9103. 'And four of the flock for the member of the flock' also means the corresponding punishment carried out in full. This is clear from the meaning of 'four' as joined together, for 'four' is similar in meaning to 'two' because four is the product of two times two (for the meaning of 'two' as joined together, see 5194, 8423, and therefore also 'four', 1686, 8877), from which it follows that those numbers also mean to the complete amount, since what has been joined together is complete; and from the meaning of 'a member of the flock' as interior good, dealt with just above in 9099. The corresponding punishment is meant by 'repaying', at this point 'four of the flock for one member of the flock', 9102. Interior good is what charity in the interior man is called, exterior good being charity in the exterior man. The latter good must receive life from the former, for the good of charity in the interior man is the good of spiritual life, and the good of charity in the exterior man is the good of natural life from the spiritual. This exterior good enters a person's feelings as delight, but not so interior good. Instead this enters his awareness that it ought to be so, and enables his mind to feel contented. In the next life however interior good too enters into a person's feelings.

[2] No one can know the reason why five oxen were to be used in repayment for an ox, and four of the flock for the member of the flock, unless he knows what 'theft' is in the spiritual sense, and also what 'an ox' and 'a member of the flock' are. What these things mean has been explained, namely taking away and alienating exterior and interior good, the taking away being done by evil and the alienation by falsity. Consequently punishment and the restoration of them are meant by 'five' end 'four'; for all numbers in the Word serve to mean spiritual things, see 575, 647, 648, 755, 813, 1963, 1988, 2075, 2252, 3252, 4264, 4495, 4670, 5265, 6175, at this point things having to do with restoration. That is to say, the number 'five' refers to restoration of exterior good to a great degree, and the number 'four' to restoration of interior good in full. The reason why interior good must be restored completely is that this good constitutes a person's spiritual life; and unless his spiritual life is restored completely the exterior good constituting his natural life cannot be restored; for the latter life is restored by means of the former, as may be recognized from a person's regeneration. The external man is regenerated by means of the internal, see 9043, 9046, 9061; but good in the external or natural man cannot be restored completely because the blow it has been struck remains there as a scar that becomes hardened. These are the things implied by those numbers.

[3] Something further must be said briefly about the restoration of the exterior good constituting a person's natural life by means of the interior good constituting his spiritual life. The natural level of a person's mind sees things in the light of the world, the light that is called natural illumination. A person acquires this illumination through objects entering his awareness by means of sight and hearing, that is, by impressions of objects received from the world. Thus the person sees those objects with his mind's eye almost exactly as his physical eye sees them. Initially the objects that he is made aware of through those senses are all a pleasure and delight to him. Later on, when still a young child, he makes distinctions among the objects that are a delight to him, and thereby learns to discriminate, gradually doing so more and more accurately. When the light from heaven flows into these things the person begins to see them spiritually, discriminating initially between the ones that are useful and those that are not useful. As a consequence he starts to see the truth clearly; for that which he sees to be useful he sees to be true, and that which he does not see to be useful he sees to be not true. This ability to see truth increases as the inflowing light from heaven grows brighter, until eventually he discriminates not only between truths, but even between truths within these truths. And this he does ever more clearly, as the communication between the internal man and the external man is improved and opened up; for the light of heaven flows in from the Lord through the internal man into the external. From this the person now has perception; nevertheless this is still not spiritual perception.

[4] Spiritual perception does not grow out of natural truths but out of spiritual truths, spiritual truths being what are called the truths of faith. The reason why spiritual perception grows out of these truths is that the light of heaven is Divine Truth emanating from the Lord. It is the light that shines for the angels' eyes; it also shines in their understanding and imparts intelligence and wisdom to them, in varying amounts, depending on its reception within good. Therefore, if spiritual perception is to grow a person must have cognitions or knowledge of spiritual things in his natural, and such knowledge of spiritual things must come from revelation. When the light of heaven flows into them it flows into what are its own; for as has been stated, that light is Divine Truth emanating from the Lord, see 1053, 1521-1533, 1619-1632, 2776, 3138, 3167, 3195, 3222, 3223, 3341, 3636, 3643, 4180, 4302, 4408, 4415, 4527, 5400, 6032, 6313, 6608. This is how a person acquires intelligence and wisdom in such matters as belong to eternal life; and they increase in the measure that such light - that is, in the measure that the truths of faith - are received within good, the good being charity.

