3043. 'You are clear from my oath' means the freedom that the natural man has. This is clear from the meaning of 'the servant', to whom Abraham's words are addressed, as the natural man, 3019, and from the meaning of 'being clear if the woman is unwilling to follow' in the proximate sense as not being bound if the affection for truth were not separated. These words, it is evident, imply the freedom that the natural man has; for the affection for truth, which is the subject here, and also its separation, is in the internal sense attributed to the natural man. In the historical sense these words do indeed have other connotations, but in the internal sense their implications are such.

[2] Regarding human freedom, see what has been stated and shown already in 892, 905, 1937, 1947, 2744, 2870-2893, for these paragraphs show what is implied by freedom. Freedom is attributed to the natural man, but not so much to the rational man, because it is by way of the rational man and into the natural man that good flows in, in heavenly freedom, from the Lord. It is the natural man that is the recipient of that good, and in order that it may receive it and so be joined to the heavenly freedom flowing in by way of the rational man, the natural man is left in freedom. For freedom goes with love or affection. If the natural man does not receive an affection for truth from an inflowing affection for good, that man is in no sense joined to the rational. This is how it is with man, whom the Lord reforms by means of freedom, see 1937, 1947, 2876-2878, 2881.

[3] In the Lord's case He too left the Natural in freedom when He made His Rational Divine as regards truth, that is, when He allied Divine Truth to the Divine Good of the Rational, for He was willing to make His Human Divine in the ordinary way. The ordinary way is that which occurs in anyone who is being reformed and regenerated. The actual reformation and regeneration of man is therefore a replica of what took place in the Lord. For by reformation and regeneration he becomes a new person, and is consequently called one begotten anew, and one created anew; and to the extent that he has been reformed he seems to have the Divine within him. But there is this difference, that the Lord made Himself Divine by His own power, whereas man is not able to effect the slightest reformation by his own power, only from the Lord. The expression 'seems to have the Divine' is used because man is solely a recipient of life, whereas the Lord is Life itself as to both Essences, see 1954, 2021, 2658, 2706, 3001.

3001. There is but one and no more life - the Lord's. This life flows in and brings life to man, to both good and evil alike. This becomes clear from what has been stated and shown in the explanation of the Word, in 1954, 2021, 2536, 2658, 2706, 2886-2889. To that life recipient objects correspond which are given life by means of that Divine influx, and indeed in such a way that these recipients seem to themselves to live of themselves. This correspondence is a correspondence of life with the recipients of life. Recipient objects have life insofar as they are recipients. Such correspondence exists with those who have love and charity within them, for they are fitted to receive and do receive that life as is adequate for them. But that correspondence does not exist with those who have the reverse of love and charity within them, for life itself is not received adequately by them. These therefore have but an appearance of life, the nature of which is the same as they are in themselves. This may be exemplified in a number of ways, for example, from the motor and the sensory organs of the body into which life flows by way of the soul. The nature of those organs determines that of the actions and sensations in them. The same may also be exemplified by objects on to which light from the sun falls - the nature of the forms receiving it determines the colours seen in them. But in the spiritual world all the variations which result from the influx of life are spiritual, and this is the origin of such differences in intelligence and wisdom.