904. That 'God spoke to Noah' means the Lord's presence with the member of the Church becomes clear from the internal sense of the Word. The Lord speaks to everybody, for whatever good and truth a person wills and thinks comes from the Lord. With everyone there are at least two evil spirits and two angels. The former activate his evils whereas the latter instill goods and truths. Every good or truth that angels instill is the Lord's; in this way the Lord is constantly speaking to man, though quite differently from one person to the next. To people who allow themselves to be carried away by evil spirits the Lord speaks as though He were not present, or so far away that He can hardly be said to be speaking. But to those who are being led by the Lord, the Lord speaks as one who is quite present. This becomes clear enough from the fact that nobody can possibly think of anything good and true except from the Lord.

[2] The Lord's presence is relative to the state of love towards the neighbour and of faith present in a person. It is in love towards the neighbour that the Lord is present, for He is present in all good, and not so much in so-called faith that is devoid of love. Faith devoid of love and charity is something severed or disjoined. Wherever conjunction exists there has to be a conjoining agency, which is exclusively love and charity. This may become clear to anyone from the fact that the Lord has compassion on everybody, loves everyone, and wishes to make everyone eternally happy. A person therefore who is devoid of the kind of love that leads him to have compassion on others, to love them, and to wish to make them happy, cannot be joined to the Lord because he is not at all like Him, and is in no sense the image of Him. Looking to the Lord by means of that which goes by the name of faith while hating the neighbour amounts not only to standing a long way off, but also to having between himself and the Lord a hell-like chasm into which the person would fall if he wished to go any nearer. For it is hatred towards the neighbour that constitutes that intervening hell-like chasm.

[3] The Lord is present with a person the moment he starts to love the neighbour. It is in love that the Lord is present, and to the extent that a person has love the Lord is present. And to the extent that the Lord is present He speaks to man. No one knows anything other than that he thinks from himself. Yet he possesses not one single idea of thought, not even the shred of an idea, from himself. Rather that which is evil and false he possesses through evil spirits from hell, and that which is good and true through angels from the Lord. Such is influx, the channel by which a person's life comes and by which consequently his soul interacts with the body. All these considerations make clear what 'God spoke to Noah' means. 'Saying to someone' means one thing, as in Genesis 1:29; 3:13-14, 17; 4:6, 9, 15; 6:13; 7:1, while 'speaking to someone' means another. Here speaking to Noah' means His being present, for the subject now is the regenerate person, who has had charity conferred on him.

10064. 'And you shall sprinkle the blood over the altar round about' means the uniting of Divine Truth to Divine Good. This is clear from the meaning of 'the blood', when it refers to the sacrifice and burnt offering, as Divine Truth, dealt with above in 10026, 10033; and from the meaning of 'the altar' as that which is representative of the Lord in respect of Divine Good, dealt with in 9964. When the words 'Divine Good' are used Divine Love is also meant. For all good belongs to love; indeed whatever people love they perceive to be good and therefore also call it good. But all truth belongs to faith; for whatever people believe they perceive to be and also call the truth. From this it follows that the things which compose the human understanding belong to faith and those that compose the will belong to love; for a person's understanding is dedicated to receiving truths that belong to faith and his will to receiving forms of good that belong to love. The character therefore of a person's understanding is determined by that of the truths which compose it and by that of his belief in them; and the character of a person's will is determined by that of the forms of good which constitute it and by that of his love of them. In the contrary sense there is a love of evil and belief in falsity, and also a will and understanding consisting of these. But the character of the understanding is determined by that of the falsity which composes it and by that of the belief in this falsity; and the character of the will is determined by that of the evil which constitutes it and by that of the love of this evil. The fact that a will consisting of evil and an understanding consisting of falsity come from hell, and that they constitute hell with a person, is self-evident, for they are the opposites of an understanding consisting of truth and a will consisting of good, which come from heaven and originate in the Lord, and so which constitute heaven with a person.