Heaven and Hell # 365
365. We may gather from this that rich people arrive in heaven just as much as poor people do, one as easily as the other. The reason people believe that it is easy for the poor and hard for the rich is that the Word is misunderstood when it talks about the rich and the poor. In the spiritual meaning of the Word, "the rich" means people who are amply supplied with understandings of what is true and good, that is, people in the church where the Word is. "The poor" means people who lack these understandings but who long for them, or people outside the church, where the Word is not found.
[2] The rich person dressed in purple and fine linen who was cast into hell means the Jewish nation. Because they had the Word and were therefore amply supplied with understandings of what is good and true, they are called "rich." The garments of purple actually mean understandings of what is good, and the fine linen means understandings of what is true. 1 The poor person who was lying in the gateway and who longed to feast on the crumbs that were falling from the rich person's table, who was carried up into heaven by angels, means the non-Jews who did not have understandings of what is good and true but who still longed for them (Luke 16:19, 31).
The rich who were invited to the great feast but who excused themselves also mean the Jewish nation, and the poor who were brought in to replace them mean the non-Jews who were outside the church (Luke 12:16-24, 14:16-24).
[3] We need also to explain who are meant by the rich of whom the Lord said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24). "The rich person" here means the rich in both senses, natural and spiritual. Rich people in the natural sense are people who have abundant wealth and set their hearts on it, while in a spiritual sense they are people who are amply supplied with insights and knowledge (for these are spiritual wealth) and who want to use them to get themselves into heavenly and ecclesiastical circles by their own intellect. Since this is contrary to the divine design, it says that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. On this level of meaning, a camel means our cognitive and informational level in general, and the eye of a needle means spiritual truth. 2
Nowadays people do not know that this is the meaning of the camel and the eye of a needle because there has not yet been any access to the knowledge that teaches what is meant spiritually by the things that the Word says literally. There is spiritual meaning in the details of the Word, and natural meaning as well; because the Word was written in pure correspondences of natural realities with spiritual ones in order to effect a union of heaven and the world, or of angels with us, once the direct union had ceased. We can see from this exactly who are meant by the rich in the Word.
[4] We may gather from a number of passages that on the spiritual level "the rich" in the Word refers to people who enjoy insights into what is good and true and that wealth means those insights themselves, which are spiritual riches: see Isaiah 10:12-14; 30:6-7; 45:3, Jeremiah 17:3; 47:7 [Jeremiah 48:7?], Jeremiah 50:36-37; 51:13, Daniel 5:2-4, Ezekiel 26:7, 12; 27:1-36; Zechariah 9:3-4; Psalms 45:12; Hosea 12:9; Revelation 3:17-18, Luke 14:33, and elsewhere. On the poor in the spiritual sense as people who do not have insights into what is good and true but who long for them, see Matthew 11:5; Luke 6:20-21; 14:21; Isaiah 14:30; 29:19; 41:17-18; Zephaniah 3:12, 18 [13]. An explanation of the spiritual meaning of all these passages may be found in 10227 of Secrets of Heaven.
Poznámky pod čarou:
1. [Swedenborg's footnote] Garments mean things that are true, and therefore insights: 1033 [1073?], 2576, 5319, 5954, 9212, 9216, 9952, 10536. Purple means heavenly good: 9467. Linen means truth of a heavenly origin: 5319, 9469, 9744.
2. [Swedenborg's footnote] A camel in the Word means our cognitive and informational level in general: 3048, 3071, 3143, 3145. What embroidery, embroidering, and therefore needles Arcana Coelestia 9688. To start from outward facts in order to gain access to truths of faith is contrary to the divine design: 10236. People who do this become insane in matters of heaven and the church: 128-130, 232-233, 6047; and in the other life, when they think about spiritual things, they become virtually drunk: 1072. More about their nature: 196. Examples to illustrate the fact that spiritual things cannot be grasped if they are approached on this basis: 233, 2094, 2196, 2203, 2209. It is all right to go from spiritual truth into the knowledge appropriate to our natural level, but not the other way around, because there is an inflow of the spiritual into the natural but not an inflow of the natural into the spiritual: 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427-5428, 5478, 6322, 9110-9111 [10199?]. We need first to acknowledge the truths of the Word and the church, and then it is all right to take our secular learning into account; but not the other way around: 6047.
Luke 17
1
He said to the disciples, "It is impossible that no occasions of stumbling should come, but woe to him through whom they come!
2
It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.
3
Be careful. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.
4
If he sins against you seven times in the day, and seven times returns, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him."
5
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith."
6
The Lord said, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you would tell this sycamore tree, 'Be uprooted, and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.
7
But who is there among you, having a servant plowing or keeping sheep, that will say, when he comes in from the field, 'Come immediately and sit down at the table,'
8
and will not rather tell him, 'Prepare my supper, clothe yourself properly, and serve me, while I eat and drink. Afterward you shall eat and drink'?
9
Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded? I think not.
10
Even so you also, when you have done all the things that are commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy servants. We have done our duty.'"
11
It happened as he was on his way to Jerusalem, that he was passing along the borders of Samaria and Galilee.
12
As he entered into a certain village, ten men who were lepers met him, who stood at a distance.
13
They lifted up their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"
14
When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." It happened that as they went, they were cleansed.
15
One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice.
16
He fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks; and he was a Samaritan.
17
Jesus answered, "Weren't the ten cleansed? But where are the nine?
18
Were there none found who returned to give glory to God, except this stranger?"
19
Then he said to him, "Get up, and go your way. Your faith has healed you."
20
Being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, he answered them, "The Kingdom of God doesn't come with observation;
21
neither will they say, 'Look, here!' or, 'Look, there!' for behold, the Kingdom of God is within you."
22
He said to the disciples, "The days will come, when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.
23
They will tell you, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Don't go away, nor follow after them,
24
for as the lightning, when it flashes out of the one part under the sky, shines to the other part under the sky; so will the Son of Man be in his day.
25
But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
26
As it happened in the days of Noah, even so will it be also in the days of the Son of Man.
27
They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ship, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
28
Likewise, even as it happened in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built;
29
but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from the sky, and destroyed them all.
30
It will be the same way in the day that the Son of Man is revealed.
31
In that day, he who will be on the housetop, and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away. Let him who is in the field likewise not turn back.
33
Whoever seeks to save his life loses it, but whoever loses his life preserves it.
34
I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed. The one will be taken, and the other will be left.
35
There will be two grinding grain together. One will be taken, and the other will be left."
37
They, answering, asked him, "Where, Lord?" He said to them, "Where the body is, there will the vultures also be gathered together."
