1232. “亚兰” 表对良善的认知. 这可从前面所述, 以及圣言推知, 如以西结书:

亚兰人因你的货品繁多, 就作你的客商; 他们用绿宝石, 紫色布, 绣货, 细麻布, 珊瑚, 红宝石兑换你的货物. (以西结书 27:16)

这论及推罗, 或拥有认知. “货品, 绿宝石, 紫色布, 绣货, 细麻布, 珊瑚, 红宝石” 在此无非表对良善的认知. 何西阿书:

从前雅各逃到亚兰的田野, 以色列为得妻服侍人, 为得妻与人放羊. 耶和华借先知领以色列从埃及上来, 以色列也藉先知而得保存. 以法莲大大惹动主怒. (何西阿书 12:12-14)

此处 “雅各” 表外在教会, “以色列” 表内在属灵教会. “亚兰” 表对良善的认知, “埃及” 表败坏的知识, “以法莲” 表败坏的聪明才智. 在此上下文中, 这些所表示的意思无法从字义看出来, 只能通过内义推知, 这些名字的内义表教会的真实事物, 如前所述. 以赛亚书:

看哪, 大马士革已被废弃, 不再为城, 必变作废墟. 以法莲不再有保障, 大马士革不再有国权; 亚兰所剩下的, 必像以色列人的荣耀. (以赛亚书 17:1, 3)

“亚兰所剩下的” 在此表对良善的认知, 它们被称为 “以色列的荣耀”. “亚兰” 或叙利亚在反面意义上表对已败坏的良善的认知. 一个词具有 (好与坏) 两方面的意义, 这在圣言中是常有的事 (以赛亚书 7:4-6; 9:11-12; 申命记 26:5).

3479. The Jews who lived before the Lord's Coming, as also those who have lived since then, had no other notion regarding the religious observances of their Church than that Divine worship consisted solely in things that were external. They were quite unconcerned about what those observances represented and meant. Indeed they neither knew nor wished to know that there was any internal element in worship or in the Word, nor thus that there was any life after death, nor consequently that there was any heaven; for they were entirely sensory- and bodily-minded. Now because they were engrossed in external things separated from internal, worship in their case was nothing but idolatrous, and for this reason they were very much inclined to worship any gods at all, provided they were convinced that those gods could enable them to prosper.

[2] Yet because a sense of holiness within external things could exist with that nation, so that they were able to regard as holy the religious observances by which the heavenly things of the Lord's kingdom were represented; and because they were able to venerate Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, also Moses and Aaron, and after these David, all of whom represented the Lord; and above all because they were able to have a deep and holy respect for the Word in which every single thing was representative and a meaningful sign of Divine things, the representative Church was therefore established among that nation. But if that nation had known of internal things to the extent that they acknowledged them they would have rendered them profane and in so doing would have possessed simultaneously external holiness and internal unholiness, so that there could not have been any communication at all of representatives with heaven by means of that nation. This is why interior things were not disclosed to them, not even the truth that the Lord would come to save their souls.

[3] Because this was the case with the tribe of Judah more than with all the other tribes, and because today as in former times they regard as holy the religious observances which can be performed outside Jerusalem; because also they venerate their patriarchs, and above all have a deep and holy respect for the Old Testament Word; and because it was foreseen that Christians would virtually reject the Old Testament and also would befoul their own internals with things that are unholy, that nation has been preserved up to the present day, in accordance with the Lord's words in Matthew 24:34. With Christians it was to be different, as they were to have knowledge of internal things and were also to live as internally-minded people. If Christians had in fact done so, the Jewish nation would like others have been annihilated before many centuries had gone by. With that nation however the situation is that their external holiness, or holiness of worship, can have no affect on them internally, for internally they are defiled from filthy self-love and filthy love of the world, and also from the idolatry in which they worship external things devoid of internal. And because accordingly they have nothing of heaven within themselves, they are not able to take anything heavenly with them into the next life, with the exception of the few who are governed by mutual love and so do not live in contempt of others compared with themselves.