9229. 'And men of holiness shall you be to Me' means a state of life then composed of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'men of holiness' as those who are led by the Lord, for the Divine which emanates from the Lord is holiness itself, 6788, 7499, 8127 (end), 8302, 8806. Consequently those who receive that emanation in faith and also in love are called holy ones. Anyone who imagines that a person is holy from any other source, or that anything present with a person is holy apart from that which comes and is received from the Lord is very much mistaken; for that which is the person's own, and is called his proprium, is evil.

The human proprium is nothing but evil, see 210, 215, 694, 874-876, 987, 1047, 4328, 5660, 5786, 8480, 8944.

To the extent that a person can be withheld from his proprium, the Lord can be present with him, and therefore to the same extent holiness resides with him, 1023, 1044, 1581, 2256, 2388, 2406, 2411, 8206, 8393, 8988 (end), 9014.

[2] The truth that the Lord is the Only Holy One, and that nothing is holy except that which emanates from the Lord, and so that which a person receives from the Lord, is evident from everywhere in the Word, as in John,

I make Myself holy, that they also may be made holy in the truth. John 17:19.

'Making Himself holy' means making Himself Divine by His own power. Consequently those who receive Divine Truth emanating from the Lord in faith and life are said to be 'made holy in the truth'.

[3] This also explains why after the Resurrection, when the Lord spoke to the disciples, He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit, John 20:22. 'Breathing on (or into)' was a sign that represented the imparting of life through faith and love, as also in Genesis,

Jehovah breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man (homo) became a living soul. Genesis 2:7.

Other examples like this may be seen elsewhere, such as Psalms 33:6; 104:29-30; Job 32:8; 33:4; John 3:8. Therefore also the Word is said to be inspired because it comes from the Lord, and those who wrote the Word have been called 'inspired'. Breathing, and so breathing on or inspiring, corresponds to the life of faith, see 97, 1119, 1120, 3883-3896. This explains why the term spirit in the Word is derived from the word for wind, and holiness from the Lord is called Jehovah's wind, 8286, and why the Holy Spirit is the holiness emanating from the Lord, 3704, 4673 (end), 5307, 6788, 6982, 6993, 8127 (end), 8302, 9199.

[4] So also it says in John 1:33 that the Lord baptizes with the Holy Spirit, and in Luke 3:16 that He baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 'Baptizing' in the internal sense means regenerating, 4255, 5120 (end), 9088; 'baptizing with the Holy Spirit' means regenerating by means of the good of faith; and 'baptizing with fire' means regenerating by means of the good of love, 'fire' being the good of love, see 934, 4906, 5215, 6314, 6832, 6834, 6849, 7324. In John,

Who is not going to fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. Revelation 15:4.

In Luke the angel telling Mary about the Lord said,

That which is holy will be born from you. Luke 1:35.

And in Daniel,

I saw in the visions of my head while on my bed, and behold, a vigilant and holy one came down from heaven. Daniel 4:13.

In these places 'that which is holy' and 'a holy one' stand for the Lord.

[5] Because the Lord alone is holy He is called in the Old Testament the Holy One of Israel, the Redeemer, the Saviour, and the Regenerator, as in Isaiah 1:4; 5:19, 24; 10:20; 12:6; 17:7; 29:19; 30:11-12, 15; 31:1; 37:23; 41:14, 16, 20; 43:3, 14; 45:11; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:5; 55:5; 60:9, 14; Jeremiah 50:29; 51:5; Ezekiel 39:7; Psalms 71:22; 78:41; 89:18. This is why the Lord in heaven, and consequently heaven itself, is called the dwelling-place of holiness, Jeremiah 25:30; 31:23; ¹ Isaiah 63:15; the sanctuary, ² Ezekiel 11:16; 24:21; and also the mountain of holiness, Psalms 3:4. It is also why the middle of the tent [of meeting], where the ark containing the law was, was called The Holy of Holies, Exodus 26:33-34; for the law in the ark in the middle of the tent [of meeting], represented the Lord in respect of the Word. For the law is the Word, 6752, 7463.

[6] All this shows why it is that the angels are called holy in Matthew 25:31; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; Psalms 149:1; Daniel 8:13; also the prophets, Luke 1:70; and the apostles too, Revelation 18:20. Not that they are holy by their own virtue but that the Lord, who alone is holy and the only source of holiness, makes them so. For truths are meant by 'the angels', because they are those who receive truth from the Lord, 1925, 4085, 4295, 4402, 7268, 7873, 8192, 8301; teachings which present the truth that comes through the Word from the Lord are meant by 'the prophets', 2534, 7269; and all the truths and forms of the good of faith in their entirety which come from the Lord are meant by 'the apostles', 3488, 3858 (end), 6397.

[7] Consecrations ³ among the Israelite and Jewish people took place in order that the Lord who alone was holy might be represented, and in order that holiness, which He alone is the source of, might be represented. This is the reason for the consecration of Aaron and his sons, Exodus 29:1ff; Leviticus 8:10-11, 13, 30; the consecration of their garments, Exodus 29:21ff; the consecration of the altar in order that it might be most holy, ⁴ Exodus 29:37ff; the consecration of the tent of meeting, the ark of the Testimony, the table, all the vessels, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and its vessels, and the laver and its base, Exodus 30:26ff.

[8] The truth that the Lord is the real Holiness that was represented is evident also from the Lord's words in Matthew when they are seen in the internal sense,

Fools and blind! Which of the two is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold holy? And which of the two is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift holy? Matthew 23:17-19.

