6592. 'And you shall cause my bones to go up from here' means that there will be a representative of the Church but not a Church which also exists on an internal level. This is clear from the representation of 'Joseph' as the internal of the Church, dealt with above in 6587; and since he represents the internal of the Church, that which is the most external or the outermost area of the Church, thus that which forms the representative part of it, is meant by his 'bones'. For the representative acts which existed in the Ancient Church and which were also established among the descendants of Jacob constituted outermost forms within the Church; but the things those acts meant and represented were the inner realities of the Church. These - the inner realities - are meant by 'the flesh' which holds the spirit within it; but the outer forms are meant by 'the bones'. From this one may see what the Church is like when it is concerned solely with outer forms, without their inner realities, namely like the bones forming the framework of a person's body without the flesh. As regards the fact that no Church, only a representative of the Church existed among the Israelite and Jewish people, see 4281, 4288, 4307, 4500, 4680, 4844, 4847, 4903, 6704; and a representative of the Church was not established among them until they had been completely vastated internally, or else they would have rendered holy things profane, 4289.

6587. 'And Joseph said to his brothers, I am dying' means a foretelling that the internal of the Church is about to come to an end. This is clear from the meaning of 'Joseph' as the internal, dealt with in 6499, here the internal of the Church since the establishment of the Church by the internal, that is, by the Lord through the internal, has been the subject in what has gone before; and from the meaning of 'dying' as ceasing to be such, dealt with in 494, thus coming to an end. 'Dying' also means the final period of the Church, 2908, 2912, 2917, 2923; and a foretelling regarding that final period is meant by 'Joseph said to his brothers', for in what follows from here to the end of the chapter the subject is a further state of the Church. From all this it is evident that 'Joseph said to his brothers, I am dying' means that the internal of the Church is about to come to an end.

[2] The situation is that for the Church to exist it must be internal and external; for there are those who are in the internal domain of the Church and there are those who are in its external domain, the former being few, but the latter very many. Even so, those with whom the internal Church exists must have the external Church with them also, for the internal of the Church is inseparable from its external; and those with whom the external Church exists must have the internal Church with them also, though with them the internal Church exists in obscurity.

[3] The internal of the Church consists in willing good from the heart and being stirred by an affection for good, while the external of that internal consists in performing such good and doing so in accordance with the truth of faith, the knowledge of which springs from good. But the external of the Church consists in the sacred performance of religious observances and the practice of charitable works as instructed by the Church. From all this it is clear that the internal of the Church is the good of charity in the will. Therefore when this comes to an end the Church itself also comes to an end, for the good of charity is the essential constituent of the Church. After that external worship does, it is true, remain as it was before; yet now it is not worship but ceremony which is preserved because it is the established custom. But such ceremony, which seems to be worship, is like the shell without the nut; for it is the external that remains but does not have anything internal within it. When the Church is like this it is at its end.