8541. SPIRITS AND INHABITANTS OF THE PLANET JUPITER - continued

As regards their worship of God, the most important aspect of it is their acknowledgement of our Lord as the Supreme One who governs heaven and earth. They call Him the one and only Lord; and because they acknowledge and worship Him during their lifetime they therefore seek Him after death, and find Him. He is none other than our Lord. When asked whether they know that the one and only Lord is a Person they replied that they all know Him to be a Person, because He has been seen as a Person by many on their planet; that He informs them of the truth, and keeps them in being; and that He imparts eternal life to those who believe in Him. They went on to say that He has revealed to them how they ought to live and how they ought to believe, and that what He has revealed is passed down from parents to children. In that way teachings are spread to all the families and so to an entire clan descended from the same father. They said in addition that those teachings seem to them to have been inscribed on their minds, a conclusion they come to because they can perceive instantly and recognize automatically whether what others say about the life of heaven with a person is true or not.

7996. 'No son of a foreigner shall eat it' means that those not in possession of truth and good are set apart from them. This is clear from the meaning of 'a foreigner' as those who are outside the Church and unreceptive of anything of the truth or good of faith, as the nations in the land of Canaan were, dealt with in 2049, 2115, thus those who are not in possession of truth and good; and from the meaning of 'not eating it' as not having any contact with them or being joined to them, thus being set apart from them. The verses immediately following deal with those who shall eat the Passover together and those who shall not eat it. The Passover was a supper, representing the groups of good people living in association with one another in heaven. The statutes in the verses that follow indicate who exactly could be included and who could not. In general the banquets within the Church in ancient times, both midday meals and suppers, were held in order that people might be brought into association with one another and joined together in love, and in order that they might inform one another about matters of love and faith, and so about the things of heaven, see 3596, 3832, 5161. Such were the delights surrounding feasts in those times, and they were the end in view in holding midday meals and suppers. People's minds were thereby nourished, and also their bodies in a parallel and corresponding way. As a result they enjoyed good health and long life, they received intelligence and wisdom, and they were also brought into communication with heaven, some into open communication with angels. But as in course of time all internal things disappear and give way to external ones, so it is with the ends to which banquets and feasts are held. At the present day these are held not to draw people together into any spiritual fellowship but to create worldly connections. That is to say, they are held for the sake of material gain, the quest for high office, and mere pleasures. They provide nourishment for the body, but none for the mind.