34. Love and faith cannot possibly be separated for they constitute one and the same thing. This is why, when first the [great] lights are dealt with and they are taken to be one, it is said [using a singular verb with a plural noun], 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens'. Let some marvels relating to this be mentioned here. Since celestial angels possess from the Lord that kind of love, they possess by virtue of that love every cognition of faith, and by virtue of that love the kind of life and light of understanding that almost defies description altogether. On the other hand spirits who without love have a knowledge of the doctrinal matters concerning faith live such cold lives and are in such dull light that they cannot approach even the outer gateway to heaven before running off in the opposite direction. Some claim to have believed in the Lord, but they have not lived according to His teaching. The Lord refers to these people in Matthew as follows,

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does My will. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? and so on. Matthew 7:21-22-end.

[2] From this is clear that those who have love have faith as well, and so heavenly life, whereas those who claim to have faith and yet have none of the life inherent in love do not. The life of faith devoid of love is like sunlight devoid of warmth, as is the case in wintertime when nothing grows and every single thing is inactive and dies off. But faith deriving from love is like the sunlight in springtime when everything grows and blossoms, for it is the warmth of the sun that brings it out. It is similar with spiritual and celestial things, which are normally represented in the Word by the things found in the world and on earth. An absence of faith, and faith devoid of love, are also compared by the Lord to winter where He foretold the close of the age in Mark,

Pray that your flight may not happen in winter, for those will be days of affliction. Mark 13:18-19.

'Flight' means the final period, also the time when a person dies; 'winter' is life which is destitute of love, 'days of affliction' his wretched condition in the next life.

1429. 'Abram was a son of seventy-five years' means that as yet there was not so much of the Divine. This becomes clear from the meaning of the number 'five' as that which is small, and of the number 'seventy' as that which is holy. That 'five' means that which is small has been shown already in 649, and that 'seventy' or 'sever' that which is holy in 395, 433, 716, 881. Here, since seventy is used in reference to the Lord, it means that which is Divine and holy. Furthermore that the numbers ¹ giving Abram's years have a different meaning in the internal sense may become clear from what has been stated and shown already about years and numbers in 482, 487, 493, 575, 647, 648, 755, 813, and from the fact that not one tiny expression or part of a letter exists in the Word that does not carry an internal sense. And unless it embodied things that are spiritual and celestial no mention would ever have been made of Abram's being at that time 'a son of seventy-five years', or of this event taking place when he was that age, as is also clear from other numbers, both of years and of quantities, that are given in the Word.

Footnotes: