The Bible

 

Genesis 2

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1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Marriage #34

  
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34. (19) Conjugial love depends upon the wife's love, and such too is the husband's love reciprocally; the wife's love does not depend on her husband's love. The reason is that just as the will acts on the understanding, good acts on truth; that is why it is said that a man ought to cleave to his wife. The reverse is true of those who are not in conjugial love.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #10124

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10124. 'When you make propitiation on it' means the resulting ability to receive good from the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'making propitiation on the altar' as the implantation - after evils and consequently falsities have been removed - of good from the Lord, and the reception of it by a person belonging to the Church or by an angel belonging to heaven, dealt with in 9506. For as shown immediately above in 10123, 'the altar' means heaven and the Church as regards the reception of good from the Lord. Since 'the altar' means the heaven and Church where celestial good reigns, which is the good of love received from the Lord and offered back to the Lord, a brief description of the nature of the reception of good in the celestial kingdom must be given. As has often been stated before, heaven is divided into two kingdoms, one of which is called the celestial kingdom and the other the spiritual kingdom. In both kingdoms good is implanted by means of truth; but with those who are in the spiritual kingdom good is implanted by means of truth in the understanding part of the mind, whereas with those who are in the celestial kingdom good is implanted by means of truth in the will part. The way in which the implantation of good by means of truth takes place in the spiritual kingdom is different from the way in which it does with those in the celestial kingdom. With those in the spiritual kingdom truth is implanted in the external or natural man, where at first it becomes knowledge. To the extent that the person has an affection for it, and lives in accord with it, it is then summoned into the understanding, where it becomes faith and at the same time charity towards the neighbour. This charity constitutes his new will and the faith a new understanding; and both constitute conscience.

[2] But with those in the celestial kingdom truth becomes neither knowledge, nor faith, nor conscience. Instead it becomes a power to receive that is subject to the good of love; and to the extent that they live a life in accord with it, it becomes a power of perception which grows fuller and more perfect as their love does so. This goes on in them day by day without their awareness, almost as it does with young children. The reason why it goes on without their awareness is that truth does not become fixed as knowledge in the memory, nor does it linger as a concept within the power of thought; rather it passes without delay into the will and becomes part of their life. Consequently they do not see truth but perceive it; and the extent and manner of their perception is determined by how much and in what way the good of love received from and offered back to the Lord is present in them. These in the celestial kingdom therefore are very different from those in the spiritual kingdom. And since their perception of truth springs from good they never substantiate it by the use of reasons. Instead whenever truths are the subject they merely say either 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'.

[3] These are the ones who are meant by the Lord in Matthew,

Let your words be Yes, yes; No, no; anything beyond this is from evil 1 . Matthew 5:37.

For reasoning about truths, about whether they are such or not, does not spring from good, because in that case truth is not seen with perception, only believed as a result of receiving it on authority and then corroborating it for oneself. What one believes on authority consists of other people's ideas within one's self and are not one's own; and anything believed on these grounds alone and then corroborated appears after such corroboration to be the truth, even when it is false. This becomes perfectly clear from the beliefs of any religion and from the variety of religions throughout the world.

From all this it is evident what the difference is between those who are in the Lord's celestial kingdom and those who are in His spiritual kingdom. The reason for their difference is that those in His celestial kingdom by the way they live convert the Church's truths immediately into forms of good, whereas those in the spiritual kingdom keep to truths, preferring faith to life. Those who by the way they live convert the Church's truths immediately into good, that is, those who belong to the celestial kingdom, are described by the Lord in Mark 4:26-29, and many times elsewhere. Regarding the difference between the celestial kingdom and the spiritual kingdom, see the places referred to in 9277.

Footnotes:

1. or from the evil one

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