6884. 'The God of your fathers' means Him who was the God of the Ancient Church. This is clear from what has been stated above in 6876, where similar words occur. In the external sense written as history the words 'the God of their fathers' are used to mean the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but in the internal sense to mean Him who was the God of the Ancient Church. That the latter, not the former, is what is meant in the internal sense may be recognized from the consideration that the historical record contained in the Word cannot find its way into heaven. For the historical record in the Word is concerned with what is natural and worldly, but those in heaven possess exclusively spiritual ideas and thus they understand in a spiritual Way that which is written as history. And when the description of what is worldly, constituting the sense of the letter of the Word, reaches only the outskirts of heaven it is converted into the spiritual sense. Some recognition that this is so may also be gained from the consideration that man too on many occasions converts what he is being told into the kinds of things that occupy his entire thinking; that is, one whose thoughts are unclean turns them into what is unclean, and one whose ideas are clean into what is clean. So it is then that by 'the God of your fathers' those in heaven do not perceive the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for in heaven they have no thought of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, only of the Lord who is represented by them. It is for this reason that He who was the God of the Ancient Church is what those words mean.

6876. 'And saying to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you' means that He who was the God of the Ancient Church will be with those belonging to the spiritual Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'the God of your fathers' as Him who was the God of the Ancient Church, 'fathers' being those who belonged to the Ancient Church, see 6050, 6075, 6846; from the representation of the children of Israel, to whom 'you' refers here, as those who belong to the spiritual Church, dealt with immediately above in 6875; and from the meaning of 'being sent' as going forth, dealt with in 2397, 4710, 6831, here as the promise that He will be with them, for it is talking about Him who was the God of the Ancient Church, promising that He will be in the spiritual Church, which is represented by the children of Israel.

[2] The God of the Ancient Church was the Lord in respect of His Divine Human. The Ancient Church acquired this perception of God from the Most Ancient Church and also from the consideration that whenever Jehovah appeared to them He did so in a human form. When therefore they thought about Jehovah they did not think of Him as the Being present in all things everywhere, of whom they would have had no conception. Rather, they thought of Him as a Person who was Divine, on whom they would then be able to focus their thought. For in this way they were able both to think about Jehovah and to be joined to Him in love. Those who belonged to the Ancient Church, and especially those who belonged to the Most Ancient Church, were far wiser than people are in our own day, and yet they could not think of Jehovah in any other way than as a person whose Humanity was Divine. Nor did their thinking have any Unseemly desires entering it - ideas taken from the natural man, from what is imperfect and bad there. Rather the ideas about Him were altogether holy. The angels themselves, whose wisdom is so much greater than man's, cannot think of the Divine in any other way either, for they see the Lord in His Divine Human. They know that an angel, with whom all things are finite, cannot begin to form any idea of the Infinite except through what bears resemblance to the finite.

[3] The fact that people in ancient times venerated Jehovah under the form of a Person who was Divine is perfectly clear from the angels who appeared in human form to Abraham, and also after that to Lot, as well as to Joshua, and to Gideon and Manoah. Those angels were called Jehovah and were venerated as the God of all things. If at the present day Jehovah were to appear in the Church as a person people would be offended and would think that because what they saw was a person. He could not by any means be the Creator and Lord of the Universe. Furthermore they would not then have any other kind of idea about Him than what they have about an ordinary human being. Thinking in this way people at the present day believe that they are wiser than the ancients, unaware of the fact that by thinking in that way they are completely out of touch with wisdom. For when one's mental resources are spent on envisaging the completely incomprehensible Being present everywhere, they can discern nothing and are squandered. And ideas about nature, to which every single thing is attributed, arise instead. This is why nature-worship is so common at the present day, especially in the Christian world.