[5] The fact that the natural or external man is regenerated, and also undergoes amendment and is restored by means of the internal, may be recognized from what has now been stated. Things in the external or natural man receive life from the light of heaven; for this light is living, because it emanates from the Lord, who is Life itself. They do not receive their life from natural light, since this light is in itself dead. If therefore things in natural light are to have life there must be an inflow of the living light, coming from the Lord through the internal man. This inflow adjusts itself to cognitions of truth present in the natural that are analogous and correspond, and to other things there that can serve. From this it is evident that a person's external or natural must be regenerated by means of his internal; and the good in the natural that has been taken away or alienated has to be amended and restored by the same means.

4527. I have talked to some just a few days after their decease, and being at that time recent arrivals they dwelt in a light which to them was little different from the light of the world. Because that light seemed little different to them they doubted whether it came from any source other than that of the world's light. They were for that reason taken to where heaven begins, to where the light was brighter still, and from there they talked to me. They said that they had never seen light like that, and yet this was long after the sun had set. They now wondered at the fact that spirits had eyes to see with, since during their lifetime they had believed that the life spirits had was pure thought, entirely separated indeed from any subject. The reason they had believed this was that they had been unable to think about any subject of thought because they had not seen it. This being so, they inevitably supposed that, being thought alone, the soul would be dissipated together with the body in which it existed, just like a puff of wind or fire, if the Lord did not in a miraculous way hold it together and keep it in being. Those spirits taken to where heaven begins also saw how easily the learned may fall into error concerning the life after death and that they more than any others do not believe anything apart from what they actually see. They were amazed therefore at their possessing not only thought but also sight, as well as each of the other senses. They were even more amazed that they looked to themselves entirely like people, that they saw, heard, and conversed with one another, and that they could touch and feel their own bodily parts, doing so more perfectly than during their lifetime. Consequently they were astounded that when living in the world man is totally ignorant of all this, and they felt pity for the human race's complete lack of knowledge about such things because of their utter lack of belief, most of all among those who dwell in greater light than others, namely those who are within the Church and possess the Word.

[2] Some of them had not believed anything other than that after death human beings would be like ghosts, an idea which they had become convinced was true because of the apparitions they had heard about. But from this they concluded that a ghost was no more than some gross principle of life which is initially released from the life of the body but then returns again to the corpse, and in so doing is snuffed out. Others had believed however that they would not rise again until the time of the Last Judgement when the world would be destroyed, at which time they would rise again with the body which, though it had crumbled to dust, would be reassembled and in this way they would rise again with their bones and flesh. And because they had in vain been awaiting that Last Judgement or destruction of the world for many centuries they had sunk into the error of thinking that they would not rise again at all. They had not thought about what they had learned from the Word, and had sometimes even quoted that when a person dies his soul is in the hand of God, ¹ and is among the happy or the unhappy depending on the life he had come to know; nor have they thought about what the Lord said concerning the rich man and Lazarus. But these recently arrived spirits were informed that everyone's last judgement takes place when he dies, at which time it seems to him that he is endowed with a body as when in the world, and has the use of every sense as he has done here, though that sense is now purer and more perfect because nothing bodily imposes any limitations on it, and things which belong to the light of the world no longer cloud over those that belong to the light of heaven. Thus he now lives in a body that so to speak has been purified. In that world he could not possibly carry around a body of bones and flesh like that he had in the world, for in this case he would once again be invested with earthly dust.

[3] I have talked on this subject to some on the very day that their bodies were being buried, and through my eyes they have seen their own dead body, bier, and interment. They then said that they were casting that body aside, and that it had served them for uses performed in the world in which they had been but that now they were living in a body which served them for the uses performed in that world in which they were now. They also wished me to tell these things to their mourning relatives, but I was led to reply that if I did they would laugh at it because they did not believe in the existence of anything which they were unable to see with their own eyes, and so they would include what I said among visions which were mere illusions. For people cannot be brought to believe that as men see one another with their eyes so spirits see one another with theirs, and that man is unable to see spirits except with the eyes of his spirit, and that he sees them when the Lord opens his sight, as happened to the prophets, who saw spirits and angels, and also many of the things in heaven. But whether people living today would have believed those things if they had seen them at that time is open to doubt.

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