9229. 'And men of holiness shall you be to Me' means a state of life then composed of good. This is clear from the meaning of 'men of holiness' as those who are led by the Lord, for the Divine which emanates from the Lord is holiness itself, 6788, 7499, 8127 (end), 8302, 8806. Consequently those who receive that emanation in faith and also in love are called holy ones. Anyone who imagines that a person is holy from any other source, or that anything present with a person is holy apart from that which comes and is received from the Lord is very much mistaken; for that which is the person's own, and is called his proprium, is evil.

The human proprium is nothing but evil, see 210, 215, 694, 874-876, 987, 1047, 4328, 5660, 5786, 8480, 8944.

To the extent that a person can be withheld from his proprium, the Lord can be present with him, and therefore to the same extent holiness resides with him, 1023, 1044, 1581, 2256, 2388, 2406, 2411, 8206, 8393, 8988 (end), 9014.

[2] The truth that the Lord is the Only Holy One, and that nothing is holy except that which emanates from the Lord, and so that which a person receives from the Lord, is evident from everywhere in the Word, as in John,

I make Myself holy, that they also may be made holy in the truth. John 17:19.

'Making Himself holy' means making Himself Divine by His own power. Consequently those who receive Divine Truth emanating from the Lord in faith and life are said to be 'made holy in the truth'.

[3] This also explains why after the Resurrection, when the Lord spoke to the disciples, He breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit, John 20:22. 'Breathing on (or into)' was a sign that represented the imparting of life through faith and love, as also in Genesis,

Jehovah breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man (homo) became a living soul. Genesis 2:7.

Other examples like this may be seen elsewhere, such as Psalms 33:6; 104:29-30; Job 32:8; 33:4; John 3:8. Therefore also the Word is said to be inspired because it comes from the Lord, and those who wrote the Word have been called 'inspired'. Breathing, and so breathing on or inspiring, corresponds to the life of faith, see 97, 1119, 1120, 3883-3896. This explains why the term spirit in the Word is derived from the word for wind, and holiness from the Lord is called Jehovah's wind, 8286, and why the Holy Spirit is the holiness emanating from the Lord, 3704, 4673 (end), 5307, 6788, 6982, 6993, 8127 (end), 8302, 9199.

[4] So also it says in John 1:33 that the Lord baptizes with the Holy Spirit, and in Luke 3:16 that He baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 'Baptizing' in the internal sense means regenerating, 4255, 5120 (end), 9088; 'baptizing with the Holy Spirit' means regenerating by means of the good of faith; and 'baptizing with fire' means regenerating by means of the good of love, 'fire' being the good of love, see 934, 4906, 5215, 6314, 6832, 6834, 6849, 7324. In John,

Who is not going to fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. Revelation 15:4.

In Luke the angel telling Mary about the Lord said,

That which is holy will be born from you. Luke 1:35.

And in Daniel,

I saw in the visions of my head while on my bed, and behold, a vigilant and holy one came down from heaven. Daniel 4:13.

In these places 'that which is holy' and 'a holy one' stand for the Lord.

[5] Because the Lord alone is holy He is called in the Old Testament the Holy One of Israel, the Redeemer, the Saviour, and the Regenerator, as in Isaiah 1:4; 5:19, 24; 10:20; 12:6; 17:7; 29:19; 30:11-12, 15; 31:1; 37:23; 41:14, 16, 20; 43:3, 14; 45:11; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:5; 55:5; 60:9, 14; Jeremiah 50:29; 51:5; Ezekiel 39:7; Psalms 71:22; 78:41; 89:18. This is why the Lord in heaven, and consequently heaven itself, is called the dwelling-place of holiness, Jeremiah 25:30; 31:23; ¹ Isaiah 63:15; the sanctuary, ² Ezekiel 11:16; 24:21; and also the mountain of holiness, Psalms 3:4. It is also why the middle of the tent [of meeting], where the ark containing the law was, was called The Holy of Holies, Exodus 26:33-34; for the law in the ark in the middle of the tent [of meeting], represented the Lord in respect of the Word. For the law is the Word, 6752, 7463.

[6] All this shows why it is that the angels are called holy in Matthew 25:31; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; Psalms 149:1; Daniel 8:13; also the prophets, Luke 1:70; and the apostles too, Revelation 18:20. Not that they are holy by their own virtue but that the Lord, who alone is holy and the only source of holiness, makes them so. For truths are meant by 'the angels', because they are those who receive truth from the Lord, 1925, 4085, 4295, 4402, 7268, 7873, 8192, 8301; teachings which present the truth that comes through the Word from the Lord are meant by 'the prophets', 2534, 7269; and all the truths and forms of the good of faith in their entirety which come from the Lord are meant by 'the apostles', 3488, 3858 (end), 6397.

[7] Consecrations ³ among the Israelite and Jewish people took place in order that the Lord who alone was holy might be represented, and in order that holiness, which He alone is the source of, might be represented. This is the reason for the consecration of Aaron and his sons, Exodus 29:1ff; Leviticus 8:10-11, 13, 30; the consecration of their garments, Exodus 29:21ff; the consecration of the altar in order that it might be most holy, ⁴ Exodus 29:37ff; the consecration of the tent of meeting, the ark of the Testimony, the table, all the vessels, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and its vessels, and the laver and its base, Exodus 30:26ff.

[8] The truth that the Lord is the real Holiness that was represented is evident also from the Lord's words in Matthew when they are seen in the internal sense,

Fools and blind! Which of the two is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold holy? And which of the two is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift holy? Matthew 23:17-19.

