“Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for Jehovah and the other lot for Azazel.” (Leviticus 16:8)

There are three states that precede yearly repentance:

1. humility through external truth;

2. a strong desire to replace our love with the Lord’s love;

3. and behavior based on our understanding of the Lord’s Word.

By intentionally seeking these states, we can participate in the repentance, reformation, and regeneration that the Lord is constantly endeavoring to bring to us.

The Lord describes this progression of states in the ritual given to Moses called the Day of Atonement. The story in Chapter 16 of Leviticus is a description of this process: we dress in the simple linens of servitude; we fill the Holy of Holies with incense; and then we paint the altar of burnt offering with the blood of sacrifice. After this the Lord will help us banish the goat that symbolizes the evils from which we are trying to flee. This ritual serves as the most holy and powerful description of repentance in the Old Testament, presages the power of the Divine Human of the Lord, and offers us a model of how we cooperate with the Lord to join Him in His heavenly kingdom.

Because the Israelitish church was a representation of a church, a kind of Divine reenactment of a true church, all of their rituals are symbols and pictures of the spiritual processes that are vital for the church.

The Day of Atonement was the time of the year when the Israelites, in the person of the high priest, cleansed the Tabernacle of all the residual sin of the Children of Israel, much as we might periodically clean out our closet or have a weekend of spring cleaning once a year. Our spiritual life operates the same way – things build up, and a larger examination and cleaning is sometimes in order.

The Day of Atonement is also, in the internal sense, a picture of the subordination of our external selves to our internal selves, a state of self-compulsion described by the Heavenly Doctrines as the greatest state of freedom. We should remember that all of this must be done voluntarily, and that it represents only our part in the process; regeneration is something accomplished by the Lord, and He asks us to participate.

This ritual was the only time of the year the high priest could safely enter the Holy of Holies. He would take off his official high-priest garb of breastplate, crown and ephod and instead wear a simple linen smock with simple linen breeches. He would then choose two goats, one for the Lord, one for evil. He would then mix embers from a burnt offering of a bull with a handful of incense in a firepan. Then, carefully, he would place the smoking firepan past the veil of the Tabernacle into the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. The smoke would fill the chamber and thus protect the high priest from clearly seeing the Ark and therefore being struck dead when he entered the chamber again. He would then go back, collect the blood of the sacrifice, and ritually cleanse the entire Tabernacle with the blood, sprinkling it by hand on the Ark and the interior of the tabernacle. He would then take the remaining blood and paint it on the corner posts or ‘horns’ of the altar of burnt offering, thus finishing the purification. Having cleansed the Tabernacle, the high priest could then transfer the sins of the entire people to the goat chosen for evil. This goat would then be driven into the desert, carrying with it the sins of the Israelites.

We, too, must first put on simple linen, the clothes a servant would wear, symbolizing the simple, external truths of humility we should adopt. We realize that we have no power and need help. We practice the thought that we are not masters of our fate, that we are not the authors of our own happiness, and that left to ourselves we would be incapable of use, thought, or life.

These are not thoughts in which to spend all our time. We normally try to shape our lives to be useful to those around us, but this is when we contemplate how powerless we are as we prepare to approach the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ, in our story from the New Testament, is likewise clothed in simple linen when He teaches the disciples the value of repentance. As He washes Peter’s feet, he is clothed much as a high priest would be on the Day of Atonement.

We ourselves can imagine taking off our normal thoughts and identity like clothing. Take off your bank account and job description, take off your memory and intelligence and worries, take off your hobbies and your disposition and your habits, and put on the thought that you are simply to be obedience to the Lord’s truth.

Once he is clothed in the simple linens, the high priest then mixes holy fire from sacrifice with incense to fill the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle with smoke. This is our second step – we must adopt the state of wanting to replace our loves – our identities – with the Lord’s love.

