3161. 'Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be your master's son's wife, as Jehovah has spoken' means consent inspired from the Lord. This too could be shown by an explanation of all the individual words, the general import of these in the internal sense being the meaning that has just been stated. The implications are as follows: When the Lord lived in the world He made the Human within Himself Divine by His own power, the human with everyone having its beginnings in the inmost part of the rational, 2106, 2194. This verse describes how He made it Divine, that is to say, already so as of good and of truth. The good there came from His essential Divinity, that is, from Jehovah the Father from whom He had been conceived; but the truth there had to be acquired by the ordinary way, as with every other human being.

[2] It is well known that nobody is born rational but merely into the ability to become so, and that he becomes rational by means of factual knowledge, that is to say, by means of cognitions which divide up into many genera and species, the first of which are the means leading on to those next to them, and so on in order to the last of all which are cognitions of the spiritual things of the Lord's kingdom and are called matters of doctrine. These latter cognitions are learned in part from the doctrine of faith, in part directly from the Word, and in part therefore by a person's own efforts, as is also well known. As long as these matters of doctrine remain solely in the memory they are merely factual truths and have not as yet been made over to the individual as his own. They first become made over to him when he starts to love them for the sake of life, and more so when he applies them to life. When this happens truths are raised up from the natural memory into the rational part of the mind and are there joined to good. And when they have been joined they are no longer matters of knowledge but of life, for in that case a person is no longer learning from truths how to live but actually living by them. In this way truths come to be his own and become matters of the will. He accordingly enters the heavenly marriage, for the heavenly marriage consists in good and truth joined together in the rational. With men these things are accomplished by the Lord.

[3] But in Himself the Lord did this by Himself, unaided. From the Divine itself He not only begot the Rational as regards Good, but also through this the Natural as regards Truth, which He joined to Good. For it is good that chooses truth for itself and also gives form to it, for good acknowledges nothing else as truth but that which is compatible with it. Thus Divine good that was the Lord's moulded Truth for itself. Nor did it acknowledge as Truth anything else than that which would be compatible with Divine Good, that is, which would be Divine of Itself. Thus He achieved every single thing by His own power. These are the things that are meant by 'acknowledgement that it was the Lord's alone' and by 'consent inspired from the Lord'.

548. I have spoken several times to spirits recently arrived from the world about the state of eternal life, and have said that it was important for them to know who the Lord of that kingdom is, what is the system of government, and what form that government takes. It is the same in the world when people go to another kingdom; they wish to know beforehand who the king is and what he is like, what is the system of government, and many other facts concerning that kingdom. How much more does this apply in that kingdom where they are going to live for ever. I have told them that the Lord alone rules not only heaven but also the whole universe, for He who rules the one must rule the other, and also that the kingdom which they are now in is the Lord's kingdom, and that the laws of this kingdom are eternal truths, every one of which is based on the incomparable law that they are to love the Lord supremely and the neighbour as themselves. Indeed if they wished to be as the angels, they must now go beyond that and love the neighbour more than themselves.

[2] On hearing these things they have been speechless, for during their life-time they had heard something of the sort but had not believed it. Even though they had heard that they were to love the neighbour as themselves, they have been amazed that such love exists in heaven, and that it is possible for anyone to love the neighbour more than himself. They have been informed however that in the next life all goods increase without limit, whereas life in the body is such that they cannot progress beyond the point of loving their neighbour as themselves, because they are engrossed in bodily interests. Once the latter have been removed however, love becomes purer, and at length angelic. And this is loving the neighbour more than themselves.

[3] The possibility of such love has been made clear from the conjugial love of certain persons who would die rather than let their partner be harmed. It is also clear from the love of parents for their children; a mother would rather endure starvation than see her child go hungry, as is true even of birds and of animals. The possibility of that love is also apparent in real friendship in which people risk any danger for the sake of their friends. It is apparent even from that polite but counterfeit friendship which seeks to imitate real friendship by offering choicer things to those they wish well to, and by paying lip-service to good will even though it does not exist in their hearts. Finally, the possibility of loving the neighbour more than oneself is clear from the very nature of love whose joy resides in serving others for love's sake and not one's own. But people who loved themselves more than anybody else have not been able to grasp these things; nor have those who during their lifetime were eager for money, and least of all the avaricious.