51. 1. The Word is not understandable without a body of teaching. This is because in its literal meaning the Word is entirely made up of correspondences, to allow spiritual and heavenly matters to be gathered within it in such a way that each word can be their container and support. That is why in many passages the literal meaning is not made up of bare truths but of clothed truths, which we may call semblances of truth. Many of them are adapted to the comprehension of ordinary people who do not raise their thoughts above what they can see with their eyes. There are other passages where there seem to be contradictions, though there are no contradictions in the Word when it is seen in its own light. Then too, there are places in the prophets where we find collections of personal names and place-names that make no sense to us - see the examples in §15 above.

Since that is what the literal meaning of the Word is like, it stands to reason that it cannot be understood without a body of teaching.

[2] Some examples may serve to illustrate this. It says that Jehovah repents (Exodus 32:12, 14; Jonah 3:9; 4:2). It also says that Jehovah does not repent (Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29). Without a body of teaching, these statements do not agree.

It says that Jehovah visits the iniquities of the parents on the children to the third and fourth generation (Numbers 14:18), and it says that parents will not be put to death for their children and children will not be put to death for their parents, but each will die in his or her own sin (Deuteronomy 24:16). Seen in the light of a body of teaching, these statements do not disagree but agree.

[3] Jesus said,

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Everyone who asks receives, those who seek find, and to those who knock it will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8; 21:21-22)

In the absence of a body of teaching, people would believe that everyone’s request is granted, but a body of teaching yields the belief that we are given whatever we ask if we ask it not on our own behalf but on the Lord’s. That is in fact what the Lord tells us:

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. (John 15:7)

[4] The Lord says “Blessed are the poor, because theirs is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20). Without a body of teaching, we might think that heaven belongs to the poor and not to the rich. A body of teaching instructs us, though, that this means those who are poor in spirit, for the Lord said,

Blessed are the poor in spirit, because theirs is the kingdom of the heavens. (Matthew 5:3)

[5] The Lord says,

Do not judge, or you will be judged; with the same judgment you pass [on others] you yourself will be judged. (Matthew 7:1-2; Luke 6:37)

In the absence of a body of teaching, this could be used to support the assertion that we should not say that an evil act is evil or judge that an evil person is evil. A body of teaching, though, tells us that it is permissible to pass judgment if we do so in an upright, righteous way. In fact, the Lord says,

Judge with righteous judgment. (John 7:24)

[6] Jesus says,

Do not be called teacher, because one is your Teacher: Christ. You should not call anyone on earth your father, because you have one Father, and he is in the heavens. You should not be called masters, because one is your Master: Christ. (Matthew 23:8-10)

In the absence of a body of teaching, it would turn out that it was wrong to call anyone a teacher or a father or a master; but from a body of teaching we come to know that this is permissible in an earthly sense but not in a spiritual sense.

[7] Jesus said to the disciples,

When the Son of Humanity sits on the throne of his glory, you will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28)

These words could lead us to believe that the Lord’s disciples will be passing judgment, when quite the contrary, they cannot judge anyone. So a body of teaching unveils this mystery by explaining that only the Lord, who is omniscient and knows the hearts of all, will judge and can judge, and that his twelve disciples mean the church in the sense of all the true and good principles that it has received from the Lord through the Word. A body of teaching leads us to the conclusion that these principles will judge everyone, which follows from what the Lord says in John 3:17-18; 12:47-48.

[8] People who read the Word without the aid of a body of teaching do not know how to make sense out of what it says in the prophets about the Jewish nation and Jerusalem, namely, that the church will abide in that nation and that its seat will be in that city forever. Take the following statements, for example.

Jehovah will visit his flock, the house of Judah, and transform them into a glorious war horse; from Judah will come the cornerstone, from Judah the tent peg, from Judah the battle bow. (Zechariah 10:3-4)

Behold, I am coming to dwell in your midst. Jehovah will make Judah his inheritance and will again choose Jerusalem. (Zechariah 2:10-12)

On that day it will happen that the mountains will drip with new wine and the hills will flow with milk; and Judah will abide forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. (Joel 3:18, 20)

Behold, the days are coming in which I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humankind, and in which I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. This will be the covenant: I will put my law in their midst and I will write it on their heart, and I will become their God and they will become my people. (Jeremiah 31:27, 31, 33)

On that day ten men from every language of the nations will take hold of the hem of a man of Judah and say, “We will go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.” (Zechariah 8:23)

There are other passages of the same nature, such as Isaiah 44:24, 26; 49:22-23; 65:18; 66:20, 22; Jeremiah 3:18; 23:5; 50:19-20; Nahum 1:15; Malachi 3:4. In these passages the subject is the Lord’s Coming and what will happen at that time.

