5915. And I will sustain thee there. That this signifies continuous influx of spiritual life from the internal celestial, is evident from the signification of “sustaining,” when it is said by Joseph, by whom is represented the internal celestial, as being the influx of spiritual life from the internal celestial; sustenance in the spiritual sense being nothing else than the influx of good and of truth through heaven from the Lord. From this are the angels sustained, and from this is the soul of man (that is, his internal man) sustained. To this sustenance corresponds the sustenance of the external man by food and drink; and therefore by “food” is signified good, and by “drink,” truth. Such also is the correspondence, that when a man is partaking of food, the angels with him are in the idea of good and truth, and wonderful to say with a difference according to the species of the food. Thus when a man in the Holy Supper receives the bread and the wine, the angels with him are in the idea of the good of love and the good of faith (n. 3464, 3735), for the reason that bread corresponds to the good of love, and wine to the good of faith; and because they correspond, they also signify the same in the Word.

[2] That man’s soul (that is, the internal man) is sustained by spiritual food and drink, that is, by good and truth, is evident from the Lord’s words in Moses:

Man doth not live by bread only, but by every utterance of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4).

The “utterance of the mouth of Jehovah” is the good and the truth which proceed from Him.

In John:

Labor not for the food which perisheth, but for the food which remaineth into eternal life, which the Son of man will give you (John 6:27).

Again:

The disciples besought Jesus, saying, Master, eat. He said to them, I have food to eat that ye know not (John 4:31-32).

And concerning drink, in the same:

Jesus said, If anyone thirst, let him come unto me and drink; whosoever believeth in Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow streams of living water (John 7:37-38).

3735. And raiment to put on. That this signifies conjunction with Divine truth, is evident from the signification of “raiment,” as being truth (n. 1073, 2576), in the present case Divine truth, because the Lord is treated of; and from the signification of “putting on,” as being to be appropriated and conjoined. The nature of the internal sense of the Word may be seen from these and all other such significatives, namely, that when bread and raiment are treated of in the sense of the letter, and also when the matter in question is expressed historically, as here—“if God will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,” the angels who are with the man at the time think not at all of bread, but of the good of love, and in the supreme sense of the Lord’s Divine good; neither do they think of raiment, but of truth, and in the supreme sense of the Lord’s Divine truth. Such things as are in the sense of the letter are to them merely objective representatives for thinking concerning things heavenly and Divine; for such things are the vessels which are in the ultimate of order.

[2] Thus when in a holy state a man thinks of bread, as for instance of the bread in the Holy Supper, or of the “daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer, then the thought which the man has about bread serves the angels who are with him as an objective representative for thinking about the good of love which is from the Lord; for the angels apprehend nothing of man’s thought about bread, but instead of this have thought concerning good, for such is the correspondence. In like manner when in a holy state a man thinks about raiment, the thought of the angels is about truth; and so it is with everything else in the Word. This shows what is the nature of the conjunction of heaven and earth by the Word, namely, that a man who reads the Word in a holy manner is by such correspondence conjoined closely with heaven, and through heaven with the Lord, even although the man thinks only of those things in the Word which are in the sense of its letter. The holiness itself then present with the man comes from an influx of celestial and spiritual thoughts and affections, such as angels have.

[3] That there might be such an influx and the consequent conjunction of man with the Lord the Holy Supper was instituted by the Lord, in connection with which it is expressly said that the bread and wine are the Lord; for the Lord’s “body” signifies His Divine love, and the reciprocal love in man such as is that of the celestial angels; and the “blood” in like manner signifies His Divine love, and the reciprocal love in man, but such as is that of the spiritual angels. From this it is manifest how much of the Divine there is in everything of the Word, notwithstanding man’s ignorance as to what it is and what its quality. Yet those who when in the world have been in the life of good, after death come into the knowledges and perceptions of all these things; for then they put off earthly and worldly things, and put on heavenly ones; and in like manner are in a spiritual and celestial idea like that of the angels.