218. "'If anyone hears My voice and opens the door.'" This symbolically means anyone who believes the Word and lives according to it.

To hear His voice is to believe the Word, for the Word's Divine truth is the voice of Jehovah (nos. 37, 50). And to open the door is to live according to the Word, since one opens the door and receives the Lord not only by hearing His voice, but by living according to it. For the Lord says,

He who has My commandments and keeps them..., I will... manifest Myself to him..., and (I) will come to him and make (My) abode with him. (John 14:21-24)

In The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem we showed that a person ought to open the door as though on his own, by refraining from evils as sins and doing good acts; and that this is the case is apparent from the Lord's words in the present verse, "If anyone... opens the door," as well as from His words in Luke 12:36. ¹

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