2. The Lord is God of Heaven

First and foremost, we need to know who the God of heaven is, since everything else depends on this. Throughout the whole of heaven, no one is acknowledged as God of heaven except the Lord. Angels say what he himself taught, namely that he is one with the Father, that the Father is in him and he in the Father, that anyone who sees him sees the Father, and that everything holy emanates from him (John 10:30, 38; 14:9-11, 16; 16:13-15). I have often talked with angels about this, and their consistent testimony has been that in heaven they cannot divide the Divine into three because they both know and perceive that the Divine is one and that this "one" is in the Lord. They have also told me that when people arrive from earth with the idea of three divine beings they cannot be admitted to heaven. This is because their thinking vacillates between one opinion and the other, and in heaven they are not allowed to think "three" and say "one." ¹

In heaven people actually speak directly from their thought, so that we have there a kind of thoughtful speech or audible thought. This means that if people have divided the Divine into three in the world and held a separate image of each one without gathering and focusing these three into one, they cannot be accepted. In heaven, there is a communication of all thoughts, so if people arrive who think "three" and say "one," they are recognized immediately for what they are and are sent away.

Still, it needs to be realized that in the other life any people who have not put "good" in one compartment and "true" in another - who have not separated faith from love - accept the heavenly concept of the Lord as God of the universe once they have been taught. It is different, though, with people who have separated their faith from their lives, that is, who have not lived by the guiding principles of true faith.

Footnotes:

1408. The events described here and in what follows took place in history as they are recorded, yet the historical events as described are representative, and every word carries a spiritual meaning. This is so in all of the historical parts of the Word, not only in the Books of Moses but also in those of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, all of which books contain nothing else than historical narratives. But although they are historical narratives in the sense of the letter, in the internal sense there are arcana of heaven lying hidden there. These arcana cannot possibly be seen as long as the mind keeps its eye fixed on the historical details, nor are they disclosed until the mind removes itself from the sense of the letter. The Word of the Lord is like a body that has a living soul within it. The things that belong to the soul are not apparent as long as the mind is fixed on those of the body, so much so that it scarcely believes it possesses a soul, even less that it will be alive after death. But as soon as the mind departs from bodily things, those belonging to the soul and to life show themselves; and in this lies the reason not only why bodily things must die before a person can be born anew or be regenerated, but also why the body must die so that he can enter heaven and behold heavenly things.

[2] The same applies to the Word of the Lord Its bodily parts are the things that constitute the sense of the letter, and when the mind is fixed on these the internal things are not seen at all. But once the bodily parts so to speak have died, the internal for the first time are brought to view. All the same, the things constituting the sense of the letter are like the things present with man in his body, namely the facts belonging to the memory which come in through the senses and which are general vessels containing interior or internal things. From this one may recognize that the vessels are one thing and the essential elements within the vessels another. The vessels are natural, and the essential elements within the vessels are spiritual and celestial. In the same way the historical narratives of the Word, as with each individual expression in the Word, are general, natural, indeed material vessels that have spiritual and celestial things within them. These things never come into sight except through the internal sense.

[3] This may become clear to anyone simply from the fact that many matters in the Word have been stated according to appearances, indeed according to the illusions of the senses, such as that the Lord is angry, punishes, curses, slays, and many other such statements, when in fact the internal sense contains the reverse, namely that the Lord is never angry or punishes, still less curses or slays. All the same, no harm at all is done to people who in simplicity of heart believe the Word as they find it in the letter so long as they are leading charitable lives, the reason being that the Word teaches nothing other than this - that everyone ought to live in charity with his neighbour and to love the Lord above all things. People doing this are in possession of the internal things, and thus with them the illusions acquired from the sense of the letter are easily dispersed.

4536. Genesis 35

1. And God said to Jacob, Rise up, go up to Bethel and settle there, and make there an altar to the God who appeared to you when you fled from before Esau your brother.

2. And Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, Remove the gods of the foreigner which are in the midst of you, and be purified, and change your garments.

3. And let us rise up and go up to Bethel, and I will make there an altar to the God who answered me on the day of my distress, and was with me in the way that I went. ¹

4. And they gave to Jacob all the gods of the foreigner which were in their hand, and the jewels which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem.

5. And they travelled on; and the terror of God was on the cities which were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.

6. And Jacob came to Luz which is in the land of Canaan - that is, Bethel - he and all the people who were with him.

7. And he built an altar there, and called the place El Bethel, for there the gods were revealed to him, when he was fleeing from before his brother.

8. And Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and was buried below Bethel under an oak; and its name was called Allon Bacuth.

9. And God was seen by Jacob again, when he was coming from Paddan Aram; and He blessed him.

10. And God said to him, Your name is Jacob; your name will no longer be called Jacob, but indeed Israel will be your name; and He called his name Israel.

11. And God said to him, I am God Shaddai, be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations will be from you, and kings will go out from your loins.

12. And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and to your seed after you I will give the land.

13. And God went up from over him in the place where He talked to him.

14. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He talked to him, a stone pillar, and poured out a drink-offering onto it, and poured oil onto it.

15. And Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke to him, Bethel.

16. And they travelled on from Bethel, and there was still a stretch of land to go to Ephrath; and Rachel gave birth, and suffered severely' in giving birth.

17. And it happened in her suffering severely, ² in giving birth, that the midwife said to her, Do not be afraid, for this also is a son for you.

18. And it happened as her soul was departing, when she was about to die, that she called his name Ben-oni; and his father called him Benjamin.

19. And Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem.

20. And Jacob set up a pillar over her grave; this is the pillar of Rachel's grave even to this day.

21. And Israel travelled on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder.

22. And it happened while Israel was residing in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine; and Israel heard of it. And the sons of Jacob were twelve.

23. The sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun.

24. The sons of Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.

25. And the sons of Bilhah, Rachel's servant-girl: Dan and Naphtali.

26. And the sons of Zilpah, Leah's servant-girl: Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Paddan Aram.

27. And Jacob came to Isaac his father, to Mamre, Kiriath Arba, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac sojourned.

28. And the days of Issac were a hundred and eighty years.

29. And Isaac breathed his last, and died, and was gathered to his peoples, old and full of days. And Esau and Jacob his sons buried him.

CONTENTS

This chapter deals in the internal sense with how all else in the Lord's Natural was made Divine, the interior aspects of the Natural which were made Divine being meant by 'Israel' now. Progress towards aspects even more interior, where the Rational is situated, is described by the birth of Benjamin, and after that by Jacob's sons when they came to Isaac.

Footnotes: