The Bible

 

Genesis 1:22

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22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #34

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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.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #5095

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5095. 'To the king of Egypt' means which were subordinate to the interior natural. This is clear from the representation of Pharaoh or 'the king of Egypt' in this chapter as a new state of the natural man, dealt with in 5079, 5080, consequently as the interior natural since this had been made new. As to what the interior natural is, and the exterior natural, see immediately above in 5094. The nature of the internal sense of the Word in the historical sections and in the prophetical parts must be stated briefly. When the historical sense mentions a number of persons - as when Joseph, Pharaoh, the chief of the attendants, the cupbearer, and the baker are mentioned here - various things are indeed meant by them in the internal sense, yet only as all these exist in one person. The reason for this is that names mean different spiritual things, as they do here: 'Joseph' represents the Lord as regards the celestial-spiritual from the rational and also within the natural, 'Pharaoh' represents Him as regards the new state of the natural man, that is, as regards the interior natural, 'the cupbearer and the baker' as regards the things that belong to the external natural. Such is the nature of the internal sense. The same is so in other places, for example when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are mentioned; in the sense of the letter they are three different persons, but in the highest sense all three represent the Lord - 'Abraham' the Divine itself, 'Isaac' His Divine Intellectual, 1 and 'Jacob' His Divine Natural. The same may be seen in the Prophets where sometimes the text consists of mere names, either of persons or of kingdoms or of cities; yet all of them together present and describe a single entity in the internal sense. Anyone unaware of this may be easily misled by the sense of the letter into visualizing a variety of things, with the result that the idea of a single entity disappears.

Footnotes:

1. previously the expression Divine Rational has been used to describe Isaac's representation; cp 5998.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.