeing one's donations in the form of as many sanctuaries. "

[11] Then someone from the fourth row to the right stood up and said this: "My opinion is that goodwill is the ancient Christian family feeling. I support my opinion as follows: Every church that worships the true God begins with goodwill. So did the early Christian church. Because goodwill unifies people's minds and makes one mind out of many, early Christians called each other family, but family in Jesus Christ their God. Since they were surrounded at that point by barbarous nations that they feared, they made a communal life with what they had, which brought them a great and like-minded happiness. They met together every day and talked about the Lord God their Savior Jesus Christ, and over lunch and dinner they talked about goodwill. This led to a family feeling among them.

"After those times, however, schisms began to occur, and then came the unspeakable Arian heresy, which robbed many of the idea that the Lord's human manifestation was divine. That caused goodwill to break down and the family feeling to fade away.

"The truth is that all who worship the Lord in truth and do what he commands are family (Matthew 23:8)family in spirit. Since nowadays people don't recognize what others are like in spirit, there is no reason for them to refer to themselves as a family.

"A family feeling based on faith alone is not real; still less real is a family feeling based on faith in another god besides the Lord God the Savior. The goodwill that causes a family feeling is not part of that faith. Therefore I have concluded that the ancient Christian family feeling was goodwill. It was, but it is no more. Nevertheless, I predict that it is going to return. "

When this last point was made, a fiery light appeared from outside the east window and tinged the speakers cheeks - something the gathering was astounded to see.

[12] Lastly, someone from the fifth row on the left stood up and asked permission to add something to the last speaker's remarks. The group gave permission. The statement was this: "My opinion is that goodwill is forgiving anyone's wrongs. I base my opinion on the usual conversation among people as they approach the Holy Supper. At that moment some people say to their friends, 'Forgive the wrongs I have done,' figuring that this will satisfy goodwill's requirements. But I have thought to myself that this is only the semblance of goodwill, not a real form of its essence. Some who say this are themselves unforgiving people, and some put no effort into the pursuit of goodwill. People like this are not the people mentioned in the prayer the Lord himself taught us: 'Father, forgive us our wrongs, just as we forgive people who wrong us. '

"Wrongs are like wounds. Unless they are opened up and cleansed, pus gathers in them and infects neighboring tissues, creeping outward like a serpent and corrupting the blood on all sides. It is the same with wrongs against our neighbor. If they are not removed by repentance and by living as the Lord commands, they remain and become more deeply entrenched.

"People who merely pray to God to remove their sins but don't do any repentance are like people who live in some city and are infected with a contagious disease. They go to the mayor and say, Master, cure us. Surely the mayor is going to tell them, 'Why do you ask me to cure you? Go to a doctor, find out what medicine to take, get some from the apothecary, and take it. Then you'll be cured. ' If people beg for their sins to be forgiven without doing any actual repentance, the Lord will tell them, 'Open the Word and read what I said in Isaiah: "Woe to a sinful nation, heavy with injustice. As a result, when you stretch out your hands I hide my eyes from you. Even if you increase your praying, I do not hear it. Wash yourselves. Remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Stop doing evil. Learn to do good, and then your sins will be removed and forgiven (Isaiah 1:4, 15-18).'"

[13] After these speeches I raised my hand and asked whether I could offer an opinion even though I was a stranger. The chairperson put it to the group. After they agreed I said, "My opinion is that goodwill is to act in all our work, and in every role we have, with judgment based on a love for justice - but only if that love comes solely from the Lord God the Savior. All the definitions I heard from the people in the seats to the right and the left are well-known examples of goodwill. Nevertheless, as the chair of this gathering said at the outset, goodwill is originally spiritual. It is earthly only by derivation. When earthly goodwill is inwardly spiritual, to the angels it looks as clear as a diamond. When earthly goodwill is not inwardly spiritual, however, and is therefore merely earthly, to the angels it looks opalescent, like the eye of a cooked fish.

[14] "It is not up to me to say whether the well-known examples of goodwill that you have just presented one after the other are actions motivated by spiritual goodwill or not. There is one thing I can do, however. These examples of goodwill should contain something spiritual. I can state what that spiritual something must be like if they are to be earthly forms of spiritual goodwill.

"Those actions are spiritual if they are done with judgment based on a love for justice. That is, as we practice goodwill we check to see whether we are acting on the basis of justice. We use our judgment to tell.

