2426. Lest peradventure the evil cleave to me, and I die. That this signifies that then it could not but come to pass that he would be at the same time in evil, and that thereby he would be condemned, is evident without explication. What these words involve may be known from what has been said and shown before (n. 301-303vvv2, 571, 582, 1001, 1327, 1328), namely, that the Lord constantly provides that evil should not be commingled with good; but that insofar as a man is in evil, so far is he removed from good; for it is better for a man to be altogether in evil, than in evil and at the same time in good. For if he is in evil and at the same time in good, he must needs be damned eternally. It is the deceitful and hypocrites within the church who are most in danger of this. Such therefore is the meaning, in the internal sense, of “lest the evil cleave to me, and I die.”

2. The Christian world however is as yet profoundly unaware of the fact that all things in the Word both in general and in particular, nay, the very smallest particulars down to the most minute iota, signify and enfold within them spiritual and heavenly things, and therefore the Old Testament is but little cared for. Yet that the Word is really of this character might be known from the single consideration that being the Lord’s and from the Lord it must of necessity contain within it such things as belong to heaven, to the church, and to religious belief, and that unless it did so it could not be called the Lord’s Word, nor could it be said to have any life in it. For whence comes its life except from those things that belong to life, that is to say, except from the fact that everything in it both in general and in particular bears reference to the Lord, who is the very Life itself; so that anything which does not inwardly regard Him is not alive; and it may be truly said that any expression in the Word that does not enfold Him within it, that is, which does not in its own way bear reference to Him, is not Divine.