The Lord is life itself, and we are recipients of life. This is true even of the most evil spirits, who loved only themselves in life and hate and deny the Lord from their place in the lowest hells; the Lord forces life upon them, despite their rejection, in the amount necessary to keep them from ceasing to exist. The situation is much different, of course, with people who accept and follow the Lord; by doing this they open themselves up to the inflow of life, and become more full the more open they are. This is the “life” in question when the Bible uses that word. It indicates spiritual life, the life that comes from the Lord into our hearts and minds. We accept life from the Lord by learning about Him, learning what is right and wrong, and by determining that we will stop doing what's wrong and instead do what is right.

Water is the basis of life, the essential ingredient in all drinks, and in the form of rivers, lakes and oceans supports life in myriad ways. The spiritual meaning of water is similarly basic: It represents truth in general, the ideas and concepts that guide us to do good things in our lives. In a more specific sense, it represents truth at its simplest level: the ideas we learn from the Bible and simply believe. Swedenborg refers to this as “natural” truth or “truths of faith.” They are not things we have explored, figured out or confirmed through life; rather they are things that we accept to be true because we’ve been told they are true. Like water, these ideas flow to us from other sources. And like water, they are ever-changing; to build something permanent we might look to the more permanent ideas represented by stones. But water is crucial to life, and so are these accepted ideas. Water can also, of course, be threatening. Rivers, lakes and oceans are inherently dangerous, and flooding was an ever greater threat in Biblical times than it is now. These aspects represent the opposite meaning – water as falsity, twisted ideas which support evil and can overwhelm and destroy us if we’re not careful.