"It is possible for us to do harm through our good deeds. It is also possible for us to do good through apparently evil deeds. For example, we do harm through a good deed if we give a needy robber money to buy a sword, even if the robber while begging doesn't say that that is what the money is for; or if we bail the robber out of prison and point the way to the forest, saying to ourselves, 'It is not my fault if the robber steals. I have helped another human being. '

"For another example, if we feed some lazy person and protect him or her from being forced to labor for work, and we say, 'Stay in a room at my house. Lie in bed. Why wear yourself out?' we are encouraging laziness. Likewise if we give dishonest friends and relatives of ours jobs in high places from which they can practice all kinds of malice. Surely anyone can see that these acts of goodwill are not done with any love for justice or with any judgment.

[15] "On the other hand, we can also do good through actions that look bad. Take for example a judge who lets a criminal go because the criminal is crying and pouring out devout words, praying for the judge to grant a pardon because the criminal is the judge's neighbor. The judge would be performing an act of goodwill by imposing the penalty established in the law, because this would stop the criminal from doing any further harm and being a threat to the community; and the community takes precedence as a form of the neighbor. It would also prevent the scandal that might arise if the judge decided to let the criminal go.

"Surely everyone knows that servants benefit if their masters punish them for doing something evil, and children benefit as well when their parents punish them for the same reason.

"Something similar is also good for the people in hell, all of whom love doing evil. It is good for them to be kept locked in prisons and to be punished when they do something evil. The Lord allows this for the sake of their correction. This happens because the Lord is perfect justice and does what he does with perfect judgment.

[16] "From these points you can clearly see why I made the statement I did: we act with spiritual goodwill when we base our actions on a love for justice, and use our judgment.

"The love has to come solely from the Lord God the Savior, because all goodness related to goodwill comes from the Lord. He says, 'Those who live in me and I in them bear much fruit, because without me you cannot do anything' (John 15:5); and that he has all power in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). All love for justice and use of judgment comes from the God of heaven alone, who is justice itself, and who is the source of all our ability to judge (Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15).

[17] "In conclusion, let's review all the definitions of goodwill from the chairs to the left and right - that it is morality combined with faith; religious devotion combined with compassion; doing good to everyone whether honest or dishonest; doing all you can for your relatives and friends; giving donations to the poor and helping the needy; building hospitals and maintaining them with donations; providing church buildings with an endowment and benefiting their ministers; the ancient Christian family feeling; and forgiving anyone's wrongs. These are all outstanding examples of goodwill as long as they are done with a love for justice and with judgment. Otherwise they are not goodwill: they are only streams that have been cut off from a river or branches that have been pulled off a tree, since real goodwill is believing in the Lord and behaving justly and uprightly in all our work and in every role we have. People who receive a love for justice from the Lord and who practice justice with judgment are goodwill in its image and likeness. "

[18] After I said that there was silence, like the silence of people who see something in their inner self and acknowledge the truth of it to some extent, but do not see it yet in their outer self. I noticed this in their faces.

Suddenly, however, I was taken out of their sight because I went back out of the spirit into my physical body. Because our earthly self wears a physical body, it is not visible to any spiritual person, meaning a spirit or an angel, and neither are they visible to it.

4844. 'Remain a widow in your father's house' means the alienation of this Church from the Jewish Church. This becomes clear from the fact that Judah's wish was that by doing this she would go away and not return to him any more. He did, it is true, say that she should remain there until Shelah his son was grown up; nevertheless he had it in mind not to give her to Shelah his son, for he said to himself, 'In case he also dies, like his brothers'. He gave further proof of his intentions by his actions, as is evident from verse 14 - 'Tamar saw that Shelah had grown up, and she had not been given to him as a wife'. From all this it is evident that the words used here mean that he alienated her from himself. That is, the meaning in the internal sense is that he alienated the Church representative of spiritual and celestial things - the Church represented by 'Tamar', 4811, 4831 - from the Jewish Church represented by 'Judah'. The two could not be in agreement with each other because Judaism was not a representative Church, only a representative of the Church, 4307, 4500; for it acknowledged what was external but not that which was internal.

[2] 'A widow' also means the truth of the Church without its good; for in the representative sense 'a wife' means truth and 'a husband' good, 4823, 4843, and therefore 'a wife without a husband' means the truth of the Church without its good. This being so, when it is said in reference to Tamar that she should remain in the house of her father, the meaning is that the truth of the Church would be alienated, and also that it would not find acceptance in his house, even as the Jewish nation could not accept it because not good but evil was present among that nation.

