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Arcana Coelestia #8858

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8858. A person's whole character is determined by the nature of whatever dominates his life; this is what marks him off from others. His heaven is formed in accordance with it if he is good, or his hell if he is bad. For it constitutes his true will and so the true being of his life, which is unchangeable after death. From all this one may see what the life is like in a person who has been regenerated, and what it is like in one who has not been regenerated.

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

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Arcana Coelestia #8886

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8886. 'The sabbath day' in the highest sense means the union of the Lord's Divine [Itself] and His Divine Human; in the internal sense it means the Divine Human joined to the heavens, and so means heaven and consequently the marriage of goodness and truth there. This is clear from what has been shown already in 8495. Since such things are meant by 'the sabbath', therefore in the representative Church it was most holy. It was that which was to be perpetually in the thoughts, that is, that which was to compose a heavenly life; for what a person thinks perpetually, that is, what reigns universally, composes his life, see 8853 8858, 8865, 8885. The Israelite nation had no thought, it is true, of the union of the Lord's Divine and His Divine Human, or of His union with heaven, or of goodness and truth joined together in heaven, which were meant by 'the sabbath', since they were concerned altogether with external things and not with anything internal. Yet they were commanded to hold the sabbath most holy, in order that Divine and heavenly realities might be represented in heaven. The situation as it was with them is evident from what has been shown already regarding that nation, and regarding a representative of the Church among them, in 3147, 3479, 3480, 3881 (end), 4208, 4281, 4288, 4289, 4293, 4307, 4444, 4580, 4680, 4825, 4844, 4847, 4899, 4912, 6304, 6306, 7048, 7051, 8301 (end).

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

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Arcana Coelestia #1894

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1894. That 'Sarai' is truth allied to good has been stated and shown already in 1468 and elsewhere; and that 'Abram' is the Lord's Internal Man, which is Jehovah, has likewise been stated and shown. The reason why the Lord's Internal Man, which is Jehovah, is called Man is that nobody is Man except Jehovah alone, for in its genuine sense Man means that Being (Esse) from which man derives his being. Being (Esse) itself - from which man derives his being - is Divine, and is consequently celestial and spiritual. Without that Divine celestial and spiritual there is nothing truly human in man, only something animal-like such as exists in beasts. It is by virtue of Jehovah's or the Lord's Being (Esse) that every man is 'man', and by virtue also of His Being that he is called 'man'. The celestial which makes him man consists in his love of the Lord and his love of the neighbour; and so he is man because he is an image of the Lord and because he has that celestial character from the Lord. Otherwise he is a wild beast.

[2] As regards Jehovah or the Lord being the only Man and that it is by virtue of Him that men are called 'men', also that one is more so man than another, see 49, 288, 477, 565. This matter becomes additionally clear from the fact that Jehovah or the Lord manifested Himself as Man to the patriarchs of the Most Ancient Church, subsequently to Abraham as well, and also to the prophets. This too was why the Lord was pleased, when no man remained on earth any more, that is, when nothing celestial or spiritual was left to mankind any more, to take on human nature by being born as any other, and to make that human nature Divine. In this respect also He is the only Man. In addition to this the whole of heaven presents before the Lord the image of a human being, because it is a presentation of Himself, and as a consequence heaven is called the Grand Man, chiefly from the fact that in heaven the Lord is the All in all.

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