We are not accustomed to imagining the Lord as dangerous. As a God of love He wishes for us our eternal happiness with Him in heaven. Normally there is nothing scary or risky about us being with the Divine – all that we are is from Him already. Every now and then, however, having achieved a state of humility, we can imagine, if obscurely, what it would be like to want what the Lord wants. This can be a frightening mental process, demanding more than simply identifying how we might love the neighbor or find peace in following His commandments. The high priest reaching past the veil into the Holy of Holies is us reaching for the true notion that there is nothing lovable about ourselves that is not the Lord’s – and we should, ideally, love this notion.

We only rarely approach the celestial state represented by the Holy of Holies. Angels of the celestial heaven not only recognize that they are nothing, but also can sense – can feel – the influx from the Lord into their affections. They desire to lose their proprium, their sense of self, yet retain it to obey the Lord. They know that all they are apart from the Lord is their evils, which are essentially imaginary and insane. Who on earth can adopt, even for an hour, the desire to lose their own goals, desires and delights? Who among us is comfortable faced with the undeniable truth that we are, considered by ourselves, nothing but evil, and that evil isn’t real?

The Lord does not wish for us to see this reality without protection; the smoke of incense is our protection. By the time the high priest has left and come back with the blood, the Holy of Holies is full of sweet smoke. The Heavenly Doctrines explain that the infinite conjoins to the finite, the eternal with the temporal, through appearances. For example, we perceive the Divine as something far off like the sun, and like the sun we value the appearance of distance between ourselves and the Divine even if we know that distance isn’t real; the Divine is with us here and now.

Filling the Holy of Holies with the smoke of incense is to approach the celestial state through what the Heavenly Doctrines call ‘the acceptable perceptions of worship’. These are our prayers, the adoration of the Lord we can summon, ideas and goals the Lord can work with despite being obscure. From our perception of reality, clouded as it is with the appearance or ‘smoke’ of our own real-ness, we can worship and adore the Lord and ask to be transformed into heavenly loves without immediately experiencing what that transformation would feel like. This is like dimly perceiving the Ark of the Covenant in that curtained room through the sweet-smelling smoke of the incense. We perceive it is there, but are protected from the full implications of what we are perceiving.

We ourselves can spend some time picturing our day, re-evaluating how we live our life, and see it, dimly, through the eyes of heaven: What would your schedule look like if was planned by an angel? What should excite you or bring you peace? What if you cared only for the Lord’s truth? A fearless attempt to see this may make us uncomfortable.

We should not linger long in the Holy of Holies. The high priest comes out and uses the holy blood to next cleanse the Tabernacle, ending with the altar upon which the sacrifice was originally made. He then paints the blood on its horns, the most external part of the altar which is itself the most external item within the whole Tabernacle site.

Blood corresponds to the Divine Human, the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to change who we are. Blood symbolizes the basic but profound realization that all truth comes from good, that all wisdom is merely the shape of love, and that the Ten Commandments are the shape of the love the Lord Jesus Christ has for us.

This is the same blood offered by the Lord during Easter Week. He says to His disciples in Luke: “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.” It was a new covenant because He was giving to humanity the new idea of a human God. The Israelites could not have a concept of the Divine as a person, but the Day of Atonement reveals how we approach Jesus Christ for help.

The priest physically walking from the Holy of Holies to the altar of burnt offering symbolizes the descent of our thought from the contemplation of heavenly life to an examination of our earthly behaviors. He moves, geographically, from the Ten Commandments as they are in themselves to the rest of his duties and life.

Putting blood on the horns of the altar is the third state preceding repentance – we reconsider our life in its most external facets: our physical behavior in our daily lives. This is also why the Lord on earth washed merely the feet, the lowest parts, of His disciples, not their heads and hands – it is about external matters. This step could look like us reading His Word, thinking over our day, comparing it to the testimony of the Ten Commandments, and seeing how our life would be cleaner, brighter, happier if it were more like the Ten Commandments.

Unlike the previous, potentially profound state, this third state is lower, more pedestrian. From the light of the Word, we should decide on a change to something detectable to the senses. This is the state of power where we see something both changeable and manageable; we can live life differently in some small way to be closer to the Lord. The blood is painted on the horns, the truth descends into action.

When we progress through these steps in order, we prepare ourselves to banish the goat of Azazel. This is the second of two goats – the first goat was sacrificed earlier as the goat for the Lord. This second goat represents the faith of repentance. The high priest would place his hands on the goat for Azazel and pronounce all the sins of Israel upon it. Since the goat now, ritually speaking, contained within it the rest of the residual sins of Israel, it was driven off.

The name Azazel is confusing, but is from the Hebrew word ‘azal’, meaning ‘go away’ or even vastation. It seems to depict a place separated from the Lord, a place of evil spirits. By sending away the goat for ‘Azazel’, the Children of Israel acknowledged that sin and evil were not intrinsically theirs.

We must do the same thing. The Lord in His Second Coming has made clear to us that neither good nor evil ‘belong’ to us, and the closer we come to believing and living as if this is true, the happier and more at peace we will become. We are not the source of good or evil, none of our thoughts or affections come from ourselves, and nothing makes these things ‘us’ unless we let them. We read in "Divine Providence":

To believe and think, as is the truth, that all goodness and truth originate from the Lord, and all evil and falsity from hell, seems to be an impossibility, when in fact it is something truly human and thus angelic. This is impossible for people who do not acknowledge the Lord's Divinity, and that evils are sins, but it is possible for people who do. Insofar as they refrain from evils as sins, they simply reflect on the evils in themselves and cast them away from themselves back to hell from where they came. (Divine Providence 320)

This truth can clean our lives. Just as the high priest lays his hands on the goat for Azazel, we direct our own borrowed power to driving evil out of our life. Please notice that they do not kill the goat – they remove it from camp. It is not our job to kill evil, neither can we. Instead, we flee from evil, we shun it, we remove ourselves from it. This might mean changing behaviors that are not evil in themselves but that we now perceive to feed evil: we watch what we say at the Tuesday meeting or spend less time away from home on Saturday. Prepared with humility, freshly aware of the celestial state the Lord wishes for us, and armed with a perception of what we should change in our bodily lives in the light of the Word, we change.

And that is how we undergo yearly examination and repentance, something the Heavenly Doctrines encourage us to do. The Day of Atonement does not describe the daily repentance with which we are familiar but a yearly repentance, a more thorough cleaning. It is a process, as we have said, wholly managed and performed by the Lord, but He asks that we participate.

The process described is universal; the Atonement ritual describes individual repentance, spiritual vastation, how a church undergoes investigation and correction, it even describes how we can clean our worship of our own proprium and worldly concerns. The process of approaching the Divine is eternal.

This ritual is also the closest the Children of Israel came to their God. As the Easter season starts and our thoughts turn to the last events of the Lord’s life on earth, we should give some thought as to how we will approach Him. Perhaps this is a time for us to approach Him in a state of repentance: We start in simple linen, a state of humility before our God. We then approach carefully with incense, our mind perceiving what it can of celestial life. We then return to our life, painting our behavior with the blood of Divine Truth. Finally, we can be prepared to drive evil from our life and draw closer to our living God.

“Jehovah, I cry unto you: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto you. Let my prayer be set forth before you as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” (Psalm 142:1-2)

Other references: John 13:3-10, Arcana Coelestia 10208.