[3] A widow is referred to many times in the Word; but anyone unacquainted with the internal sense inevitably thinks that 'a widow' means a widow. In the internal sense 'a widow' means the truth of the Church without good, that is, people who have truth that is without good but who nevertheless have a desire for good, who consequently love to be led by good; for 'a husband' means good which ought to take the lead. In the Ancient Church people like these were meant in the good sense by 'the widowed', whether they were women or men. For the Ancient Church distinguished the neighbour to whom charity was to be performed into many separate classes. Some were called the poor, some the wretched and afflicted, some the bound and in prison, some the blind and the lame, and others strangers, orphans, and widows. It performed different charitable works, whichever were appropriate to the character each class possessed. The teachings of that Church showed them what those works were, for that Church had no other teachings than these. Therefore whenever those living in those times either taught or wrote, they did so in conformity with these teachings, so that when they spoke of 'widows' they meant none but the kind of persons among whom truth existed without good but who nevertheless had a desire to be led to good.

[4] From this it is also evident that the teachings of the Ancient Church were ones that had to do with charity and the neighbour, and that all its religious knowledge and factual knowledge existed to enable people to know what was meant spiritually by external things. For the Church was representative of spiritual and celestial things, and therefore it was these spiritual and celestial things, represented and meant by that Church, that people came to know about through the Church's teachings and through its factual knowledge. But those teachings and factual knowledge have become at the present day completely wiped out, so completely indeed that there is no knowledge of their having existed. For their place has been taken by teachings to do with faith which, if widowed and separated from those to do with charity, have virtually nothing to teach. For teachings to do with charity show what good is, but those to do with faith show what truth is. Teaching what truth is without what good is amounts to walking like someone blind, it being good that is the teacher and leader, truth the one that is taught and led. Between the two kinds of teaching there is a vast difference, as great as that between light and darkness. If the darkness is not lightened by means of the light, that is, if truth is not lightened by good, or faith by charity, it is nothing but darkness. For this reason no one knows intuitively, nor consequently by perception, whether truth is the truth; he knows it only from what he was taught and what he absorbed in childhood and substantiated in adult years. This also explains why Churches are so much at variance with one another, one giving the name truth to that which another calls falsity, and are never in agreement.

[5] The meaning in the good sense of 'widows' as people who have truth existing without good but who nevertheless have a desire to be led by good may be seen from places in the Word where widows are mentioned, as in David,

Jehovah who executes judgement for the oppressed, who gives bread to the starving, Jehovah who sets the bound free; Jehovah who opens the blind [eyes]; Jehovah who lifts up the bowed down; Jehovah who loves the righteous; Jehovah who guards sojourners, upholds the orphan and the widow. Psalms 146:7-9.

This refers, in the internal sense, to those whom the Lord furnishes with truths and leads to good. But some of them are called the oppressed, some the starving, while others are called the bound, the blind, the bowed down, sojourners, orphans and widows, each name appropriate to the character of the ones to whom it is applied. No one however can know what each particular nature is except from the internal sense; but the teachings of the Ancient Church showed what any particular nature was. Here, as in many other places, sojourner, orphan, and widow are referred to jointly because 'a sojourner' means those who wish to be furnished with the truths of faith, 1463, 4444, 'an orphan' those with whom good exists without truth but who have a desire to be led to good by means of truth, and 'a widow' those with whom truth exists without good and who have a desire to be led to truth by means of good. These three are referred to jointly here and elsewhere in the Word because in the internal sense they form a single group, for all three together mean those who wish to be taught and to be led to good and truth.

[6] In the same author,

A father of the orphans, and a judge of the widows, is God in the habitation of His holiness. Psalms 68:5.

'The orphans' stands for those with whom, like young children, the good that goes with innocence is present but no truth as yet. The Lord is said to be 'a father' of these because He leads them like a father; He leads them by means of truth into good, that is to say, into the good constituting life or wisdom. 'The widows' stands for those who as adults know the truth but are not as yet doing good. The Lord is said to be 'a judge' of these because He leads them; He leads them by means of good into truth, that is to say, into the truth constituting intelligence. For by 'a judge' a leader is meant. Good without truth, meant by 'an orphan', is made into good filled with wisdom by means of teaching about truth; and truth without good, meant by 'a widow', is made into truth filled with intelligence by means of a life of good.

