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Matthew 8

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1 When he had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

2 And behold, there came a leper and worshiped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

3 And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

4 And Jesus saith to him, See thou tell no man; but go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.

5 And when Jesus had entered into Capernaum, there came to him a centurion, beseeching him,

6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick with the palsy, grievously tormented.

7 And Jesus saith to him, I will come and heal him.

8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant will be healed.

9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.

10 When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say to you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

11 And I say to you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into utter darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

13 And Jesus said to the centurion, Depart; and as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee. And his servant was healed in the same hour.

14 And when Jesus had come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick with a fever.

15 And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered to them.

16 When the evening was come, they brought to him many that were possessed with demons: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick;

17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, He himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses.

18 Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart to the other side.

19 And a certain scribe came, and said to him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.

20 And Jesus saith to him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

21 And another of his disciples said to him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.

22 But Jesus said to him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

23 And when he had entered into a boat, his disciples followed him.

24 And behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the boat was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.

25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.

26 And he saith to them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.

27 But the men marveled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!

28 And when he had come to the other side, into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with demons, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.

29 And behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?

30 And there was a good way off from them a herd of many swine, feeding.

31 So the demons besought him, saying, If thou expellest us, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.

32 And he said to them, Go. And when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine: and behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.

33 And they that kept them, fled, and went into the city, and told every thing; and what had befallen to the possessed with demons.

34 And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart out of their borders.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 6138

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6138. 'And we will live, and our ground, as Pharaoh's slaves' means total submission. This is clear from the meaning of 'us and our ground' as the receptacles of goodness and truth, as immediately above in 6135-6137; and from the meaning of 'slaves' as existing without any freedom of one's own, dealt with in 5760, 5763, thus total submission. By receptacles are meant human forms themselves. For human beings are nothing else than forms receiving life from the Lord; yet the nature of those forms is such, owing to people's heredity and their own actions, that they refuse spiritual life coming from the Lord. But once those receptacles have been renounced so completely that they no longer claim any freedom of their own, there is total submission. The person who is being regenerated is brought at length, through the repeated experiences of desolation and sustainment, to a point at which he no longer wishes to be his own man but the Lord's. And once he has become the Lord's he passes into a state in which, if left to himself, he is dejected and gripped by anxiety. But when he is brought out of that state he returns to the bliss and happiness that are his, to the kind of state all the angels experience.

[2] The Lord desires any person's total submission so that He can make him blissful and happy. That is, He does not want him to be partly his own man and partly the Lord's, for then there are two masters whom a person cannot serve simultaneously, Matthew 6:24. Total submission is again meant by the Lord's words in Matthew,

Whoever loves father or mother above Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter above Me is not worthy of Me. Matthew 10:37.

'Father or mother' in general means those aspects of a person essentially his own by virtue of his heredity, and 'son or daughter' those essentially his own by virtue of his own actions. What is essentially a person's own is also meant by his 'soul' in John,

He who loves his soul will lose it, and he who hates his soul in this world will keep it into eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. John 11:25-26.

Total submission is also meant by the Lord's words in Matthew,

Another disciple said, Lord, let me first go away and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, Follow Me, and leave the dead to bury their dead. Matthew 8:21-22.

[3] The need for total submission is perfectly clear from the Church's first commandment,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. Mark 12:30.

Thus since love to the Lord does not come from man but from the Lord Himself, all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, and all his strength, which are recipients, must be the Lord's; they must therefore be submitted totally to Him. Such a submission is what is meant by 'we will live, and our ground, as Pharaoh's slaves'; for 'Pharaoh' represents the natural in general, which is subject to the control of the internal celestial, in the highest sense to the control of the Lord, who is 'Joseph' in that highest sense.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.