359. We could not be images of God according to his likeness unless he were within us and were our life from our very center. God's presence within us and God's being our life from our very center follow from what I explained in 4-6 above, namely that God alone is life and that we and angels are life-receivers from him.

The Word tells us that God is in us and makes his home with us; and because the Word tells us this, preachers are fond of telling us to prepare ourselves to let God come into our lives so that he may be in our hearts and that our hearts may be his dwelling. The devout say the same in their prayers. Some [preachers] talk and preach more explicitly about the Holy Spirit, who they believe is within them when they are filled with holy zeal as the source of their thought, speech, and preaching. I have explained in 51-53 of Teachings for the New Jerusalem on the Lord that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and not some God who is a separate individual. The Lord actually says, "In that day you will know that you are in me and I in you" (John 14:21 [20]), and he says similar things in John 15:24 [4] and John 17:23.

4516. 'You have brought trouble on me, by making me stink to the inhabitant of the land' means that those who belonged to the Ancient Church abominated them. This is clear from the meaning of 'bringing trouble on me, by making me stink' as causing them to abominate, and from the meaning of 'the inhabitant of the land' here as those who belonged to the Ancient Church. For 'the land' means the Church, 566, 662, 1066, 1067, 1262, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end), 2928, 3355, 4447, and so 'the inhabitant of the land' those who belong to the Church, which in this case is the Ancient Church since that Church continued to exist among some nations in the land of Canaan. But that which was a representative of the Church was not established among the people descended from Jacob until that Ancient Church had completely come to an end. This fact is also meant by those descended from Jacob not being allowed into the land of Canaan until the iniquity of the inhabitants of the land had come to a close, as stated in Genesis 15:16. For no new Church is ever established until the previous one has been laid waste.