48. Because a person’s life varies in accordance with his state, therefore by spirit is meant the varying life’s affection in a person. For example:

1. The life of wisdom:

(Bezalel was filled) with the spirit of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge.... (Exodus 31:3).

You shall speak to all the wise of heart, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom.... (Exodus 28:3)

Joshua was filled with the spirit of wisdom (Deuteronomy 34:9).

Nebuchadnezzar said of Daniel that an excellent spirit, of knowledge, understanding and wisdom was found in him (Daniel 5:12, 14).

The erring in spirit will know understanding.... (Isaiah 29:24)

[2] 2. The arousal of life:

Jehovah has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes. (Jeremiah 51:11)

Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel...and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. (Haggai 1:14)

...I am putting (into the king of Assyria) a spirit..., that he may hear a rumor and return to his own land. (Isaiah 37:7)

...Jehovah...hardened (the) spirit (of the king of Sihon).... (Deuteronomy 2:30)

What has come up upon your spirit shall never be.... (Ezekiel 20:32)

[3] 3. Liberty of life: The four creatures, which were cherubim, seen by the prophet went “wherever they had a spirit to go” (Ezekiel 1:12, 20).

[4] 4. Life in a state of fear, distress, and anger:

...that every heart may melt, and all hands be feeble, and every spirit shrink.... (Ezekiel 21:7)

...my spirit was faint within me, my heart within me is stunned.... (Psalms 143:4, cf. 142:3)

My spirit has been consumed! (Psalms 143:7)

As for me, Daniel, my spirit grieved.... (Daniel 7:15)

(Pharaoh’s) spirit was troubled. (Genesis 41:8)

(Nebuchadnezzar said,) “...my spirit is troubled....” (Daniel 2:3)

I went bitterly in the wrath of my spirit. (Ezekiel 3:14)

[5] 5. Life in a state of various evil affections:

“...provided there is no deceit in his spirit.” (Psalms 32:2)

Jehovah has mingled a spirit of perversity in her midst. (Isaiah 19:14)

...said (He)...to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit.... (Ezekiel 13:3)

The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is insane. (Hosea 9:7)

Be observant by your spirit, and do not deal treacherously. (Malachi 2:16)

...the spirit of harlotry has caused them to stray.... (Hosea 4:12)

...a spirit of harlotry is in their midst.... (Hosea 5:4)

When a spirit of jealousy comes upon him.... (Numbers 5:14)

...a man who is a wanderer in spirit, and he prattles falsehood.... (Micah 2:11)

...a generation...whose spirit was not steadfast with God. (Psalms 78:8)

...poured out on (them) a spirit of drowsiness.... (Isaiah 29:10)

Conceive chaff, bring forth stubble; as for your spirit, fire shall shall devour you. (Isaiah 33:11)

[6] 6. Hellish life:

I will...cause...the unclean spirit to depart from the land. (Zechariah 13:2)

When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places.... And then he...attaches to himself seven worse spirits than himself, and they enter and dwell there. (Matthew 12:43-45)

...Babylon...has become a dwelling place of...a foul spirit.... (Revelation 18:2)

[7] 7. In addition, the spirits of hell themselves who torment mankind: Matthew 8:16, 10:1, 12:43-45; Mark 1:23-27, 9:17-29; Luke 4:33, 36, 6:17-18, 7:21, 8:2, 29, 9:39, 42, 55, 11:24-26, 13:11; Revelation 13:15, 16:13-14.

490. "And I will give power to my two witnesses." (11:3) This symbolizes those people who confess and acknowledge from the heart that the Lord is God of heaven and earth, whose humanity is Divine, and who are conjoined with Him by a life in accordance with the Ten Commandments.

These are the people meant here by the two witnesses because these two characteristics are the two essential elements of the New Church.

Regarding the first essential, that the Lord is God of heaven and earth, whose humanity is Divine - that this is a testimony, and therefore that those people are witnesses who confess and acknowledge this from the heart, may be seen in nos. 6 and 846, and still further from the following:

I am your fellow servant... of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus... For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. (Revelation 19:10)

(Michael's angels) overcame (the dragon) by the blood of the Lamb and by the Word of His testimony... And the dragon... went away to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. (Revelation 12:11, 17)

...the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God... (Revelation 20:4)

These are people who have acknowledged the Lord.

The testimony is called the testimony of Jesus because the Lord attests to it on the authority of His Word, thus on the authority of Himself. Therefore He is called the faithful and true witness (Revelation 1:5; 3:14); and He says,

...I testify of Myself, (and) My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going. (John 8:14)

Also,

When the Counselor comes..., the spirit of truth..., it will testify of Me. (John 15:26)

The Counselor, the spirit of truth, which is also the Holy Spirit, is an emanating Divinity, and this is the Lord Himself, as may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, nos. 46-54.

Now because the Lord Himself is the witness, therefore witnesses also mean people who bear the same testimony on behalf of the Lord, as in John:

(Jesus said,) "You have sent to John, and he was a witness to the truth. Yet I do not receive testimony from man... (John 5:33-34)

(John) came as testimony, to testify concerning the light... He was not that light, but was sent to testify concerning the light. (The Word that was with God, and was God,) was the true light... (John 1:1-2ff.; see also 1:14, 1:34)

[2] Regarding the second essential of the New Church, namely conjunction with the Lord by a life in accordance with the Ten Commandments - that this is a testimony is apparent from the fact that the Ten Commandments are called a testimony, as in the following:

You shall put into the ark the Testimony which I will give you. (Exodus 25:16)

...the Testimony...(Moses) put into the ark... (Exodus 40:20)

...the mercy seat that is upon the Testimony... (Leviticus 16:13)

(Leave the rods of the tribes) before the Testimony... (Numbers 17:4)

And so, too, elsewhere, as in Exodus 25:22; 31:7, 18; 32:15, Psalms 78:5; 132:12.

[3] We will say something here regarding conjunction with the Lord by a life in accordance with the Ten Commandments:

There are two tables on which these commandments were written, one for the Lord and one for mankind. The contents of the first table declare that several gods are not to be worshiped, but only one. The contents of the second table declare that evils are not to be done. When one God is worshiped and people do not do evils, conjunction takes place. For in the measure that a person desists from evils, that is, in the measure that he repents, he is in the same measure accepted by God and does good from God.

But who, now, is the one God? A trinal or triune God is not one God when the trine or trinity exists in three persons. But a God who has a trine or trinity in one person is one God, and that God is the Lord. Weave your ideas as you may, you still will not extricate from the tangle the existence of one God unless He is also one in person.

The fact of this is something the whole Word teaches, both the Old Prophetic Word and the New Apostolic Word, as may be clearly seen from The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord.