In the Christmas story, the wise men bring gifts to the Lord: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The gold is listed first, because it is the inmost - signifying good, e.g. the good that we do when we love the Lord and the neighbor.

The frankincense is next. It signifies rational truth, which is the set of true ideas that we know, not about external things like cars or cooking, but about what is really good, and what is really true.

These rational truths are built on earlier knowledges that we learn, before we have really made them our own. Those early knowledges about spiritual things - often learned in childhood - are represented by the myrrh.

In a way, these gifts are really a reciprocation. We can't actually give them to the Lord until the Lord has given them to us. We necessarily start out by learning and doing the Lord's law (myrrh). The Lord can then call up those memories to become rational truths (frankincense). Then, over time, and with effort, those truths can be transformed into good (gold). The wise men from the East had gone through this process of learning and becoming vessels that could receive truths and goods. They were able to perceive the Lord's birth, and find him, and bring gifts to him.

41. The successive states of this Church-which are: rise or morning; progression into light, and day; vastation or evening, and consummation or night - it is not permitted to follow up with a description in the same manner as we before described the states of the Most Ancient Church, because the states of that Church cannot be so collected from our Word; for the posterity of Noah, through his three sons, is recorded only in a summary, in one or two pages; and, moreover, that Church was spread through many kingdoms, and in each kingdom it differed, and hence that Church underwent and ran through the states mentioned in a different manner.

[2] That THE FIRST AND SECOND STATE THEREOF in the regions round about the Jordan and about Egypt, was like the "garden of Jehovah," is evident from the words:

The plain of Jordan... was... like the garden of Jehovah, like the land of Egypt, where thou comest unto Zoar (Gen. 13:10).

And that the like was the case with Tyre, appears from the following:

Thou prince of Tyre,... full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in... the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering;... thou was perfect in thy ways, from the day that thou wast created until perversity was found in thee. (Ezek. 28:12-15).

That Asshur was like a "cedar in Lebanon," appears from the following:

Behold, Asshur is a cedar in Lebanon, beautiful in branch, lofty in height;... all the birds of the heavens nested in his branches, and under his branches did every beast of the field bring forth its young, and in his shadow dwelt all great nations:... No tree in the garden of God was equal to him in beauty,... and all those trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him (Ezek. 31:3-9).

That wisdom flourished in Arabia, is evident from the queen of Sheba's journey to Solomon (1 Kings 10:1-13); also from the three wise men who came to the new-born Jesus, a star going before them (Matt. 2:1-12).

[3] THE THIRD AND FOURTH STATE OF THAT CHURCH, which was that of its vastation and consummation, is described in various places in the Word, both in its historical and prophetical parts. The consummation of the nations round about the Jordan, or round about the land of Canaan, is described by the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim (Gen. 19); the consummation of the Church of the nations within the Jordan, or in the land of Canaan, is described in Joshua and in the Book of Judges by the expulsion of some and the extermination of others. The consummation of that Church in Egypt, is described by the drowning of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Red Sea (Exod. 14). And so on.