475. And have washed their robes, signifies the removal of falsities by means of temptations. This is evident from the signification of "to wash," as being to purify from falsities and evils, consequently to remove them; for the evils and falsities that are with man, spirit, and angel, are not taken away, but are removed, and when they have been removed the appearance is that they have been taken away (respecting this see in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 166, 170) thence "to wash" signifies to remove falsities, and thus to purify. Also from the signification of "robes," as being protecting truths in general (of which above, n. 395; but "robes" here, before they have been washed and made white, signify falsities from which they have [not yet] been purified; for those who are in falsities from ignorance appear in the spiritual world at first in dusky garments of diverse colors, and while they are in temptations in filthy garments; but when they come out of temptations they appear in white robes, glistening according to their purification from falsities. Each one in the other life appears in garments according to the truths and according to the falsities that are with him; ¹ this is why "garments" signify truths, and in the contrary sense falsities (See above, n. 195, 271). From this the signification of "they have washed their robes and have made them white" can be seen.

[2] In ancient times, when all the externals of the church were representative and significative of things spiritual and celestial, washings were made use of, and they represented purifications from falsities and evils; "washings" had this signification because "waters" signified truths, and "filth" falsities and evils, and all purification from falsities and evils is effected by truths (that "waters" signify truths see above, n. 71). This is why washings were instituted with the sons of Israel by command; for with them there was a representative church, all things of which were significative of things spiritual, and "washings" signified purifications from falsities and evils, and thence regeneration. For this purpose:

A laver of brass was placed at the entrance of the tent of meeting (Exodus 30:18-20);

Also lavers of brass were placed outside of the temple, one great laver which was called the sea of brass, and ten smaller ones (1 Kings 7:23-39).

[3] Because of this signification of "washings," when Aaron and his sons were consecrated to the priesthood:

Moses was commanded to wash them with water at the entrance of the tent, and thus to sanctify them (Exodus 29:4; 40:12; Leviticus 8:6);

for the priests represented the Lord in relation to Divine good, as kings represented Him in relation to Divine truth, consequently the priests represented also the Divine holiness which is pure without blemish. Aaron and his sons were inducted into this representation by the washing by Moses; therefore it is said that "thus they should be sanctified," although no sanctity was conferred upon them by the washing.

[4] It was therefore also commanded that:

Aaron and his sons should wash their hands and feet before entering into the tent of meeting, and before they came near to the altar to minister; and it is said that they were to do this that they die not; and that it should be to them a statute of an age (Exodus 30:18-21; 40:30, 31).

Also that Aaron should wash his flesh before he put on the garments of ministry (Leviticus 16:4, 24).

"Washing the hands and feet" signified the purification of the natural man, and "washing the flesh" the purification of the spiritual man. It was therefore commanded also:

That the Levites should be sanctified by being sprinkled with the water of expiation, and by causing a razor to pass over their flesh, and that they should wash their garments (Numbers 8:6, 7).

This was done to the Levites because they ministered in the external things of the church under Aaron and his sons, and the purification of the external things of the church was represented by the sprinkling of the water of expiation, by shaving the hairs of the flesh, and by washing the garments.

[5] Furthermore, all who were made unclean by touching unclean things also washed themselves and their garments, and were said to be made clean thereby, as:

Those who ate of the dead body of a clean beast, or of what was torn (Leviticus 17:15, 16).

One who touched the bed of one who had an issue, or sat upon the vessel that he sat on, or who touched his flesh (Leviticus 15:4-12).

It was also commanded that the leper, after his cleansing, should wash his garments, shave off his hair, and wash himself with water (Leviticus 14:8, 9).

Also that such vessels as had become unclean by the touch of the unclean, should be passed through water (Leviticus 11:32; besides other statutes).

He is much mistaken who supposes that those who washed their flesh or hands and feet, or garments, were cleansed and sanctified, that is, purified from their sins; for sins are not washed away or taken away by water as filth is, but they are washed away, that is, removed, by means of truths and a life according to them, and this alone was what was represented by the washings; for "waters" signify truths, and truths when there is life according to them, purify the man.

[6] That these external things contribute nothing to purification from evils and falsities, is clearly taught by the Lord in Matthew:

Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter that the outside of them may become clean also (Matthew 23:25, 26).

