Father in the Word means what is most interior, and in those things that are following the Lord's order, it means what is good. In the highest sense Father means the Lord Himself, the creator. In the generation of natural children it is the father who provides the soul or the most interior receptacle of life, and an internal heredity, and the mother who provides all of the substance that the soul uses to form its body, plus an external heredity. In this process the soul comes from the Lord through the father, and not from the father, since all life is from the Lord. The wise person calls the Lord his father and the church his mother because his interior loves come from the Lord, but are given form and actuality through the truths taught by the church. Those things thus brought forth are a person's spiritual "children". In the New Testament, when speaking of Jesus and the Father, what is meant is the outward manifestation with the divine itself as the soul inside. Because Jesus was born from a natural mother, He had a natural body and a natural Jewish heredity. Throughout his life as He was tempted by the hells, He slowly put off all he had from His mother and replaced it with what He had from Himself inside, the Father. In doing this he made himself one with the Father that was His inmost so He could truly say, "I and my Father are one".

301. 再说第二个奥秘——他们若被教导信的奥秘, 必要永远灭亡, 亦即 “现在恐怕他伸手又取生命树吃, 就永远活着” 所表之义. 这是因为, 当人的生命次序颠倒了, 意图凭自己而活, 或凭自己获取智慧, 就以理性推导他所听闻的信仰. 当他以自己的感官和知识来推导信仰时, 就不可避免地走向否认, 终而亵渎之, 污蔑之, 将污秽与圣洁混淆. 人若变得如此, 等到了灵界, 他将受尽罪责, 无丝毫得救之望. 因为当污秽与圣洁混淆了, 一旦有圣洁之念升起, 污秽之念也随同浮现, 导致他不能进入任何群体, 只能下到地狱.

在灵界, 人所混杂的思想念头很容易被觉察, 灵人界之灵尚能如此, 何况天使灵. 通过一个念头, 他们能洞察一个人的秉性. 要分离已混淆的污秽之念和圣洁之念, 只有一个手段, 就是假借地狱之苦. 人若知道那是怎样的痛苦, 必要小心翼翼, 如防备地狱一样避免亵渎.