379. "And made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb." This symbolically means, and by truths have purified those religious beliefs from the falsities accompanying evil, and so have been reformed by the Lord.

Some evils are evils that accompany falsity, and some falsities are falsities that accompany evil. Evils that accompany falsity are found among people who, in accord with their religion, believe that evils do not condemn, provided they orally confess that they are sinners. And falsities that accompany evil are found among people who justify the evils they harbor.

As in no. 378 above, robes here symbolize general truths drawn from the Word, which constitute the people's religious beliefs. They are said to have made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb because the color white is predicated of truths (nos. 167, 231, 232), meaning therefore that they used truths to purify their falsities.

This symbolically means also that thus they were reformed by the Lord, because all who have fought against evils in the world and have believed in the Lord are, after their departure from the world, taught by the Lord and led by truths away from the falsities of their religion. And so they are reformed. That is because people who refrain from evils as being sins possess goodness of life, and goodness of life desires truths, and acknowledges and accepts them. But this is never the case with evil of life.

People believe that the blood of the Lamb here and elsewhere in the Word symbolizes the Lord's suffering of the cross. But the suffering of the cross was the final temptation or trial by which the Lord completely overcame the hells and fully glorified His humanity. By these two means He saved mankind (see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, nos. 12-14, 15-17, and also no. 67 above). Moreover, because by His suffering of the cross the Lord fully glorified His humanity, which is to say, made it Divine, therefore nothing else can be meant by His flesh and blood but the Divinity in Him and emanating from Him - His flesh meaning the Divine goodness of His Divine love, and His blood meaning the Divine truth emanating from that goodness.

[2] Blood is mentioned many times in the Word, and everywhere it symbolizes, in the spiritual sense, either the Lord's Divine truth, which is the same as the Divine truth of the Word, or in an opposite sense, the Divine truth of the Word falsified or profaned, as can be seen from the following passages.

First, that blood symbolizes the Lord's Divine truth or the Divine truth of the Word can be seen from these passages:

Blood was called the blood of the covenant, and a covenant conjoins, a conjunction that the Lord accomplishes by His Divine truth. So, for example, in Zechariah:

By the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the pit... (Zechariah 9:11)

After Moses read the Book of the Law in the hearing of the people, he sprinkled half the blood on the people and said,

This is the blood of the covenant which Jehovah has made with you in accordance with all these words. (Exodus 24:3-8)

Moreover,

(Jesus) took the cup..., and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. ...this is My blood, the blood of the new covenant... (Matthew 26:27-28, cf. Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20)

The blood of the new covenant or testament symbolizes nothing else than the Word, which is called a covenant or testament - the Old Covenant or Testament, and the New Covenant or Testament - thus symbolizing the Divine truth in it.

[3] Since blood has this symbolic meaning, the Lord therefore gave His disciples wine, saying, "This is My blood" - wine symbolizing Divine truth (no. 316). Wine is also on that account called "the blood of grapes" (Genesis 49:11, Deuteronomy 32:14).

This is still further apparent from these words of the Lord:

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will have no life in you... For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. (John 6:53-56).

It is clearly apparent that blood here means Divine truth, because the text says that he who drinks has life, and abides in the Lord, and the Lord in him. This is the effect of Divine truth and a life in accordance with it, and an effect confirmed by the Holy Supper, as everyone in the church may know.

[4] Since blood symbolizes the Lord's Divine truth, which is the same as the Divine truth of the Word, and this is the essence of the Old and New Covenants or Testaments, therefore blood was the holiest representative symbol in the Israelite Church, in which every single thing corresponded to something spiritual. So, for example, the people were to take some of the blood of the paschal lamb and put it on the doorposts and lintel of their houses to keep the plague from coming upon them (Exodus 12:7, 13, 22). The blood of the burnt offering was to be sprinkled on the altar, at the base of the altar, on Aaron and his sons, and on their vestments (Exodus 29:12, 16, 20-21).

