Title: Close That Gate

Topic: Salvation

Summary: There are two gates to the city of our mind: one toward hell, and one toward heaven. Over time we figure out which is which and close one of the gates.

Use the reference links below to follow along in the Bible as you watch.

References:
Genesis 22:15-17
Galatians 3:16
Genesis 24:60; 28:17
Deuteronomy 16:18; 28:52
Joshua 2:5-7
2 Samuel 10:8; 18:24
2 Kings 19:32-34
Nehemiah 6:10; 7:1-3; 11:19
Psalms 69:9
John 2:17
Psalms 69:9-12; 118:18-20; 127; 147:12-14
Proverbs 14:19
Isaiah 26:1-2; 28:5-6
Ezekiel 11:1-4; 46:1-2
Zechariah 8:16-17
Matthew 16:15-18
Revelation 3:19-20; 21:24-25

This video is a part of the Spirit and Life Bible Study series, whose purpose is to look at the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible through a Swedenborgian lens.

3108. These two verses deal with the introduction of truth into good. But the nature of this introduction does not fit easily into the pattern of thought of anyone whose mind is illumined solely by such things as are seen in the light of the world, and not at the same time by those seen in the light of heaven, by which those belonging to the light of the world are illumined. People who are devoid of good and consequently of faith have no other ideas in their minds than those formed from objects seen in the light of the world. They do not know what the spiritual is, nor even what the rational is in the genuine sense, but only the natural, to which they ascribe everything. Here also is the reason why those things stated in the internal sense about the introduction of truth into good appear to them too remote to mean anything at all. Yet to those who see in the light of heaven they are considered most precious.

[2] With regard to the introduction of truth into good, before truth has been introduced and rightly joined it does indeed reside with man, yet it has not so to speak become his or his own. But as soon as it is introduced into its own good it does become his own. It goes out of his external memory and passes over into the internal memory. Or what amounts to the same, it ceases to exist in the natural or external man, and passes over into the rational or internal man, where it clothes itself with the person himself and constitutes his humanity, that is, his own human character. This is the situation with all truth that is being joined to its good, as also in a similar way with falsity that is being joined to evil which it calls good. The difference however is that truth opens the rational and so makes a person rational, whereas falsity closes the rational and makes him irrational, though he seems to himself while in the darkness enveloping him at this time to be more rational than others.