Like things were taught by the Lord when the Jews and Pharisees rebuked His disciples for not washing their hands before eating, for He taught:

That by this a man is not rendered unclean, but by every evil that goeth forth from the heart (Matthew 15:1-2, 19-20; Mark 7:1-23; Luke 11:38, 39).

From this it can be seen that the Jews by their washings were never sanctified and cleansed from their spiritual defilements, which are the evils going forth from the heart, since these evils reside within; and in the world they have nothing in common with the filth that adheres to the body. It is said that "the inside of the cup and platter must be cleansed that the outside may become clean also;" for the outside with man cannot be cleansed until the inside is cleansed, for the outside is cleansed by means of the inside. "The cup and platter" signify the interiors and exteriors of man, which receive truth and good, for the cup is what contains wine, and the platter is what contains food, and "wine" signifies truth, and "food" has a similar signification as "bread," namely, good. This makes clear the signification in the spiritual sense of "cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter, that the outside may become clean also."

[7] What the Lord says here has a similar meaning as His washing the feet of the disciples, respecting which He thus said to Peter, in John:

He that hath bathed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is wholly clean (John 13:10).

"He that hath bathed" signifies one who is inwardly clean; and "needeth not save to wash his feet" signifies that then he must be cleansed outwardly, for "the feet" signify the external or natural man (See above, n. 69). More may be seen respecting this arcanum in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 179, 181; and in Arcana Coelestia, where the following are made clear: For a man to be purified, both the internal or spiritual and the external or natural must be purified, and the external by means of the internal, n. 3868, 3870, 3872, 3876, 3877, 3882. The internal man is purified before the external, because the internal is in the light of heaven, and the external in the light of the world, n. 3321, 3325, 3469, 3493, 4353, 8746, 9325. The external or natural man is purified by the Lord through the internal or spiritual, n. 3286, 3288, 3321. A man is not purified until the external or natural man is also purified, n. 8742-8747, 9043, 9046, 9061, 9325, 9334. If the natural man is not purified the spiritual man is closed up, n. 6299; and in respect to the truths and goods of faith and love, it is as it were blind, n. 3493, 3969). The internal man is purified by knowing, understanding, and thinking the truths of the Word, and the external man by willing and doing them. This makes clear how the Lord's words to Peter must be understood, "He that hath bathed needeth not save to wash his feet;" likewise how the Lord's words to the Pharisees must be understood, "cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter, that the outside may become clean also."

[8] That the internal man is purified by truths which are of faith, and the external by a life according to them, is meant also by these words of the Lord:

Except one be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5).

"Water" signifying the truths of faith, and "spirit" a life according to them.

[9] From this it can now be seen what "washing" signifies in the following passages. In Ezekiel:

I washed thee with waters; yea, I rinsed away thy bloods from upon thee, and I anointed thee with oil (Ezekiel 16:9).

This was said of Jerusalem, by which the church is signified; its purification from falsities and from evils is signified by "I washed thee with waters; yea, I rinsed away thy bloods from upon thee," "to wash with waters" signifying to purify the church by truths, and "to rinse away the bloods" signifying purification from falsities and evils. To imbue the church with the good of love is signified by "I anointed thee with oil," "oil" meaning the good of love.

[10] In Isaiah:

When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have washed away the bloods of Jerusalem out of the midst thereof, in the spirit of judgment, and in the spirit of cleansing (Isaiah 4:4).

"To wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion" signifies to purify the affections of those who are of a celestial church from the evils of love of self, "filth" meaning the evil of the love of self," "daughters" the affection, and "Zion" the church that is in love to the Lord, which is therefore called a celestial church; "to wash away the bloods of Jerusalem" signifies to purify the same affections from the falsities of evil, "bloods" meaning the falsities of evil; "in the spirit of judgment and in the spirit of cleansing" signifies by means of the understanding of truth and the affection of truth, "spirit" meaning the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord, "the spirit of judgment" the understanding of truth therefrom, and "the spirit of cleansing" the spiritual affection of truth, for that is what cleanses.