[5] The blood of the Lamb has a like symbolism in the following verses in the book of Revelation:

...war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon... And they overcame it by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony... (Revelation 12:7, 11)

For no one can think that Michael and his angels overcame the dragon with anything other than the Lord's Divine truth in the Word. Angels in heaven, indeed, cannot think of any blood, nor do they think of the Lord's suffering, but of His Divine truth and resurrection. Consequently, when a person thinks about the Lord's blood, angels perceive His Divine truth, and when a person thinks about the Lord's suffering, they perceive His glorification, and then only His resurrection. I have been granted to know the reality of this by much experience.

[6] That blood symbolizes Divine truth is apparent also from these verses in the book of Psalms:

(God) will save the souls of the needy... Precious shall be their blood in His sight. And they shall live, and He will give them the gold of Sheba. (Psalms 72:13-15)

The blood, precious in the sight of God, stands for Divine truth among those people. The gold of Sheba is the resulting wisdom.

In Ezekiel:

Gather together... to My great sacrifice... on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. You shall... drink the blood of the princes of the earth... You shall... drink blood till you are drunk at My sacrifice which I am sacrificing for you... (Thus) I will set My glory among the nations. (Ezekiel 39:17-21)

Blood here does not mean blood, because the statement is that they will drink the blood of the princes of the earth and that they will drink blood till they are drunk. But the true meaning of the word emerges when blood is understood to mean Divine truth. The subject there, too, is the Lord's church, which He would establish among gentiles.

[7] Second, that blood symbolizes Divine truth can be clearly seen from its opposite meaning, in which it symbolizes the Divine truth of the Word falsified or profaned, as is apparent from these passages:

He who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil... (Isaiah 33:15)

You shall destroy those who speak falsehood; Jehovah abhors the bloody and deceitful man. (Psalms 5:6)

...everyone recorded for life in Jerusalem, when the Lord has... rinsed away (her) blood... from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of purification. (Isaiah 4:3-4)

...on the day you were born... I saw you trampled in your blood, and I said to you in your blood, "Live!" ...I washed you and rinsed away the blood upon you... (Ezekiel 16:5-6, 9, 22, 36, 38)

They wandered blind in the streets; they have defiled themselves with blood, and what they cannot touch, they touch with their garments. (Lamentations 4:13-14)

The garment is polluted with blood. (Isaiah 9:5)

Also on your skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent... (Jeremiah 2:34)

Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings... (Isaiah 1:15-16)

...your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken a lie... They make haste to shed innocent blood. (Isaiah 59:3, 7)

...Jehovah is coming out... to visit the iniquity... of the earth; then the earth will disclose her blood... (Isaiah 26:21)

...as many as received Him, to them He gave the ability to be children of God..., who were born, not of blood... (John 1:12-13)

In (Babylon) was found the blood of prophets and saints... (Revelation 18:24)

...the sea... became as the blood of a dead man... ...the springs of water... became blood. (Revelation 16:3-4. Cf. Isaiah 15:9, Psalms 105:29)

The like is symbolized by the rivers, ponds, and pools of water in Egypt being turned into blood (Exodus 7:15-25).

...the moon (shall be turned) into blood, before the coming of the great... day of Jehovah. (Joel 2:31)

...the moon became... blood. (Revelation 6:12)

In these places and many others, blood symbolizes the truth of the Word falsified, and also profaned. But this can be seen more clearly when these passages in the Word are read in context.

So, then, since blood in an opposite sense symbolizes the truth of the Word falsified or profaned, it is apparent that blood in a true sense symbolizes the truth of the Word not falsified.

367. (iv) The person, however, who separates the Lord, charity and faith is not a form which can receive them, but rather one which destroys them.

Anyone who separates the Lord from charity and faith takes away life from them; charity and faith without life either are non-existent or are abortions. The Lord is life itself; see on this 358 above. Anyone who acknowledges the Lord and separates charity from Him, only acknowledges Him with the lips. His acknowledgment and confession are merely cold, lacking any faith; for they lack spiritual essence, since charity is the essence of faith. Anyone, however, who does charitable deeds and fails to acknowledge the Lord as being the God of heaven and earth, one with the Father, as He Himself teaches, can perform only deeds of natural charity, which do not contain everlasting life. People in the church know that all good which is essentially good comes from God, consequently from the Lord, who is the true God and everlasting life (1 John 5:20). The same is true of charity, since good and charity are one.