[7] In Isaiah,

Woe to those decreeing decrees of iniquity, to turn aside the poor from judgement and to carry off into judgement the wretched of My people, so that widows may be their spoil and so that they may make orphans their prey. Isaiah 10:1-2.

Here 'the poor', 'the wretched', 'widows', and 'orphans' do not mean those who are literally so but those who are spiritually such. Now because in the Jewish Church, as in the Ancient, everything was representative, so also was doing good to orphans and widows, for doing good to these represented in heaven charity towards those who are orphans and widows in the spiritual sense.

[8] In Jeremiah,

Do judgement and righteousness, and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor; and do not defraud the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow, and do not use force, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. Jeremiah 22:3.

Here also 'the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow' means those who are spiritually such. In the spiritual world or heaven they do not know who a sojourner, orphan, or widow is, for the condition of such persons there is not the same as what it had been in the world. When therefore these words are read by man, angels perceive the spiritual or internal meaning they possess.

[9] Similarly in Ezekiel,

Behold, the princes of Israel, each according to his power, ¹ have in you been intent on shedding blood; in you they have treated father and mother with contempt; in you they have dealt with the sojourner by means of oppression; in you they have defrauded the orphan and the widow. Ezekiel 22:6-7.

Also in Malachi,

I will draw near to you to judgement, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against those who swear falsely, and against oppressors of the hireling in his wages, of the widow and the orphan, and [against] those who turn aside the sojourner, and do not fear Me. Malachi 3:5.

Similarly in Moses,

You shall not press down a sojourner or oppress him. You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. If you do indeed afflict him, and if he indeed cries out to Me, I will surely hear his cry, and My anger will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, so that your wives become widows, and your children orphans. Exodus 22:21-24.

[10] This, like every other commandment, judgement, and statute in the Jewish Church, was representative. Also, members of that Church were tied down to things of an external nature so that they would observe that command, and by means of their observance of it they represented the inner spirit of charity, even though they themselves had no charity, that is, they did not act from any inner affection. An inner spirit flowed from an affection to furnish with truths those who were without knowledge, and to lead those people to good by means of truths. If they had done this, members of the Jewish Church would have been doing good, in a spiritual sense, to the sojourner, orphan, and widow. But so that what was external might be kept going for the sake of what it represented, the curses declared on Mount Ebal included 'turning aside the judgement of the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow', Deuteronomy 27:19. 'Turning aside the judgement of these' stands for doing the reverse, that is, leading through teaching and life to falsity and evil. Also, because taking goods and truths away from others, and then making them one's own so as to enhance one's own position and gain, was included among curses, the Lord therefore said,

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees! for you devour widows' houses, and for a presence you make long prayers; on account of this you will receive greater condemnation. ² Matthew 23:14; Luke 20:47.

'Devouring widows' houses' stands for taking truths away from those who have a desire for them, and teaching them falsities.

[11] To leave for the sojourner, orphan, and widow that which remained in fields, olivegroves, and vineyards, Deuteronomy 24:19-22, was likewise representative. So too was the command that when they had finished paying the tithes of their produce in the third year, the people should give to the sojourner, orphan, and widow, so that they ate within their gates and were satisfied, Deuteronomy 26:12-13. It being the Lord alone who teaches a person and leads him to good and truth, it is said in Jeremiah,

Leave your orphans, I will keep them alive; and the widows will trust in Me. Jeremiah 49:10-11.

And in Moses,

Jehovah executes judgement for the orphan and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him bread and clothing. Deuteronomy 10:18.

'Bread' stands for the good of love, 2165, 2177, 3478, 3735, 3813, 4211, 4217, 4735, and 'clothing' for the truth of faith, 4545, 4763.

[12] It is recorded in 1 Kings 17:1-17 that Elijah was sent, when there was a famine because there was no rain in the land, to a widow in Zarephath. He asked her for a little cake, which she had to make for him first and give it to him; after that she was to make one for herself and her son. When she did so her jar of meal was not used up and her cruse of oil did not run dry. All this was representative, like everything else recorded about Elijah, and in general throughout the Word. 'A famine in the land because there was no rain' represented truth laid waste within the Church, 1460, 3364; 'a widow in Zarephath' those outside the Church who have a desire for truth; 'a cake which she had to make for him first' the good of love to the Lord, 2177, whom, from the very little she had, she was to love above herself and her son. 'The jar of meal' means truth derived from good, 2177, and 'the cruse of oil' charity and love, 886, 3728, 4582. 'Elijah' represents the Word, by means of which such things are effected, 2762.

