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.

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

8881. 'And keep My commandments' means who receive the truths of faith. This is clear from the meaning of 'commandments' as the truths of faith, dealt with in 3382, 8362. The reason why 'keeping' them means receiving them is that truths which are called the truths of faith - if they are to be those of faith with a person and have life in them - also flow in from the Lord. A person, it is true, learns them and stores them in his memory; but as long as they are not in the person's will and he does not therefore do them, they do not come to have any life in them. When however they are brought out of store in his memory and introduced by way of his understanding into his will, that is, through thought into affection and therefore into action, they come to have life in them and to be truths of faith. This is accomplished by the Lord when the person refrains from evils, as stated immediately above in 8880.