'The temple' represented the Lord Himself, and so did 'the altar', while 'the gold' was a sign of the good that comes from the Lord, and 'the gift' or a sacrifice was a sign of things constituting faith and charity that come from the Lord.

The Lord was represented by 'the temple', see 2777, 3720, and by 'the altar', 2777, 2811, 4489, 8935, 8940. 'Gold' was a sign of good that comes from the Lord, 1551, 1552, 5658, and 'a sacrifice' a sign of worship springing from faith and charity that come from the Lord, 922, 923, 2805, 2807, 2830, 6905, 8680, 8682, 8936.

[9] From all this it is now evident why it is that the children of Israel were called a holy people in Deuteronomy 26:19 and elsewhere, or as in the present verse men of holiness. That is to say, they were so called because every single aspect of their worship represented Divine realities that are the Lord's, and celestial and spiritual things of His kingdom and Church. On this account they were called holy in a representative sense; they themselves were not holy on that account, because representatives had regard to the holy things that were represented, not to the person who represented them, see 665, 1097 (end), 1361, 3147, 3881 (end), 4208, 4281, 4288, 4293, 4307, 4444, 4500, 6304, 7048, 7439, 8588, 8788, 8806.

[10] On that account also was Jerusalem called holy, and Zion the mountain of holiness in Zechariah 8:3 and elsewhere, as well as in Matthew,

And the tombs were opened, and many bodies of dead holy ones were raised; and coming out of their tombs after the Lord's resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. Matthew 27:52-53.

Here Jerusalem is called 'the holy city', when in fact, quite to the contrary, it was unholy because the Lord was crucified there at that time, for which reason it is called 'Sodom and Egypt' in John,

Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Revelation 11:8.

Yet it is called holy, because it means the Lord's kingdom and the Church, 402, 2117, 3654. The appearance of 'dead holy ones' there, an event witnessed by some in vision, was a sign of the salvation of people who belonged to the spiritual Church, and of the raising of those people to the Holy Jerusalem, which is heaven - the people who had been kept up to that time on the lower earth, spoken of in 6854, 6914, 7091, 7828, 7932, 8049, 8054, 8159, 8321.

Бележки под линия:

9086. 'And an ox or an ass falls into it' means, which perverts good or truth in the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'falling' as perverting, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'an ox' as an affection for evil in the natural, thus evil there, dealt with above in 9065; and from the meaning of 'an ass' as truth in the natural, dealt with in 2781, 5492, 5741, 7024, 8078. The fact that 'falling into a pit' - when these words refer to good and truth in the natural, which are meant by 'an ox and an ass' - means perverting is evident from the contents of the next verse. These describe amendment made through truth, which can be accomplished with forms of good or truths that have been perverted, but not with those which have been wiped out. For when good or truth is perverted it still remains, but is misrepresented. 'Falling' also means slipping through error.

[2] Because this was meant by 'falling into a pit', the Lord therefore said,

Which of you, having an ass or an ox that has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull it out on the sabbath day? Luke 14:5.

The Lord said this when He healed someone with dropsy on the sabbath day. In that Church the sabbath day was the holiest because it was a sign of the heavenly marriage, which is the joining together of goodness and truth from the Lord, 8495, 8510. This explains why healings were performed by the Lord on the sabbath day; for healing implied the healing of spiritual life, and dropsy implied the perversion of truth and good, so that the healing of perverted truth implied amendment and restoration. All the Lord's miracles implied and were signs of states of the Church, 8364, as is true of all Divine miracles in general, 7337. So it is then that the Lord said, 'Which of you, having an ass or an ox that has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull it out on the sabbath day?' by which in the spiritual sense what has just been stated was meant. For whatever the Lord spoke He spoke from the Divine; and since it came from the Divine every detail has an internal sense within it, 9049, 9063 (end). 'A well' in what He said is similar in meaning to 'a pit', namely falsity, 1688. And since 'a pit' means falsity the Lord also said, when talking about the falsities of the Church,

When the blind leads the blind both fall into a pit. Matthew 15:14.

'The blind' is someone with wrong ideas, and 'falling into a pit' means perverting truth. These words were used to make a comparison; but all comparisons in the Word were drawn from among objects used as signs of spiritual things, 3579, 8989.

[3] There are people who believe that the Divine holiness which the Word contains lies hidden on a level no higher than the meaning apparent in the letter. Such people's vision of holiness in these words spoken by the Lord and in everything else in the Word arises solely from their belief that everything there is Divinely inspired, and that the things which no one can explain are arcana known only to God. But people who do not share that belief spurn the Word, solely because of its style, which is in appearance less polished than a style adopted to conform to the spirit of the age, such as that adopted by very many ancient and modern authors. But let these people know that Divine holiness lies in each and every detail of the Word. It consists however in this, that each and every detail has the Lord as its subject, also His kingdom and Church. All its details are extremely holy because they are Divine, received from the Lord, and so hold eternal life within them, as accords with the Lord's words in John,

The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. John 6:63.

But the things that are Divine and holy are clearly visible to angels in heaven because they do not understand the Word in a natural way according to the literal sense, only in a spiritual way according to the internal sense. The latter sense could also be understood by people in the world if they were to lead an angelic life, that is to say, a life of faith and love. The things contained in the internal sense of the Word are one and the same as those which the genuine teachings of the Church present. Those which the genuine teachings of the Church present are the Lord, faith in Him, love to Him, and a love of the good that comes from Him, which love is charity towards the neighbour, 6709, 6710, 8123. Those who lead this angelic life, and no others at all, are enlightened by the Lord and see the holy things of the Word; see Preface to Genesis 18.