[13] The same is also meant, in the internal sense, by the Lord's words in Luke,

No prophet is accepted in his own country. In truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, while there was a great famine over the whole land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them, except to a woman - a widow - in Zarephath of Sidon. Luke 4:24-26.

That is, he was sent to those outside the Church who had a desire for truth. But 'widows' within the Church that had been laid waste, to whom Elijah was not sent, are those with whom no truth exists because no good does so; for where there is no good neither is there any truth. However much among those people truth seems to outward appearance like truth it is nothing more so to speak than a shell without any nut in it.

[14] Those among whom this kind of truth exists, also those among whom falsity exists, are meant by 'widows' in the contrary sense, as in Isaiah,

Jehovah will cut off from Israel head and tail, the branch and the bulrush in one day. The old and the honourable in face is the head, and the prophet, the teacher of a lie, the tail. Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over its young men, and He will not have compassion on its orphans and its widows. Isaiah 9:14-15, 17.

In Jeremiah,

I will winnow them with a winnowing-fork in the gates of the land; I will bereave, I will destroy My people; they have not turned from their ways. Their widows are increased to Me more than the sand of the seas. I will bring to them, against the mother of the young men, one who lays waste at midday. She who bore seven languishes; she has breathed her last. Her sun is going down while it is still day. Jeremiah 15:7-9.

In the same prophet,

Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens, our houses to foreigners. We have become orphans with no father; our mothers are widows. Lamentations 5:2-3.

[15] Because 'widows' meant those with whom no truth existed because no good did so, it was therefore shameful for Churches to be called widows, even those Churches governed by falsities springing from evil, as in John,

In her heart she said, A queen I sit, and I am no widow, and shall not see mourning. On account of this in one day will her plagues come, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned with fire. Revelation 18:7-8.

This refers to Babel. A similar reference to Babel occurs in Isaiah,

Hear this, you lover of pleasures, sitting securely, saying in her heart, I am, and there is no one else like me; a widow I shall not sit, nor shall I know loss of children. But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day - loss of children and widowhood. Isaiah 47:8-9.

[16] From these quotations one may now see what is meant by 'a widow' in the internal sense of the Word. One may see that since 'a widow' represented and consequently meant the truth of the Church without its good - for 'a wife' meant truth and 'a husband' good - priests in the Ancient Churches, in which every single thing was representative, were therefore forbidden to marry any widow who was not a priest's widow, as the following in Moses declares,

The high priest shall take a wife in her virginity; a widow or a woman that has been put away or one defiled or a prostitute, these he shall not take, but a virgin of his own people shall he take as his wife. Leviticus 21:13-15.

And in the references to a new temple and a new priesthood in Ezekiel,

Priests the Levites shall not take as wives for themselves a widow or a woman that has been put away, but virgins from the seed of the house of Israel; but a widow who is the widow of a priest may they take. Ezekiel 44:22.

For 'the virgins' whom they were to marry represented and consequently meant the affection for truth, and 'the widow of a priest' the affection for truth from good, since 'a priest' in the representative sense is the good of the Church. For this reason also any widow [who was the daughter] of a priest and who had no children was allowed to eat some of the offerings or holy things, Leviticus 22:12-13.

[17] Those who belonged to the Ancient Church knew this meaning of 'a widow' from the teachings of the Church, for among them these teachings had to do with love and charity, which included countless matters which at the present day have become completely wiped out. From them they knew which particular kind of charitable act they were required to perform - that is, which service they ought to render towards the neighbour - for those who were called 'widows', for those who were called 'orphans', for those who were called 'sojourners', and so on. From their religious knowledge of truth and from factual knowledge they had a discernment and a knowledge of what the ritual observances of their Church represented and meant. The learned among them knew what it was that things on earth and in this world represented, for they recognized that the whole natural creation was a theatre representative of the heavenly kingdom, 2758, 2989, 2999, 3483. Such knowledge raised their minds up to heavenly things, and the teachings of their Church led the way to life. But after the Church turned aside from charity to faith, more so after it separated faith from charity, and made faith without charity and the works of charity the bringer of salvation, their minds could no longer be raised up by means of religious knowledge to heavenly things, nor be led by any means of the teachings of the Church to life. Indeed the decline has been so great that in the end scarcely anyone believes in a life after death, and scarcely anyone knows anything about heaven. Also, there is no belief at all in the existence of a spiritual sense of the Word which is not visible in the letter. In this way people's minds have become closed.

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