Arcana Coelestia #904
904. That 'God spoke to Noah' means the Lord's presence with the member of the Church becomes clear from the internal sense of the Word. The Lord speaks to everybody, for whatever good and truth a person wills and thinks comes from the Lord. With everyone there are at least two evil spirits and two angels. The former activate his evils whereas the latter instill goods and truths. Every good or truth that angels instill is the Lord's; in this way the Lord is constantly speaking to man, though quite differently from one person to the next. To people who allow themselves to be carried away by evil spirits the Lord speaks as though He were not present, or so far away that He can hardly be said to be speaking. But to those who are being led by the Lord, the Lord speaks as one who is quite present. This becomes clear enough from the fact that nobody can possibly think of anything good and true except from the Lord.
[2] The Lord's presence is relative to the state of love towards the neighbour and of faith present in a person. It is in love towards the neighbour that the Lord is present, for He is present in all good, and not so much in so-called faith that is devoid of love. Faith devoid of love and charity is something severed or disjoined. Wherever conjunction exists there has to be a conjoining agency, which is exclusively love and charity. This may become clear to anyone from the fact that the Lord has compassion on everybody, loves everyone, and wishes to make everyone eternally happy. A person therefore who is devoid of the kind of love that leads him to have compassion on others, to love them, and to wish to make them happy, cannot be joined to the Lord because he is not at all like Him, and is in no sense the image of Him. Looking to the Lord by means of that which goes by the name of faith while hating the neighbour amounts not only to standing a long way off, but also to having between himself and the Lord a hell-like chasm into which the person would fall if he wished to go any nearer. For it is hatred towards the neighbour that constitutes that intervening hell-like chasm.
[3] The Lord is present with a person the moment he starts to love the neighbour. It is in love that the Lord is present, and to the extent that a person has love the Lord is present. And to the extent that the Lord is present He speaks to man. No one knows anything other than that he thinks from himself. Yet he possesses not one single idea of thought, not even the shred of an idea, from himself. Rather that which is evil and false he possesses through evil spirits from hell, and that which is good and true through angels from the Lord. Such is influx, the channel by which a person's life comes and by which consequently his soul interacts with the body. All these considerations make clear what 'God spoke to Noah' means. 'Saying to someone' means one thing, as in Genesis 1:29; 3:13-14, 17; 4:6, 9, 15; 6:13; 7:1, while 'speaking to someone' means another. Here speaking to Noah' means His being present, for the subject now is the regenerate person, who has had charity conferred on him.
Isaiah 48
1
"Hear this, house of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel, and have come forth out of the waters of Judah; who swear by the name of Yahweh, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness
2
(for they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel; Yahweh of Armies is his name):
3
I have declared the former things from of old; yes, they went forth out of my mouth, and I showed them: suddenly I did them, and they happened.
4
Because I knew that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your brow brass;
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therefore I have declared it to you from of old; before it came to pass I showed it to you; lest you should say, 'My idol has done them, and my engraved image, and my molten image, has commanded them.'
6
You have heard it; see all this; and you, will you not declare it? "I have shown you new things from this time, even hidden things, which you have not known.
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They are created now, and not from of old; and before this day you didn't hear them; lest you should say, 'Behold, I knew them.'
8
Yes, you didn't hear; yes, you didn't know; yes, from of old your ear was not opened: for I knew that you did deal very treacherously, and was called a transgressor from the womb.
9
For my name's sake will I defer my anger, and for my praise will I refrain for you, that I not cut you off.
10
Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.
11
For my own sake, for my own sake, will I do it; for how should [my name] be profaned? and my glory I will not give to another.
12
"Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel my called: I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.
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Yes, my hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has spread out the heavens: when I call to them, they stand up together.
14
"Assemble yourselves, all you, and hear; who among them has declared these things? He whom Yahweh loves shall perform his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm [shall be on] the Chaldeans.
15
I, even I, have spoken; yes, I have called him; I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous.
16
"Come near to me and hear this: "From the beginning I have not spoken in secret; from the time that it was, there am I." Now the Lord Yahweh has sent me, with his Spirit.
17
Thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am Yahweh your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go.
18
Oh that you had listened to my commandments! then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea:
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your seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of your body like its grains: his name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before me.
20
Go forth from Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans; with a voice of singing declare, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth: say, Yahweh has redeemed his servant Jacob.
21
They didn't thirst when he led them through the deserts; he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them; he split the rock also, and the waters gushed out.
