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.

Notas de rodapé:

2333. 'And in the morning you may rise up and go your way' means being strengthened in this way in good and truth. This becomes clear from the meaning of 'rising up in the morning', and also from the meaning of 'going on one's way'. In the Word 'the morning' means the Lord's kingdom and whatever belongs to the Lord's kingdom, and so primarily the good that flows from love and charity. This will be confirmed from the Word at verse 15. 'Way' however means truth, see 627. From this it follows that after they had been in his house and spent the night there, which meant that they dwelt in the good of charity with him, 'they rose up in the morning and went their way', which means that in this way they were confirmed in good and truth.

[2] These phrases, as do all the rest, show how far removed the internal sense is from the sense of the letter and therefore how hidden from view it is, especially in the historical parts of the Word. They show that this sense is not discernible unless individual expressions are explained according to the meaning they have all through the Word. Consequently when ideas are confined to the sense of the letter, the internal sense is seen as something altogether dark and obscure. Conversely when ideas are confined to the internal sense, the sense of the letter in a similar way is seen as something obscure. Indeed angels see it as nothing, for angels no longer have worldly and bodily ideas as man does, but spiritual and celestial ones, into which the expressions of the sense of the letter are marvellously converted when the Word which man is reading rises up to the sphere in which angels dwell, that is, up to heaven. This happens because of the correspondence of spiritual things with worldly, and of celestial with bodily, a correspondence which is absolutely consistent but whose nature has not been disclosed until now in the explanation of expressions, names, and numbers in the Word as to their internal sense.

[3] So that the nature of that correspondence may be known, or what amounts to the same, how worldly and bodily ideas pass over into corresponding spiritual and celestial ideas when they are raised towards heaven, let 'the morning' and 'way' be taken as examples: When a person reads of 'the morning', as in the phrase here 'rising up in the morning', angels do not conceive the idea of the start to a new day but the idea which 'morning' has in the spiritual sense. The idea they conceive is similar to the statement in Samuel,

The Rock of Israel . . . He is like morning light, when the sun rises on a cloudless morning. 2 Samuel 23:3-4.

And in Daniel,

The Holy One said to me, Up to the evening when it is becoming morning, two thousand three hundred times. Daniel 8:14, 26.

Thus instead of 'the morning' angels perceive the Lord, or His kingdom, or celestial things of love and charity. This they do varyingly according to the train of thought in the Word which a person is reading.

[4] Similarly where a person reads of 'a way', as in 'going on your way' here, they cannot have any idea of a way, but a spiritual or a celestial idea, that is to say, like that in John, when the Lord said,

I am the way and the truth. John 14:6.

Also the idea in David,

Make Your ways known to me, O Jehovah, guide my way in truth. Psalms 25:4-5.

And in Isaiah,

He made him know the way of understanding. Isaiah 40:14.

Thus instead of 'a way' angels perceive truth. They do so in the historical as well as the prophetical sections of the Word; in fact angels no longer have any interest in matters of history as these are not at all in keeping with the ideas they have. Consequently in place of historical details they perceive such things as belong to the Lord and His kingdom, which also follow on one after another in marvellous array and perfect sequence in the internal sense. For this reason, so that the Word may serve angels as well, all historical details there are representative, and each expression serves to mean such things. This special feature is what makes the Word different from all other literature.

4422. In the preliminary section of this chapter the Lord's words in Matthew 24:42-end come up for explanation. These last verses in that chapter concerning the close of the age or the coming of the Lord read in the letter as follows,

Watch therefore, for you do not know at what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, if the master of the house knew at which period of the night the thief is coming, he would watch, and would not let his house be broken into. Therefore you also, be ready, for the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect. Who then is the faithful and careful servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find doing so. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his goods. But what if that wicked servant shall say in his heart, My master is delaying his coming, and he shall begin to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with drunkards? The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and in an hour he does not know. And he will cut him off and assign him his part with the hypocrites, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.

What these words hold within them may be seen from the train of thought, for the subject throughout this chapter in the gospel has been the last days of the Church, by which in the internal sense are meant the close of the age and the coming of the Lord. This can be seen plainly in the explanation of every statement in that chapter, in the preliminary sections of the chapters of Genesis immediately previous to this. That is to say, see 3353-3356, 3486-3489, 3650-3655, 3751-3757, 3897-3901, 4056-4060, 4229-4231, and 4332-4335, the preliminary sections of Chapters-33..

[2] The sequence of thought contained in this chapter of the gospel has also been stated in those paragraphs, that sequence being as follows: When the Christian Church established after the Lord's Coming began to ruin itself, that is, to depart from good,

1. People ceased to know what good or truth was and began to argue with one another about them.

2. They treated them with contempt.

3. Then they did not in their hearts acknowledge them.

4. After that they profaned them.

5. And because the truth of faith and the good of charity were still to remain in existence with some who are called the elect, the state of faith as this will be at that time is described.

6. Then the state of charity as this will be.

7. Finally the beginning of a new Church is dealt with, and

8. The state of good and truth within the Church, so called, when that Church is set aside and the new one adopted.

From this sequence of thought one may come to see what is included within the final verses of Matthew 24, which are set out above. That is to say, they contain an exhortation to those within the Church to keep to the good of faith or else they will perish.