71. Conjugial love makes man be love

Man is created to be love and consequently wisdom, since the Lord is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom. It is by creation that man is an image and likeness of the Lord,Genesis 1:26-27; and this could not happen without true conjugial love. By this man's all can be turned into love, for in marriage either may love from the heart the body too, and thus dispose the soul and consequently everything to the form of love. This is not otherwise possible; the inmost and the outermost there make one and bring about that form, which is the form of heaven.

5803. 'We have a father, an old man' means that spiritual good is their source. This is clear from the representation of Israel, to whom 'a father refers here, as spiritual good, which is the source, dealt with just above in 5801. As regards Israel's representation, see 4286, 4292, 4570, where it is shown that he represents the spiritual Church, in particular the internal aspect of it, which is the good of truth or spiritual good from the natural. What spiritual good or the good of truth is, see 5526, 5773.