'The temple' represented the Lord Himself, and so did 'the altar', while 'the gold' was a sign of the good that comes from the Lord, and 'the gift' or a sacrifice was a sign of things constituting faith and charity that come from the Lord.

The Lord was represented by 'the temple', see 2777, 3720, and by 'the altar', 2777, 2811, 4489, 8935, 8940. 'Gold' was a sign of good that comes from the Lord, 1551, 1552, 5658, and 'a sacrifice' a sign of worship springing from faith and charity that come from the Lord, 922, 923, 2805, 2807, 2830, 6905, 8680, 8682, 8936.

[9] From all this it is now evident why it is that the children of Israel were called a holy people in Deuteronomy 26:19 and elsewhere, or as in the present verse men of holiness. That is to say, they were so called because every single aspect of their worship represented Divine realities that are the Lord's, and celestial and spiritual things of His kingdom and Church. On this account they were called holy in a representative sense; they themselves were not holy on that account, because representatives had regard to the holy things that were represented, not to the person who represented them, see 665, 1097 (end), 1361, 3147, 3881 (end), 4208, 4281, 4288, 4293, 4307, 4444, 4500, 6304, 7048, 7439, 8588, 8788, 8806.

[10] On that account also was Jerusalem called holy, and Zion the mountain of holiness in Zechariah 8:3 and elsewhere, as well as in Matthew,

And the tombs were opened, and many bodies of dead holy ones were raised; and coming out of their tombs after the Lord's resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. Matthew 27:52-53.

Here Jerusalem is called 'the holy city', when in fact, quite to the contrary, it was unholy because the Lord was crucified there at that time, for which reason it is called 'Sodom and Egypt' in John,

Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Revelation 11:8.

Yet it is called holy, because it means the Lord's kingdom and the Church, 402, 2117, 3654. The appearance of 'dead holy ones' there, an event witnessed by some in vision, was a sign of the salvation of people who belonged to the spiritual Church, and of the raising of those people to the Holy Jerusalem, which is heaven - the people who had been kept up to that time on the lower earth, spoken of in 6854, 6914, 7091, 7828, 7932, 8049, 8054, 8159, 8321.

Footnotes:

1906. 'After Abram had been dwelling ten years in the land of Canaan' means the remnants of good and of truth deriving from that good which the Lord acquired to Himself and by means of which this rational was conceived. This is clear from the meaning of 'ten' as remnants, dealt with already in 576. What remnants are has been stated and shown in 468, 530, 560, 561, 660, 661, 798, 1050; that is to say, they are all the states of affection for good and truth conferred by the Lord on a person from earliest childhood right through to life's end. These states are stored away within him for the use of his life after death, for in the next life all the states of his life return one after another and at that time they undergo modification through the states of good and truth which the Lord has conferred on him. The more remnants he acquires therefore during his lifetime, or the more good and truth he acquires, the happier and more beautiful the rest of his states seem to be when they actually return. The truth of this may become clear to anyone if he gives the matter careful consideration. At birth no one of himself possesses any good at all, but is wholly defiled with hereditary evil. Everything good flows in, such as his love for parents, nursemaids, and playmates, this influx being from innocence. These are the gifts which flow in from the Lord through the heaven of innocence and peace, which is the inmost heaven, and this is the manner in which they are imparted to him during early childhood.

[2] Later on, when he grows up, this good, innocent, and peaceful state of early childhood departs from him little by little; and insofar as he is introduced into the world, he enters into its pleasures and delights, and so into evils, and the heavenly things or the goods of early childhood start to be dispersed. Yet they still remain, it being by means of these that the states are moderated which a person takes to himself and acquires later on. Without them he cannot possibly be truly human, for states in which evil desires or any evils occur, if not moderated by means of states in which the affection for good is present, would be more dreadful than those of any animal. Those states of good are what are called remnants, which are conferred by the Lord and implanted in a person's natural disposition, this being done when the person is not aware of it.

[3] In later life he has further new states conferred on him; but these are not so much states of good as of truth, for as he grows up he has truths bestowed on him, and these in a similar way are stored away within his interior man. By means of these remnants, which are those of truth, and which have been born from the influx of spiritual things from the Lord, a person has the ability to think, and also to understand what the good and truth of civil or public life and moral or private life are, and also to receive spiritual truth, that is, the truth of faith. Yet he has no ability to do these things except by means of the remnants of good which he received in early childhood. Of the existence of remnants, and the fact that they are stored away in man in his interior rational, man is completely unaware. That unawareness is due to thinking that nothing flows in but that everything is innate within him, and thus present within him when he is an infant, though the reality is altogether different from that. Remnants are referred to in various places in the Word, and by them are meant those states by which a person becomes human, and this from the Lord alone.

[4] The remnants which resided with the Lord however were all the Divine states which He acquired to Himself and by means of which He united the Human Essence to the Divine Essence. These are in no way comparable with the remnants that reside with man, for the latter are not Divine but human. The remnants the Lord had are what is meant by the ten years Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan. When angels hear the Word they have no knowledge of what 'ten' is; but the moment ten is mentioned by man the idea of remnants comes to them, for 'ten' and 'tenths' in the Word mean remnants, as is clear from what has been stated and shown in 576, 1738. And when they perceive that 'Abram had been dwelling ten years in the land of Canaan' the idea of the Lord comes to them, and with it simultaneously countless things meant by the remnants residing with the Lord when He was in the world.