The Lord, in the simplest terms, is love itself expressed as wisdom itself. In philosophic terms, love is the Lord's substance and wisdom is His form. Of course, we feel the Lord's love and hear His wisdom in many different ways, depending on our state in life and how receptive we are. That's why the Lord has so many different names in the Bible, and is referred to in so many different ways.

1171. Stood afar off signifies not now in these things as before because of fear. This is evident from the signification of "standing afar off," as being to be in externals (See n. 1133), so here because of fear, not to be in that delusive wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge by which they had before confirmed the evils and falsities of their doctrine and religious persuasion; for fear causes man to withdraw from these things when he sees the punishments and torments of those who are in them.

(Continuation)

Let the following be added to what has been said.

1. Before reformation the light of the understanding is like the light of the moon, clear according to the knowledges of truth and good; but after reformation it is like the light of the sun, clear according to the application of the knowledges of truth and good to the uses of life.

2. The reason that the understanding has not been destroyed is that man may know truths, and from truths see the evils of his will, and seeing them he may resist them as if from himself, and thus be reformed.

3. And yet man is not reformed from his understanding, but by means of the recognition of truths by the understanding and its seeing evils by them; for the operation of the Lord's Divine providence is into the love of man's will, and from that into the understanding, and not the reverse.

4. The love of the will gives intelligence according to its quality. Natural love from spiritual love gives intelligence in civil and moral matters; but spiritual love in natural love gives intelligence in spiritual matters; but merely natural love and the conceit that comes from it does not give intelligence in spiritual matters, but gives the ability to confirm whatever it pleases, and after confirmation so infatuates the understanding that it sees falsity as truth, and evil as good. Nevertheless, this love does not take away the ability to understand truths in their light; when it is present it takes it away, but not when it is absent.

5. When the will has been reformed, and the wisdom belonging to the understanding has come to be of the love belonging to the will, that is, when wisdom comes to be the love of truth and good in its form, man is like a garden in spring time, when heat is united to light and gives a soul to the germinations. Spiritual germinations are such productions of wisdom from love; and in every such production there is a soul from that love, while its clothing is from wisdom; thus the will is like a father and the understanding like a mother.

6. Such is man's life, not only the life of his mind, but also the life of his body, since the life of the mind acts as one with the life of the body by correspondences. For the life of the will or love corresponds to the life of the heart, and the life of the understanding or wisdom corresponds to the life of the lungs; and these are the two fountains of the life of the body. Man does not know that this is so; nevertheless it is for this reason that an evil person cannot live in heaven, or a good person in hell. For either of these becomes as it were dead when he is not among those with whom the life of his will and thus the life of his understanding acts as one. When he is among such his heart beats freely, and his lungs respire freely; but not when he is among others.