50. What the Most Ancient Church understood by 'the image of the Lord' exceeds everything one can say about it. Man is totally unaware of the fact that the Lord is governing him by means of angels and spirits, and that at least two spirits and two angels are present with everyone. By means of the spirits he is in communication with the world of spirits, and by means of the angels with heaven. Without this communication with the world of spirits by means of the spirits, and with heaven by means of the angels, and so by means of heaven with the Lord, a person cannot exist at all. His entire life depends upon that link, and if the spirits and angels were to withdraw he would perish instantly.

[2] As long as a person remains unregenerate he is governed in an entirely different way from when he is regenerate. As long as he is unregenerate, evil spirits reside with him, who have such dominion over him that angels, though present, can accomplish little more than simply distract him from plunging into utter evil and so divert him towards something good. Indeed they use his own unregenerate desires to divert him towards good, and his illusions of the senses to do so towards truth. At that point he is in communication with the world of spirits by means of the spirits who reside with him, but not in the same way with heaven, for the reason that evil spirits have dominion and angels simply forestall them.

[3] When however he is regenerate it is the angels who then have dominion, and they breathe into him every kind of good and truth, as well as a horror and dread of evils and falsifies. Angels do indeed lead, yet they are but servants, for it is the Lord alone who, by means of angels and spirits, governs a person. Now because this is done through the ministry of angels, it is said here, in the plural first of all, 'Let Us make man in Our image'. Yet because it is still He alone who rules and disposes, it is said in the following verse, in the singular, 'God created him in His image'. This the Lord also states plainly in Isaiah,

Thus said Jehovah, your Redeemer, He who formed you from the womb, I Jehovah make all things, stretching out the heavens Alone, spreading out the earth by Myself. Isaiah 44:24.

Angels themselves also profess that no power at all resides with themselves but that they act from the Lord alone.

3246. 'And to the concubines' sons, whom Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts' means that places in the Lord's spiritual kingdom were allotted to spiritual people adopted by the Lord's Divine Human. This is clear from the meaning of 'the concubines' sons' as those who are spiritual, to be dealt with below; from the representation of 'Abraham' here as the Lord's Divine Human (so that the words 'whom Abraham had' mean that they - those who were spiritual - were adopted by the Lord's Divine Human); and from the meaning of 'the gifts which Abraham gave them' as allotted places in the Lord's spiritual kingdom.

[2] From what has been shown several times already about those who constitute the Lord's spiritual kingdom and who are called the spiritual, as in 3235 and elsewhere, it becomes clear that they are not sons of the marriage itself of good and truth, but of a certain covenant not so conjugial. They are indeed descended from the same father but not from the same mother, that is, from the same Divine Good but not from the same Divine Truth. Indeed with those who are celestial, since they are the product of the marriage itself of good and truth, good exists and truth rooted in that good. They never make investigations into what the truth may be but have a perception of it from good. Nor in conversation do they say more than this regarding what is true, 'Yes, that is so', in keeping with the Lord's teaching in Matthew,

Let your words be Yes, yes; No, no; anything beyond this is from evil. ¹ Matthew 5:37.

But those who are spiritual, since they are the product of a covenant not so conjugial, do not have any perception from which they can know what is true. Instead they call that the truth which parents and teachers have told them to be the truth. Consequently with them there is no marriage of good and truth. Nevertheless that which they believe to be the truth for the reason just given is adopted by the Lord as truth when goodness of life exists with them; see 1832. This now explains why the spiritual are here called 'the concubines' sons', which is used to mean all the sons of Keturah mentioned already, and also those descended from Hagar, dealt with shortly below in verses 12-18.

[3] In former times - to enable both those who are celestial and those who are spiritual to be represented in marriages - a man was allowed to have a concubine in addition to a wife. That concubine was given to the husband by his wife (uxor), in which case the concubine was called his wife (mulier), or was said to have been given to him as a wife (mulier), as when Hagar the Egyptian was given to Abraham by Sarah, Genesis 16:3, when the servant-girl Bilhah was given to Jacob by Rachel, Genesis 30:4, and when the servant-girl Zilpah was given to Jacob by Leah, Genesis 30:9. In those cases they are called 'wives' (mulier), but elsewhere concubines, as is Hagar the Egyptian in the present verse, Bilhah in Genesis 35:22, and even Keturah herself in 1 Chronicles 1:32.

[4] The reason why those men of old had concubines in addition to a wife, as not only Abraham and Jacob did, but also their descendants, such as Gideon, Judges 8:31; Saul, 2 Samuel 3:7; David, 2 Samuel 5:13; 15:16; Solomon, 1 Kings 11:3, was that they were permitted to do so for the sake of the representation. That is to say, the celestial Church was represented by the wife, and the spiritual Church by the concubine. They were permitted to do so because they were the kind of men with whom conjugial love did not exist; so that to them marriage was not marriage but merely copulation for the sake of begetting off-spring. With such persons those permissions were possible without any harm being done to love or consequently to the conjugial covenant. But such permissions are never possible among people with whom good and truth are present and who are internal people, or potentially so. For as soon as good and truth, and internal things, exist with the human being, such permissions come to an end. This is why Christians are not allowed, as the Jews were, to take a concubine in addition to a wife, and why such is adultery. Regarding the adoption of those who are spiritual by the Lord's Divine Human, see what has been stated and shown already on the same subject in 2661, 2716, 2833, 2834.

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