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There's an old saying that says, "When the student is ready the master will appear." The idea is that the student must incorporate everything they've already been taught into their life before the next master will come to teach them the next steps. We see something similar in the Word, where Jesus opens the eyes of Peter, James and John to a new spiritual reality, but now they have a difficult time trying to synthesize what they've just been taught with everything they've always believed. (note - Todd offers his apologies for an error; where he mistakenly says in this audio that the "spiritual serves the natural"... he meant to say, "natural serves the spiritual.")

(References: Apocalypse Explained 64, 405; Arcana Coelestia 6394; Matthew 17:14-20, 17:24-27)

9879. 'And you shall make on the breastplate small chains on the border' means all heaven joined together in the most external parts. This is clear from the meaning of 'the breastplate' as Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Good, dealt with in 9823, thus also heaven, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'small chains' as coherence, dealt with above in 9852, thus also a joining together; and from the meaning of 'the border' as the most external part, as also above in 9853. The reason why 'the breastplate' means heaven as well is that all the kinds of good and truth in their entirety were represented there by the twelve stones and by the names of the twelve tribes; and those kinds of good and truth in their entirety constitute heaven, so completely that whether you say heaven or those kinds of good and truth it amounts to the same thing. For the angels who constitute heaven are recipients of good and truth from the Lord, and being recipients of these they are also forms of them, or forms of love and charity. Truths of faith make for beauty, but a beauty in keeping with truths that spring from good, that is, in keeping with truths through which good shines forth. Outward forms of love and charity, which is what the forms of angels in the heavens are, are human forms; they are such because the kinds of good and the truths which emanate from the Lord, and the angels are recipients of, are effigies and images of the Lord.