233. I have been given the opportunity to talk to many people after death who believed that in heaven they were going to shine like stars because (so they said) they regarded the Word as holy, read it through many times over, and collected many passages from it that they used to support the dogmas of their faith. As a result, they became famous scholars and believed they were going to become Michaels and Raphaels. Many of them were examined to learn what love had driven them to study the Word. Some of them were motivated to study by love for themselves so that they could become respected leaders of the church. Others were motivated to study by love for the world so as to increase their wealth. When they were subjected to another examination to find out what they knew from the Word, it was discovered that their knowledge of it contained nothing genuinely true. All they knew was what is called falsified truth that is actually putrid falsity, so called because in heaven it smells like something that has gone bad. They were informed that this had happened to them because their objective in reading the Word was not to find a truth to believe or a good way to live but to reach some selfish or worldly goal. When people have themselves or something worldly as their objective, as they read the Word their mind is preoccupied with themselves or the world. As a result, they are constantly thinking of their own self-importance, and human self-importance is in pitch darkness when it comes to anything related to heaven and the church. People who are in this condition cannot be raised by the Lord into the light of heaven; they cannot accept any influence from the Lord through heaven.

I have seen these people let into heaven. When it was discovered there that they had no truths, they were thrown out. Nevertheless a misplaced pride and a feeling that they were deserving stayed with them.

There was an entirely different outcome for people who had been motivated to study the Word by a desire to know the truth because it is true and because it is helpful and useful not only for their own lives but also for their neighbors' lives. I have seen these people raised into heaven into the light of divine truth there and lifted into angelic wisdom and the happiness that heavens angels enjoy.

215. Some of the truths in the Word's literal meaning are apparent truths rather than naked truths. They are like similes or comparisons taken from earthly situations, which are therefore accommodated and adapted to the grasp of people who are simple or young. Nevertheless, because they are correspondences they are still vessels and dwelling places for genuine truth. They are vessels that contain genuine truth the way a crystal goblet contains fine wine or a silver plate holds palatable food. They are like garments that clothe, like a baby's swaddling cloths or a young woman's beautiful clothing. They are like facts our earthly selves know that also involve our awareness and love of spiritual truth. The naked truths that are enclosed, contained, clothed, and involved are in the Word's spiritual meaning. There is also naked goodness in the Word's heavenly meaning.

Let me illustrate this from the Word:

[2] Jesus said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, because you clean the outside of your cup and plate, but the insides are full of plundering and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of your cup and plate, so that the outside may be clean as well. " (Matthew 23:25-26)

In saying this the Lord used similes and comparisons that are also correspondences. He mentioned a cup and a plate. A cup does not just relate to the truth in the Word; it also means that truth. A cup relates to wine, and wine means truth. A plate relates to food, and food means goodness. Therefore cleaning the inside of their cup and plate means using the Word to purify the inner things in their mind related to their will and thought. "So that the outside may be clean as well" means that by doing this, their outer aspects - their actions and conversations - would be purified, because the essence of actions and conversations comes from within.

[3] For another example,

Jesus said, "There was a rich person who wore purple and fine linen and indulged himself splendidly every day. And there was a poor person named Lazarus, covered with sores, who was put on his porch. " (Luke 16:19-20)

Here again, in saying this the Lord used similes and comparisons that were correspondences with spiritual content. The rich person means the Jewish nation. He is called rich because the Jewish nation had the Word, and the Word contains spiritual wealth. The purple and fine linen he wore mean the goodness and truth of the Word: the purple means the Word's goodness; the fine linen means its truth. "Indulging himself splendidly every day" refers to the delight that the Jews felt because they had the Word and heard many things from it in their temples and synagogues. Lazarus, the poor person, means the people outside the Jewish church, because they did not have the Word. Lazarus being put on the rich person's porch means that people outside the Jewish church were despised and rejected by the Jews. Lazarus's sores mean that people outside the church had many false beliefs because they did not know the truth.

[4] Lazarus means the people outside the Jewish church because the Lord loved the people outside the church just as he loved Lazarus (John 11:3, 5, 36), raised him from the dead, called him his friend (John 11:11), and gave him a place at his table (John 12:2).

As the two passages quoted just above make clear, things that are good and true in the Word's literal meaning are like vessels or clothing for the naked goodness and truth that lie hidden in the Word's spiritual and heavenly meanings.

[5] Since this is the nature of the Word in its literal meaning, it follows that if we have divine truths and we have faith that the Word is divinely holy at heart, and better still if we have faith that the Word is divinely holy because of its spiritual and heavenly meanings, then as we read the Word in enlightenment from the Lord we see divine truths in earthly light. The light of heaven in which the Word's spiritual meaning exists then flows into the earthly light in which the Word's literal meaning exists and lights up the intellectual faculty in us that is called rationality. It causes our rationality to see and acknowledge divine truths both where they stand out and where they are hidden. For some people, divine truths flow in with heaven's light even when they are not aware of it.