[9] However, it says something very different in any number of other passages, of which I will cite only the following:

I will hide my face from them. I will see what their posterity is, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom there is no faithfulness. I have said, “I will cast them into the most remote corners, I will make them cease from human memory, ” for they are a nation devoid of counsel, and they have no understanding. Their vine is from the vine of Sodom and the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of gall; their clusters are bitter. Their wine is the venom of dragons and the cruel gall of poisonous snakes. All this is hidden with me, locked away in my treasuries. Vengeance and retribution belong to me. (Deuteronomy 32:20-35)

These words were spoken about that nation, and there are similar statements elsewhere, as in Isaiah 3:1-2, 8; 5:3-6; Deuteronomy 9:5-6; Matthew 12:39; 23:27-28; John 8:44; and all through Jeremiah and Ezekiel. All the same, these statements that seem to contradict each other turn out to be in agreement in the light of a body of teaching, which tells us that Israel and Judah in the Word do not mean Israel and Judah but the church in each of two senses - one in which it lies in ruins and the other in which it is to be restored by the Lord. There are other contrasts like this in the Word that enable us to see that the Word cannot be understood apart from a body of teaching.

377. I am about to discuss the correspondence of the heart and the lungs with volition and discernment. Upon this rests the correspondence of everything in the body, called the members of the body as a whole, the sensory organs, and the body's viscera. Further, the correspondence of physical things with spiritual ones has not been recognized even though it was fully demonstrated in two works, one of which is Heaven and Hell and the other of which is on the spiritual meaning of the Word in Genesis and Exodus, titled Secrets of Heaven. For all these reasons, I should like now to point out the sections of these two works where I have written explanations of correspondence.

In Heaven and Hell, there is material on the correspondence of everything in heaven with everything in us, 87-102; and on the correspondence of everything in heaven with everything on earth, 103-115.

In the work on the spiritual meaning of the Word in Genesis and Exodus, titled Secrets of Heaven, there is material on the correspondence of the face and its expressions with the feelings of the mind: 1568, 2988, 2989, 3631, 4796, 4797, 4880 [4800], 5195 [5165], 5168, 5695, 9306;

on the correspondence of the body in its motions and actions with matters of discernment and volition: 2988, 3632, 4215;

on the correspondence of the senses in general: 4318-4330;

on the correspondence of the eyes and their sight: 4403-4420;

on the correspondence of the nostrils and smell: 4624-4634;

on the correspondence of the ears and hearing: 4652-4634 [4652-4659];

on the correspondence of the tongue and taste: 4791-4805;

on the correspondence of the hands, arms, legs, and feet: 4931-4953;

on the correspondence of the groin and the reproductive organs: 5050-5062;

on the correspondence of the inner viscera of the body, particularly the stomach, thymus, the cisterna, the chyle and its ducts and the mesentery: 5171-5180, 5189 [5181];

on the correspondence of the spleen: 9698;

on the correspondence of the peritoneum, kidneys, and bladder: 5377-5396 [5377-5391];

on the correspondence of the liver and the ducts of the liver, of the bladder, and of the pancreas: 5183-5185;

on the correspondence of the intestines: 5392-5395, 5379;

on the correspondence of the bones: 5560-5564;

on the correspondence of the skin: 5552-5573;

on the correspondence of heaven with a person: 911, 1900, 1982 [2162], 2996, 2998, 3624-3649, 3741-3745, 3884, 4091 [4041], 4279 [4280], 4423 [4323], 4524, 4525, 6013, 6057, 9279, 9632;

on the fact that everything in the physical world and its three kingdoms corresponds to something you can see in the spiritual world: 1632, 1881, 2758, 2890-2893 [2990-2993], 2897-3043 [2987-3003], 3213-3227, 3483, 3624-3649, 4044, 4053, 4156, 4366 [4936], 4939, 5116, 5377, 5428, 4477 [5477], 8211, 9280; that everything you see in heaven is a correspondence: 1521, 1532, 1619-1625, 1807, 1808, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1981, 2299, 2601, 3213-3226, 3348, 3350, 3457 [3475], 3485, 3748 [3747], 9481, 9570, 9576, 9577. The correspondence of the literal meaning of the Word with its spiritual meaning is dealt with throughout, and is also treated in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 5-26, 27-69.