[2] Faith separated from charity is no faith, because faith is the light of a person's life, and charity is its heat. Therefore, if charity is separated from faith, the result is like separating heat from light. This causes a person's state to resemble the state of the world in winter, when everything above ground dies off. Charity and faith, if they are to be real charity and real faith, can no more be separated than the will and the understanding; if they are separated, the understanding is reduced to nothing, and the will soon follows. It is the same with charity and faith, because charity dwells in the will, and faith in the understanding.

[3] Separating charity from faith is like separating essence from form. The learned world is well aware that essence without form and form without essence are nothing, since essence cannot have any quality except from its form, nor is form any continuing entity except from its essence. Hence nothing can be predicated of either if they are separated one from the other. Charity is also the essence of faith, and faith is the form of charity, precisely as was said before, that good is the essence of truth and truth is the form of good.

[4] These two, good and truth, are in every single thing which comes into existence in essence. Since therefore charity relates to good, and faith to truth, they can be illustrated by comparisons with many features of the human body, and with many phenomena on earth. An exact comparison is with the respiration of the lungs and the systolic motion of the heart; for charity can no more be separated from faith than the heart can from the lungs. For if the heart-beat ceases, the respiration of the lungs ceases at once; and if the respiration of the lungs ceases, total unconsciousness supervenes, and inability to move any muscle, so that shortly afterwards the heart also stops and all trace of life vanishes. This comparison is exact, because the heart corresponds to the will and thus also to charity, and the respiration of the lungs to the understanding and thus also to faith. For, as stated above, charity dwells in the will and faith in the understanding; this and nothing else is the meaning of 'heart' and 'breath' in the Word.

[5] The separation of charity and faith also agrees exactly with the separation of blood and flesh. Blood separated from flesh is gore and turns into rotting blood; and flesh separated from blood becomes progressively rotten and breeds worms. 'Blood' too in the spiritual sense means the truth of wisdom and faith, and 'flesh' means the good of love and of charity. This meaning of blood was demonstrated in my Apocalypse Revealed, 379; and of flesh, 832.

[6] Charity and faith, for one or the other to be anything, can no more be separated than in the human body food and water, or bread and wine. For food or bread taken without water or wine merely distend the stomach and ruin it as undigested lumps, turning into rotting mud. Water or wine without food or bread also distend the stomach, as well as the vessels and passages, which being thus deprived of nutriment cause wasting in the body to the point of death. This comparison too fits, since 'food' and 'bread' in the spiritual sense mean the good of love and of charity, and 'water' and 'wine' mean the truth of wisdom and faith (see Apocalypse Revealed 50, 316, 778, 932),

[7] Charity combined with faith and faith combined in return with charity can be likened to the beauty of a girl's face coming from the mixture of red and white in it. This likeness too is exact, since love and the charity that comes from it in the spiritual world glows red with the fire of the sun there, and truth, and the faith that comes from it, shine white with the light of that sun. Charity separated from faith can therefore be likened to a face inflamed with spots, and faith separated from charity to the colourless face of a corpse. Faith separated from charity can also be likened to a paralysis down one side, known as hemiplegia, which, if it advances, proves fatal. It can also be likened to St Vitus' or Guy's dance, which attacks people bitten by a tarantula. The faculty of reason becomes like this, and like the victim dances madly, believing itself then to be alive, yet it is no more able to assemble rational thoughts together and think about spiritual truths, than when someone is lying in bed in the grip of a nightmare. These remarks are enough to demonstrate the two theses of this chapter, first, that faith without charity is no faith and charity without faith is no charity, and both are lifeless unless the Lord gives them life; and secondly, that the Lord, charity and faith make one, just as in a person life, will and understanding do, and if they are separated, each of them is destroyed, like a pearl collapsing into dust.