[11] In Job:

If I shall wash myself in waters of snow, and cleanse my hands with soap, yet wilt thou plunge me into the pit, and mine own garments shall abhor me (Job 9:30, 31).

This means that if one attempts to purify himself by his own efforts, although by means of truths and goods that are or that appear to be genuine, he will yet lead himself into falsities; "to wash oneself" means to purify oneself; "waters of snow" mean truths that are or that appear to be genuine; "soap" means the good from which they come, and "the pit" falsity. That from this come truths falsified is meant by "mine own garments shall abhor me;" "garments" meaning truths, which are said "to abhor one" when they are falsified, and this is done when man from self-intelligence speculates and draws conclusions.

[12] In Moses:

He washed his vesture in wine, and his covering in the blood of grapes (Genesis 49:11).

This is said of Judah, by whom is here meant the Lord in relation to Divine truth; that He altogether purified this in His Human, when He was in the world, is signified by "he washed his vesture in wine, and his covering in the blood of grapes," "vesture" and "covering" signifying His Human, and "wine" and "the blood of grapes" Divine truth. (This may be seen explained in Arcana Coelestia 6377, 6378.)

[13] That "to wash" signifies to purify from falsities and evils is clearly evident in Isaiah:

Wash you, make you pure; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil (Isaiah 1:16).

Because "to wash" signifies to put away falsities and evils, it is added, "put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil."

[14] In Jeremiah:

Wash thine heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall the thoughts of thine iniquity lodge in the midst of thee? (Jeremiah 4:14).

This has a similar signification. In David:

Wash me from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow (Psalms 51:2, 7).

Here "to wash" plainly means to purify from falsities and evils, for it is said, "Wash me from iniquity, and cleanse me from sin," and afterwards, "Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow;" "to wash from iniquity" means from falsities, and "from sin" means from evils, for "iniquity" is predicated of falsities, and "sin" of evils; and because the water of expiation was prepared from hyssop, it is said, "Thou shalt purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. "

[15] In Jeremiah:

Although thou shalt wash thee with niter and take thee ² much soap, thine iniquity shall still retain its spots before Me (Jeremiah 2:22).

Here, too, it is clear that washings only represented and thence signified spiritual washings, which are purifications from falsities and evils, for it is said, "Although thou shalt wash thee with niter, and take thee much soap, thine iniquity shall still retain its spots."

[16] Thus also in David:

In vain have I cleansed my heart, and washed my hands in innocence. All the day have I been plagued, and in the mornings was my reproof (Psalms 73:13, 14).

"To wash the hands in innocence" means to bear witness that one is innocent and pure from evils and falsities; for washing the hands was a testification of innocence; as can be seen also from the fact that:

Pilate washed his hands and said, I am innocent of the blood of this righteous person (Matthew 27:24).

[17] Because "washings" signified purifications from falsities and evils, and "one blind" signified those who do not see truths, and are therefore in falsities:

The Lord told the blind man whose eyes He anointed with clay made with spittle, to wash himself in the pool of Siloam, and when he had washed himself he came seeing (John 9:6, 7, 11, 15).

The "blind man" here represented those who can see nothing of truth because they are sensual, and see only those things that appear before the external senses, from which come fallacies instead of truths, and to the confirmation of these they apply the sense of the letter of the Word; "the clay made of spittle" signifies sensual truth, such as the Word contains for such persons; "the waters of the lake or pool of Siloam" signify the truths of the Word, for all things, even to the waters in Jerusalem were significative; and "to wash" signifies to purify from fallacies, which in themselves are falsities. From this it can be seen what these things signify in series; for all the miracles and works of the Lord when He was in the world signified Divine celestial and Divine spiritual things, that is, such things as pertain to heaven and the church, and this because they were Divine, and the Divine always operates in ultimates from first things, and thus in fullness; ultimates are such as appear before the eyes in the world. This is why the Lord spoke and the Word was written by means of such things in nature as correspond.

