243. The third living creature had a face like a human being. This symbolizes the Divine truth of the Word in respect to its wisdom.

A human being in the Word symbolizes wisdom, because the human being was born to receive wisdom from the Lord and become an angel. The wiser someone is, therefore, the more human he is. True human wisdom consists in perceiving the existence of God, the nature of God, and what pertains to God. This is what the Divine truth of the Word teaches.

That a human being symbolizes wisdom is apparent from the following passages:

I will make a man more rare than fine gold, and a human being more rare than the gold of Ophir. (Isaiah 13:12)

A man means intelligence, and a human being wisdom.

...the inhabitants of the earth shall be burned up, and rare will be the human being left. (Isaiah 24:6)

...I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of a human being and the seed of an animal. (Jeremiah 31:27)

You are My flock...; you are humankind, I am your God. (Ezekiel 34:31)

...the ruined cities shall be filled with a flock of humankind. (Ezekiel 36:38)

I looked upon the earth when, lo, it was empty and void, and to the heavens when they had not their light... I looked when, lo, there was no human being... (Jeremiah 4:23, 25)

They sacrifice a human being, they kiss the calves. (Hosea 13:2)

He measured the wall (of the Holy Jerusalem): one hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a human being, which is that of an angel. (Revelation 21:17)

So, too, in many other places, where a human being symbolizes someone who is wise, and in an abstract sense, wisdom itself.

6323. The good of love which flows in from the Lord through angels contains all truth, and truth would reveal itself spontaneously if the human being led a life of love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour. This is evident not only from things that obtain in heaven but also from those in the natural order beneath. Since the things in the natural order are observable, let some be brought forward to illustrate the matter.

[2] Animals are propelled by nothing else than the loves and accompanying affections into which they have been created and afterwards born; for every animal is carried in the direction its affection and love take it. That being so, animals also have all the knowledge that ever accompanies that love. For they know from a love resembling the love that belongs to marriage how they are to mate, cattle in one way, birds in another. Birds know how they must build nests, lay eggs and sit on them, how they must hatch chicks and feed them. They know these things without any instruction, solely from a love resembling that which belongs to marriage and from a love for offspring, which loves have all that knowledge implanted in them. Similarly they know which food they must eat and how they must look for it. More than that, bees know how to look for food in flowers of various kinds, and also to gather wax to make cells with, in which first they place their offspring and after that store food. They also know how to make provision for the winter, not to mention many other things. All this knowledge is included in their loves and resides in them right from the start. Creatures are born into that knowledge because they exist in the order which belongs to their true nature and into which they have been created; and as such they are driven by a general inflow from the spiritual world.

[3] If the human being were living in the order into which he was created - that is to say, in love towards the neighbour and in love to the Lord, for these loves are peculiar to the human being - he would be born, pre-eminently over all animals, not only into knowledge but also into all spiritual truths over and all celestial forms of good, thus into all wisdom and intelligence. For the human being is able to think about the Lord and to be joined to Him through love, and so to be raised up to what is Divine and eternal, which animals cannot be. Thus if he were living in his true order he would be governed solely by general influx from the Lord through the spiritual world. But because he is not born into his true order but into one contrary to it, he is born totally without knowledge. This being so, provision has been made so that he can be born again and in that way enter into intelligence and wisdom, in the same measure as he embraces good in freedom, and truth through good.