199. And I will not blot out his name out of the book of life. That this signifies that they will be in heaven because they are fitted for it is evident from the signification of name, as denoting the quality of the state of man's life (see above, n. 148) and from the signification of the book of life, as denoting heaven, concerning which we shall speak presently. Hence, not to blot their name out of the book of life signifies that they will be in heaven because their state as to love and faith is heavenly, thus because they are fitted for heaven. The reason why heaven is signified by the book of life is, that a man who is in love and faith to the Lord is a heaven in its least form, and this heaven corresponds to heaven in the greatest form: therefore he who has heaven in himself, also comes into heaven, for he is fitted for it. (That there is such a correspondence, may be seen in the work, Heaven and Hell 51-58, 73-77, 87-102; and in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 230-236.) Hence it is, that the book of life is that in man which corresponds to the heaven in which he is; and because the former remains with him to eternity, if he becomes spiritual by the knowledges of truth and good applied to life in the world, therefore, it is here said, "I will not blot out his name from the book of life. In the world, indeed, it may be blotted out, if a man does not remain spiritual even unto the end of his life; but if he does remain spiritual it cannot be blotted out, because he is conjoined to the Lord by love and faith; and conjunction with the Lord, such as took place in the world, remains with man after death.

From these considerations it is evident, that by the book of life is meant that from the Lord which is inscribed on a man's spirit, that is, which is inscribed on his heart and soul, or, what is the same, on his love and faith; and that which is inscribed by the Lord on man, is heaven.

[2] It is therefore evident what is meant by the book of life in the following passages; in Daniel:

"The Ancient of days did sit, and the books were opened" (7:9, 10).

Again:

"The people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book" (12:1).

In David:

"Let them be blotted out of the book of lives, and not be written with the righteous" (Psalms 69:28).

In Moses:

Moses said, "Blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast written. And Jehovah said, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book" (Exodus 32:32, 33).

In the Apocalypse:

"All shall worship the beast, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb" (13:8; 17:8).

In another place:

"And the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And if any one was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire" (Apoc. 20:12, 13, 15).

Again:

"And there shall not enter into the New Jerusalem any but those that are written in the Lamb's book of life" (Apoc. 21:27).

In David:

"My bone was not hid from thee when I was made in secret. Upon thy book all my days were written in which they were formed: not one of them is wanting" (Psalms 139:15, 16).

By all the days being written, are meant all the states of man's life. (That all the separate things which he has thought, willed, spoken and done, yea, which he has seen and heard, are with man in his spirit as if inscribed therein, so that nothing whatever is wanting, may be seen in the work, Heaven and Hell 462, 463, and in Arcana Coelestia, 2469-2494, 7398; and that this is the book of man's life, 2474, 9386, 9841, 10505; and likewise, n. 5212, 8067, 9334, 9723, 9841.)

92. (iv) THE HUMAN BY WHICH HE BROUGHT HIMSELF INTO THE WORLD IS THE SON OF GOD.

The Lord said on many occasions that the Father sent Him and that He was sent by the Father; e.g, Matthew 10:40; 15:24; John 3:17, 34; 5:23-24, 36-38; 6:29, 39-40, 44, 57; 7:16, 18, 28-29; 8:16, 18, 29, 42; 9:4; and very many other passages. He said this because by 'being sent into the world' is meant coming down and mixing with human beings; this He did by means of the Human, which He took upon Himself by means of the Virgin Mary. The Human too is really the Son of God, because it was conceived of Jehovah God as the Father (as is stated by Luke 1:32, 35). The Human is called the Son of God, the Son of Man and the Son of Mary; by the Son of the God is meant Jehovah God in His Human, by the Son of Man the Lord as to the Word, and by the Son of Mary the actual human which He took upon Himself. It will be proved in the following pages that these are the meanings of the Son of God and the Son of Man; that the Son of Mary means His purely human nature is evident from the reproduction of human beings, where the soul comes from the father and the body from the mother. The father's semen contains the soul, and this is clothed with a body in the mother's womb. To put it another way, everything spiritual a person has is from his father, everything material from his mother.

[2] In the case of the Lord, what was Divine in Him was from His Father Jehovah, and His human was from His mother; the union of these two is the Son of God. This is clearly proved from the account of the Lord's birth, of which we read in Luke:

The angel Gabriel said to Mary, The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you; therefore the holy thing that shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God, Luke 1:35.

The Lord also described Himself as 'sent by the Father' because 'sent' has a similar meaning to 'angel', for angel in the language of the original means one who is sent. For it is said in Isaiah:

The angel of Jehovah's faces ¹ has set them free, on account of His love and mercy He has redeemed them, Isaiah 63:9.

And in Malachi:

Suddenly the Lord whom you seek shall come to his temple, and also the messenger of the covenant, whom you long for, Malachi 3:1.

There are other similar passages elsewhere. It will be seen in Chapter 3 of this book that the Divine Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is in the Lord, and that the Father in Him is the originating Divine, the Son the Divine Human and the Holy Spirit the emanating Divine.

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