[18] It is similar with the miracle performed on Naaman the leper by command of Elisha, which is thus described in the second book of Kings:

Naaman of Syria, being affected with leprosy, was commanded by a messenger from Elisha to wash himself seven times in the Jordan, and his flesh would come again and he would be clean. At length Naaman went down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan; and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little lad, and he was clean (2 Kings 5:10, 14).

"Naaman a leper of Syria" represented and signified those who falsify the knowledges of truth and good from the Word, for "leprosy" signifies falsifications, and "Syria" the knowledges of truth and good. "The waters of Jordan" signified the truths that introduce into the church, which are the knowledges of truth and good from the Word, for the river Jordan was the first boundary across which the land of Canaan was entered, and "the land of Canaan" signified the church; this is why "the waters of Jordan" signified introductory truths, which are the first knowledges of truth and good from the Word. Because of this signification of "the waters of Jordan," Naaman was commanded to wash himself in them seven times, which signified purification from falsified truths; "seven times" signifies fully, and is predicated of things holy, such as truths Divine are. Because "seven times" has this signification, it is said that "his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little lad," the flesh coming again signifying spiritual life, such as those have who are regenerated through Divine truths.

[19] Because "the waters of Jordan" signified the truths that introduce into the church, which are the knowledges of truth and good from the Word, and "washing" therein signified purification from falsities, and consequent reformation and regeneration by the Lord, therefore baptism was instituted, which was first performed in Jordan by John (Matthew 3:11-16; Mark 1:4-13). This rite signified initiation into the knowledges from the Word respecting the Lord, His coming, and salvation by Him; and as man is reformed and regenerated by the Lord by means of truths from the Word, baptism was commanded by the Lord (Matthew 28:19); for it is by means of truths from the Word that man is reformed and regenerated, and it is the Lord who reforms and regenerates. (Respecting this more may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 202-209.)

[20] It was said by John:

That he baptized with water; but that the Lord would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 3:16; John 1:33).

This means that John only inaugurated them into knowledges from the Word respecting the Lord, and thus prepared them to receive Him, but that the Lord Himself regenerates man by means of Divine truth and Divine good proceeding from Him; for John represented the like as Elijah, namely, the Word; "the waters" with which John baptized signified introductory truths, which are knowledges from the Word respecting the Lord; "the Holy Spirit" signifies Divine truth proceeding from the Lord; and "fire" signifies Divine good proceeding from Him; and "baptism" signifies regeneration by the Lord by means of Divine truths from the Word.

[21] Washings were instituted in the ancient churches, and afterwards baptisms in their place, which nevertheless are only representative and significative rites, in order that heaven might be conjoined with the human race, and in particular with the man of the church; for heaven is conjoined to man when man is in ultimates, that is, in such things as are in the world in regard to his natural man, while he is in such things as are in heaven in regard to his spiritual man; in no other way is conjunction possible. This is why baptism was instituted; also the holy supper; likewise why the Word was written by means of such things as are in the world, while there is in it a spiritual sense, containing such things as are in heaven, that is, that the sense of the letter of the Word is natural, while in it there is a spiritual sense. (That by means of this sense the Word conjoins the angels of heaven with the men of the church, may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell 303-310; and in the small work on The White Horse from beginning to end. That the holy supper likewise conjoins, see in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 210-222, and the same is true of baptism.) But he is much mistaken who believes that baptism contributes anything to a man's salvation unless he is at the same time in the truths of the church and in a life according to them; for baptism is an external thing, which without an internal contributes nothing to salvation, but it does contribute when the external is conjoined to an internal. The internal of baptism is, that by means of truths from the Word and a life according to them, falsities and evils may be removed by the Lord, and thus man be regenerated, as the Lord teaches (Matthew 23:26, 27), as explained above in this article.

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