御言葉の中の父とは、最も内面的なものを意味し、主の命令に従っているものにおいては、良いものを意味します。最高の意味での父とは、創造者である主ご自身を意味します。自然な子供の世代では、魂、すなわち生命の最も内側にある受け皿と内的な遺伝を提供するのは父であり、魂が体を形成するために使用するすべての物質と外的な遺伝を提供するのは母です。この過程において、魂は父を通して主から来るのであって、父から来るのではありません。

賢い人が主を父と呼び、教会を母と呼ぶのは、その人の内面の愛が主から来たものであり、教会が教える真理によって形と実を与えられているからです。このようにして生まれたものが、その人の霊的な「子供」なのです。

新約聖書では、イエスと父について語るとき、意味するのは、内なる魂としての神そのものが外に現れているということです。イエスは自然な母から生まれたので、自然な体とユダヤ人の遺伝を持っていました。地獄に誘惑されていた彼の人生を通して、彼はゆっくりと母親から持っていたものをすべて捨てて、ご自身の内なる御父から持っていたものに置き換えていきました。そうすることで、彼は自分の内側にある父と一つになり、「私と父は一つである」と心から言えるようになったのです。

(Odkazy: 啓示による黙示録解説170; 天界の秘義1815, 3703 [4]; 神の摂理330 [1,2]; 真のｷﾘｽﾄ教103 [1,2])

170. "'But I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.'" This symbolically means that those people are to be accepted who are governed by Divine good and Divine truths from the Lord, thus who have in them the life of heaven.

It follows from the symbolism of a name, explained in nos. 81 and 122 above, that to confess someone's name is to acknowledge his character or his being of this or that character. My Father means Divine good, and His angels mean Divine truths, both of which originate from the Lord.

In the Gospels the Lord often mentions His Father, and He everywhere means Jehovah, from whom and in whom exists all else, and who was present in Him. Never did He mean any separate Divinity apart from Him. The reality of this is something we showed many times in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, and also in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence, nos. 262, 263.

To be shown that the Father is the Lord Himself, see nos. 21 and 962 in the present work.

The Lord mentions His Father, because a father symbolizes, in the spiritual sense, goodness, and God the Father symbolizes the Divine goodness of the Divine love. Angels never understand the Father to mean anything other than the Lord when the term is encountered in the Word, nor can they understand it to mean anything else, because no one in heaven knows his father, the one from whom they are said to have been born, and whose children and heirs they are called. This is the meaning of the Lord's words in Matthew 23:9. ¹

It is apparent from this that to confess someone's name before the Father means, symbolically, that he is to be accepted among those who are governed by Divine good from Him.

Angels mean people who are governed by Divine truths from the Lord, and abstractly Divine truths themselves, because angels are recipients of Divine good in the Divine truths that they have among them from the Lord.

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