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Ezekiel 1:9

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9 joining one unto another [are] their wings, they turn not round in their going, each straight forward they go.

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One

  

A company might have executives setting policy and strategy, engineers designing products, managers handling personnel and others handling various functions. They all do different things -- but if they're doing them with a shared underlying purpose, the company -- and the individuals in it -- will likely be successful. The Lord wants all human society to function in a similar way. We have different skills and individual loves, but if we all share a mutual love -- a love of serving others -- then society will function as one, will be a reflection of heaven and will be a good receptacle for the Lord's love. This can also happen within each of us, as we unify our talents and ideas around a central love. And in an abstract sense, it illustrates how a wide collection of varying ideas can be unified around a shared good intention. That is the kind of love pictured when “one” is used in the Bible, either as a specific number or in the sense of several people or objects “being one.” In more casual references -- when used to identify a specific person or object -- the meaning is relatively literal, and is connected to that person or object.

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Arcana Coelestia # 1749

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1749. That 'nor anything that is yours will I take' means that nothing of that nature exists with celestial love becomes clear from the fact that Abram said he was unwilling to take anything from the king of Sodom. 'Abram' represented the Lord, who was now the victor, and so represented the things that belonged to celestial love, which He acquired to Himself by means of victories. 'The king of Sodom' represented evil and falsity, nothing of which existed with the Lord the victor, that is, with celestial love.

[2] What these words are used to mean in the internal sense cannot become clear unless the situation in the next life is known. Among evil and hellish spirits self-love and love of the world reign; consequently they imagine that they are the gods of the universe and can accomplish much. When they have been overcome, even though they realize that they can achieve nothing at all, the notion of their own power and dominion still remains with them, and they imagine that they themselves are able to contribute much to the Lord's power and dominion. Consequently in order that they may reign together with good spirits they offer them their services. But because it is nothing but evil and falsity by means of which they imagine they can achieve anything, while with the Lord, or celestial love, nothing but good and truth reside, the reply made here to the king of Sodom, who represents such people, means that nothing of that nature existed with the Lord, that is, none of the Lord's power came from evil and falsity.

[3] Dominion from evil and falsity is the complete reverse of dominion from good and truth. Dominion from evil and falsity consists in the desire to make slaves of everybody else, but dominion from good and truth consists in the desire to make them free men. Dominion from evil and falsity consists in destroying all people, but dominion from good and truth in saving them. From these considerations it is clear that dominion from evil and falsity is the devil's, while dominion from good and truth is the Lord's. That these types of dominion are complete opposites becomes clear from the Lord's words in Matthew 12:24-30, and from His saying that nobody can serve two masters, Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13.

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