As we saw in the previous verse, being reviled and persecuted represents temptation, with the hells attacking and challenging our desire to be good and our understanding of what is right. Why would we rejoice? It's a devastating state!

We rejoice because facing temptation is the only way to rid ourselves of evil and false thinking and open ourselves up to the Lord. Those evils are part of us, and we have to push them aside – and pushing them aside is not an easy, painless thing. If we succeed, though, we get the great reward of heaven: The Lord will fill us with the true love of all that is good and great wisdom about what "good" is and how to achieve it. We can then live in blissful harmony with Him, aligned with His love and His wisdom.

And what of "persecuting the prophets"? Prophets represent true ideas and doctrine understood through the Bible – ideas that come to us from the Lord within the Bible. This means the hells will challenge us not only directly in life, but also in terms of the truth we see in the Bible.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 695 [19])

156. (vi) A PERSON'S SPIRIT IS HIS MIND, AND WHATEVER COMES FROM IT.

A person's spirit, regarded as an object, is nothing but his mind. It is this which lives on after death, and it is then called a spirit; if he is good, an angelic spirit and later an angel, if wicked, a satanic spirit and afterwards a Satan. Everyone's mind is his internal man, which is the real person and resides within the external man composed of his body. So when the body is cast off as the result of death, the internal man has a fully human form. Those, then, are in error who believe that a person's mind resides only in his head. There it is only in its beginnings, from which first emerge everything a person's understanding allows him to think and his will induces him to do. But in the body the mind is present in derivatives from those beginnings, and these have been so constructed as to permit sensation and action. Since it is inwardly attached to the bodily structures, it imparts to them sensation and movement, together with a feeling that the body thinks and acts of itself. Yet every intelligent person knows that this is a fallacy. Now since a person's spirit is allowed by his understanding to think and is induced by his will to act, and the body does not do so of itself but from the spirit, it follows that a person's spirit means his intelligence and the affection of his love, and everything which comes from it and acts.

[2] There are numerous passages in the Word to prove that a person's spirit means such things as are to do with the mind; their mere quotation will show anyone that this is so. The following are a few among many:

Bezaleel was filled with the spirit of wisdom, intelligence and knowledge, Exodus 31:3.

Nebuchadnezzar said of Daniel that an outstanding spirit of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom was in him, Daniel 5:12, 14.

Joshua was filled with the spirit of wisdom, Deuteronomy 34:9.

Make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, Ezekiel 18:31.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for of such is the kingdom of the heavens, Matthew 5:3.

I dwell in a broken and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, Isaiah 57:15.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, Psalms 51:17.

I will give a cloak of praise in place of a depressed spirit, Isaiah 61:3.

Spirit also stands for the products of a wrong and unjust mind, as these passages prove:

He said to the foolish prophets, who run after their own spirit, Ezekiel 13:3.

Conceive chaff, bring forth stubble; as to your spirit, fire shall devour you, Isaiah 33:11.

A man who is in spirit a vagabond and utters a lie, Micah 2:11.

A generation whose spirit is not steadfast with God, Psalms 78:8.

A spirit of whoring, Hosea 4:12; 5:4.

That every heart may melt and every spirit be depressed, Ezekiel 21:7.

That which rises upon your spirit shall never be, Ezekiel 20:32.

Provided there is no deceit in his spirit, Psalms 32:2.

The spirit of Pharaoh was troubled, Genesis 41:8.

Likewise that of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 2:3.

These and very many other passages plainly establish that spirit means a person's mind and what is to do with it.