58. The state of consummation of the Israelitish Church is described in both the historical parts of the Word, and its prophetic parts: in the prophetic, by the atrocious deeds of the kings, first of those of the Israelites, and afterwards of those of the Jews, by whom and under whom the land is said to have been profaned. But it is needless to recite them, because they are well known; only those passages from the prophetic parts shall be adduced in which the consummation and devastation of that Church are treated of. In these passages by "earth" and "land," "Zion," "Jerusalem," "cities," "mountains," "hills," "valleys," and "rivers," similar things are signified as above (n. 55). The following are from the prophetic parts of the Word:

[2] I saw the earth, and behold it was empty and void; and towards the heavens, and their light was not.... I saw, when, behold, Carmel ¹ was a desert, and all the cities were desolated at the presence of Jehovah.... For thus hath Jehovah said, The whole land shall be wasteness, yet will I not make a consummation. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be blackened.

Thou, therefore, that art vastated, what wilt thou do? (Jer. 4:23-31; 5:10, 18).

The lion hath come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of nations... hath gone forth from his place, to reduce the land to a waste.... In that day... the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished (Jer. 4:7, 9).

In that day, every place where there were a thousand vines shall be... for thorns and briars,... because all the land shall be thorns and briars (Isa. 7:23-24).

A voice of the cry of the shepherds and... of the powerful ones of the flock, for Jehovah layeth waste their pastures: whence the sheepfolds of peace were devastated. Jehovah hath forsaken His tabernacle, for their land was reduced to a desolation (Jer. 25:36-38).

This house shall be like Shiloh, and Jerusalem shall be a devastation (Jer. 26:9; 27:17).

Jerusalem, and all the cities of Judah, shall be a desolation and a devastation in this day, because of the wickedness of your works; . . . your land is become a desolation, an astonishment and a curse (Jer. 44:2, 6, 22).

I will give the land to devastation, because they have committed transgression (Ezek. 15:8).

They shall be devastated in the midst of the devastated lands, and her cities in the midst of the desolated cities.... Then I will make the rivers drought,... the land into the hand of the evil, and I will vastate the land and the fulness thereof (Ezek. 30:7, 12).

When I shall extinguish thee, I will cover the heavens, and will make the stars thereof black. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine;... and I will set darkness upon the land... when I shall bring on thy breaking up (Ezek. 32:7-9);

in like manner as the Lord foretold concerning the consummation of the present Christian Church (Matt. 24:29).

[3] I will give Mount Seir to wasteness and to devastation.... I will make thee the wastes of eternity... (Ezek. 35:3-4, 7, 9, 12, 14-15).

In that day they shall bring up a proverb against you... and say, In vastating we are vastated (Micah 2:4).

Fear and the pit have taken hold of us, devastation and breaking up (Lam. 3:47).

The mountain of Zion is vastated (Lam. 5:18).

Thine iniquity is consummated, O daughter of Zion (Lam. 4:22).

Woe to the sinful nation, heavy with iniquity;... they have provoked the Holy One of Israel.... From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness;... your land is a solitude.... The daughter of Zion is left as a tent in a vineyard, as a besieged city (Isa. 1:4-8, and following verses).

What will ye do in the day of visitation and devastation? Consummation is finished, justice is overwhelmed; for the Lord Jehovih is making a consummation and decision in the whole land (Isa. 10:3, etc., Isa. 10:22-23).

I have heard a consummation and decision from the Lord Jehovih of hosts in the whole land (Isa. 28:22).

The prophet fell upon his face, and said, Lord Jehovih! Thou art making a consummation with the remnants of Israel (Ezek. 11:13).

My sanctuary was profaned, and the land of Israel was devastated (Ezek. 25:3).

Were even Noah, Daniel and Job in the midst of it,... they only shall be delivered, but the land shall become a desolation (Ezek. 14:14, 16).

[4] The completion of the consummation of the Israelitish and Jewish Church was accomplished when the Lord our Saviour, after receiving the sponge of vinegar, cried out upon the cross,

It is consummated (John 19:29-30);

for it is said in David:

They gave gall for My meat, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink:... let their habitation be devastated (Psalm 69:21, 25).

And in another place:

Without cause have they hid for Me the pit of the net; without cause have they digged for My soul. Let devastation come upon him before he is aware;... let him fall into devastation. Rescue My soul from their devastators, and My only one,-that is, the Church-from the lions' whelps (Psalm 35:7-8, 17).

I will make Jerusalem heaps, a habitation of dragons; I will reduce the cities of Judah to a waste;... behold, I am feeding them, even this people, with wormwood, and I will give them waters of gall to drink (Jer. 9:11-15).

Full consummation, after this, is described in Hosea thus:

The sons of Israel shall sit many days: no king, no prince, no sacrifice, no image, no ephod, and no teraphim (Hosea 3:4).

