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.

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).

8887. 'To keep it holy' means no violation in any way. This is clear from the things commanded regarding the sabbath, which are dealt with in 8495, and from the things that follow here about keeping the sabbath holy, which are,

Six days you shall labour and do all your work; and the seventh day is a sabbath to Jehovah your God. You shall not do any work - you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day, and sanctified it.

From these words it is clear that 'keeping the sabbath holy' means not violating it in any way. But the internal sense of the commandment is that the realities meant by the sabbath must not be violated in any way, those realities being the union of the Lord's Divine Essence with His Human Essence, also the union of His Human with the heavens, and the consequent joining together in them of goodness and truth, 8886. For if these realities are violated by anyone, spiritual life is ruined with that person. It becomes life on the natural level alone and after this on that of the senses, when falsity is seized on instead of truth, and evil instead of good, since these now reign universally with that person.