32. Love and faith are first called 'the great lights', then love is called 'the greater light' and faith 'the lesser light'. In reference to love it is said that it will have dominion over the day, and in reference to faith that it will have dominion over the night. Because these are arcana and have become hidden, especially at this end of an epoch, in the Lord's Divine mercy let the whole subject be opened up. The reason they have become hidden, especially at this present end of an epoch, is that now is the close of the age, when love is almost non-existent, and consequently faith too, just as the Lord Himself foretold in the Gospels with these words,

The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Matthew 24:29.

Here 'the sun' is used to mean love, which is 'darkened', 'the moon' faith which does not give its light, 'the stars' cognitions of faith which fall from heaven, and which are the various 'powers of the heavens'. The Most Ancient Church acknowledged no other faith than love itself; celestial angels as well do not know what faith is except faith which stems from love. Love pervades the whole of heaven, for in the heavens no other life is found except the life that belongs to love. This is the source of all happiness in heaven, a happiness so great that no aspect of it can be described or in any way captured in human concepts. People in whom this love is present love the Lord wholeheartedly. Yet they realize, say, and perceive that all love, thus all life, which belongs exclusively to love, and so all happiness, come from the Lord and nowhere else, and that they derive not one trace of love, life, and happiness from themselves. The Lord's being the source of all love was again represented by the greater light, that is, the sun, at the Transfiguration, for His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white as the light, Matthew 17:2. What is inmost is meant by His face, and what emanates from the inmost by His garments. Thus His Divinity is meant by the sun or love, and His Humanity by the light or wisdom coming from love.

2116. That 'were circumcised by him' means that they were made righteous by the Lord becomes clear from the representation and consequently from the meaning of 'being circumcised' as being purified, dealt with above in 2039. 'Being circumcised by him' - that is, by Abraham - was also a representative act, that is to say, an act of being purified and so of being made righteous by the Lord. As regards righteousness however, the position is not as people commonly suppose. They imagine that all evils and sins are washed away and completely abolished when people become believers, even if they become such only in their last hour before they die, no matter whether they have committed evil and disgraceful actions throughout the whole course of their lives. I have been fully informed however that not even the smallest evil a person has thought and carried out during his lifetime is washed away and completely abolished, but that everything remains right down to the smallest detail.

[2] The truth of the matter is that in the case of people who have thought and practiced acts of hatred, revenge, cruelty, and adultery, and so have not led charitable lives, the life they have acquired in so doing awaits them after death. Indeed every single facet of that life awaits them and gradually reappears. This for them is the source of torment in hell. But in the case of people who have led lives of love to the Lord and of charity towards the neighbour all their evils of life await them also; but these are moderated by the goods which they have received from the Lord through the life of charity during their lifetime, and in this condition they are raised up into heaven. Indeed they are withheld from the evils which they have with them so that these do not show themselves. People in the next life who doubt that they have evils with them because they do not show themselves are brought back into those evils until they know that it really is so. After that they are raised once more into heaven.

[3] This then is what being made righteous entails, for in this way people come to acknowledge not their own righteousness but the Lord's. When people say that those are saved who have faith, they are saying something that is true; but in the Word nothing else is meant by faith than love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour, and so a life that is derived from those loves. Matters of doctrine and established beliefs do not constitute faith yet are part of faith, for these, each and every one, exist to the end that a person may become such as they teach. This becomes quite clear from the Lord's words about all the Law and all the Prophets, that is, the doctrine of faith in its entirety., consisting in love to God and love towards the neighbour, Matthew 22:35-40; Mark 12:28-35. The fact that no other kind of faith which is truly faith can possibly, exist has been shown in Volume One, in 30-38, 379, 389, 724, 809, 896, 904, 916, 989, 1017, 1076, 1077, 1121, 1158, 1162, 1176, 1258, 1285, 1316, 1608, 1798, 1799, 1834, 1843, 1844, and that heaven itself consists in love to the Lord and in mutual love, in 537, 547, 553, 1112, 2057.