Such is their state at the present day. There is no need to adduce more passages. The passages in which the vastation, desolation and consummation of this Church are further mentioned, shall be only named: as, for example, Isa. 9:13-21; 22:4-14: Jer. 7:31-34; 25:33; 47:4: Ezek. 13:14-15; 14:8, 15; 19:7; 25:12-13; 26:2; 29:9-10, 12; 32:12, 15: Joel 1:15-20; 2:3; 3:19: Nahum 1:8-9: Zeph. 1:15; 2:9: Lam. 1:16: Psalm 73:17-19; 74:3.

The devastated are also called "thrust through" ² (Ezek. 11:6-7; 21:30, 34; 26:6; 28:8, 23; 31:17-18; 32:20-24, 28-32; 35:8: Zeph. 2:12: Lam. 4:9: Psalm 69:27: and in other places). They are said to be "thrust through" because a "sword," by which this is done, signifies falsity destroying truth.

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10099. 'Shall be for his sons after him' means within the natural, successively. This is clear from the meaning of 'Aaron's sons' as those things which emanate from Divine Good as the Father, dealt with in 9807, 10068; and from the meaning of 'after him' as successively or in successive order. And when those things are said of Aaron's garments, which represented the Divine Spiritual, 10098, the statement that 'they shall be for his sons after him' means the Divine Spiritual within the natural, successively. For there are three entities which succeed one another in heaven and which, if people are to have any clear-cut idea of them, must be called by their particular names - celestial, spiritual, and natural. These three emanate there in order one from another; they are interconnected by an influx passing successively from one on to the next, and in this way they make one. What is Divine and the Lord's in the heavens is referred to by these different names on account of differences in the reception of it.

[2] The subject at present is the second ram, called the ram of fillings [of the hand]; and 'filling the hand' means consecration to represent what is Divine and the Lord's in the heavens, and the transmission and the reception of it there, 10019. Consequently, in order that the reception of it in the natural may also be described, the present verse speaks about Aaron's garments, about their being worn in succeeding years by his sons after him. By this the succeeding stage of that reality in the heavens which is meant by 'the filling of the hands' should be understood. From this it is evident that these matters in the internal sense hold together in an unbroken sequence, even though in the sense of the letter a break in the series of details regarding what had to be done with the ram is apparent here.

Since things which exist in successive order in heaven are the subject here, something must also be stated to explain what 'successive' means. The majority of learned people at the present day have no other idea of things existing in successive order than of a continuation, or of things held together by continuing one into the next. This being their idea of the way that things succeed one another they can have no conception of the nature of the difference between exterior and interior things in a person, nor consequently of the difference between a person's body and his spirit. When therefore they contemplate these matters with the ideas they have they cannot possibly understand how a person's spirit can be alive within a human form after the decay or death of the body.

[3] But things existing in successive order are not continuous, merging one into the next; instead they are discrete, that is, belong to distinct degrees that are clear-cut one from the next. For interior things are entirely distinct from exterior ones, so distinct that the exterior things can be separated and the interior ones still retain the life they have. So it is that a person can be withdrawn from the body and think within his spirit or, as an expression commonly used by the ancients puts it, withdrawn from sensory perceptions and raised to more internal things. The ancients also knew that when a person is withdrawn from perceiving things with his physical senses he is drawn up or raised to the light belonging to his spirit, that is, the light of heaven. So it was also that learned ancients knew that when their body had decayed they would be living a more internal life, which they called their spirit. And since they regarded this life to be the truly human life they also knew that they would be living within a human form. Such was the idea they had regarding a person's soul. And since that life partook of Divine life they perceived that their soul was immortal; for they knew that that part of a person which was a partaker of Divine life and for this reason linked to it could never die.

[4] But this idea of a person's soul and spirit disappeared after those ancient times, for the reason, as stated above, that people did not have a right idea about things existing in successive order. This also explains why those who in their thinking rely on present-day learning do not know what the spiritual is, nor that this is distinct from the natural. For those who conceive of things in successive order as something continuous inevitably take the spiritual to be nothing more than a purer extension of the natural, when yet the spiritual and the natural are as distinct from each other as prior and posterior, and so as that which begets and that which is begotten. Consequently learned people such as these do not see the difference between the internal or spiritual man and the external or natural man, nor therefore between a person's inward thought and will and his outward thought and will. Consequently also they cannot understand anything regarding faith and love, heaven and hell, or the life of a person after death.

[5] But those who have a right and distinct idea about things existing in successive order can in some measure comprehend that with a person who is being regenerated interior things are opened in successive order, and that as they are opened they are also raised to interior light and life, and nearer to the Divine; and that this opening and consequent raising is accomplished by means of God's truths, which are vessels receptive of the good of love from the Divine. The good of love is what joins a person directly to the Divine, for love is spiritual togetherness. From this it follows that a person can be opened and raised up on increasingly internal levels, in the measure that the good of love from the Divine exists in him, and conversely that there is no such opening or consequent raising up with the person who does not receive God's truths, which happens if evil resides in him. But a fuller statement regarding this successive order and its mysteries will in the Lord's Divine mercy be presented elsewhere ¹ .

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