358. Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love

Part 5

The Lord has created and formed within us two vessels and dwellings for himself called volition and discernment. Volition is for his divine love and discernment for his divine wisdom. I have already discussed the divine love and wisdom of God the Creator, who is the Lord from eternity, and I have discussed the creation of the universe. Now I need to say something about our own creation.

We read that we were created in the image of God and according to his likeness (Genesis 1:26). In this passage "the image of God" means divine wisdom and "the likeness of God" means divine love, since wisdom is nothing more than the image of love. Love actually presents itself to view and to recognition in wisdom, and since that is where we see and recognize it, wisdom is its image. Then too, love is the reality of life and wisdom is its consequent manifestation. This "image and likeness" of God is strikingly visible in angels. Love shining from within is their faces and wisdom in their beauty, with beauty as the form of their love. I have seen this, and I have come to know it.

8867. 'You shall not have other gods before My face' means that there must be no thought about truths from any source other than the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'gods' as truths, and in the contrary sense as falsities, dealt with in 4402, 4544, 7268, 7873, 8301; and from the meaning of 'face', in a reference to God's face, as love, mercy, peace, and goodness, dealt with in 222, 223, 4311, 5585, thus the Lord Himself, since the Lord is the Source from which these spring. The reason why 'there must be no other gods before My face' means that there must be no thought about truths from any source other than the Lord is also that the Lord's Divine Human, meant by 'I am Jehovah your God', is mentioned first, which is therefore first in line and must reign universally in each individual truth that follows, 8864, 8865. Consequently the commandment now declares such things as are to be avoided because they are thoroughly destructive and prevent the Lord from reigning universally in each and every truth contained in the commandments and statutes that were dictated and commanded from Mount Sinai. The first thing that would be destructive is thought about truths from a source other than the Lord, which is meant in the words that prohibit the presence of other gods before the Lord's face. All other things which would destroy that truth reigning universally are contained in the prohibitions that follow in sequence - that they were not to make a graven image for themselves; that they were not to make any likeness of the things that were in the heavens, on the earth, and in the waters and that they were not to bow down to them, and not to serve them. And after these therefore comes the reiteration 'for I am Jehovah your God', meaning that the Lord must be in every single one.