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Arcana Coelestia #9371

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9371. THE INTERNAL SENSE.

Verses 1-2. And He said unto Moses, Come up unto Jehovah, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and bow yourselves afar off; and Moses, he alone, shall come near unto Jehovah; and they shall not come near; and the people shall not come up with him. “And He said unto Moses,” signifies that which concerns the Word in general; “come up unto Jehovah,” signifies conjunction with the Lord; “thou and Aaron,” signifies the Word in the internal sense and the external sense; “Nadab and Abihu,” signifies doctrine from both senses; “and seventy of the elders of Israel,” signifies the chief truths of the church which are of the Word, or of doctrine, and which agree with good; “and bow yourselves afar off,” signifies humiliation and adoration from the heart, and then the influx of the Lord; “and Moses, he alone, shall come near unto Jehovah,” signifies the conjunction and presence of the Lord through the Word in general; “and they shall not come near,” signifies no separate conjunction and presence; “and the people shall not come up with him,” signifies no conjunction whatever with the external apart from the internal.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.

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True Christian Religion #780

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780. In order that the Lord could be constantly present with me, He has revealed to me the spiritual sense of His Word, in which Divine truth is illuminated by its own light, and in this He is continually present. For it is through the spiritual sense and in no other way that He is present in the Word. His presence passes through the light shed by the spiritual sense into the shadow which covers the literal sense. This may be compared with the sun's light in daytime obscured by an intervening cloud. I proved above that the literal sense of the Word is like a cloud, and its spiritual sense is the glory, and the Lord Himself is the sun which gives light, so that the Lord is the Word. It is clear from the following passages that the glory in which the Lord is to come (Matthew 24:30) means Divine truth in its own light, which contains the spiritual sense of the Word:

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way for Jehovah. The glory of Jehovah will be revealed, and all flesh will see it, Isaiah 40:3, 5.

Shine, for your light has come and the glory of Jehovah has risen upon you, Isaiah 60:1-end.

I shall make you to be a covenant for the people, a light for the nations; and my glory I shall not give to another, Isaiah 42:6, 8; 48:11.

Your light will burst forth like the dawn, the glory of Jehovah will gather you up, Isaiah 58:8.

The whole earth will be filled with the glory of Jehovah, Numbers 14:21; Isaiah 6:1-3; 66:18.

In the beginning was the Word. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. He was the true light. And the Word was made flesh, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, John 1:1, 4, 9, 14.

The heavens will tell the glory of God, Psalms 19:1.

The Glory of God will give light to the Holy Jerusalem, and the Lamb will be its lantern; and the nations who are saved will walk in its 1 light, Revelation 21:23-24.

There are many other similar passages. The reason why glory means Divine truth in its fulness is that everything magnificent in heaven is so because of the light, which is radiated from the Lord. And the light radiating from Him as the sun of heaven is in its essence Divine truth.

Footnotes:

1. The Latin says 'in His light', but the Greek has 'in its light' and this version is followed in 790 and at Apocalypse Revealed 920.

  
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Arcana Coelestia #3128

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3128. And told her mother’s house according to these words. That this signifies toward natural good of every kind whithersoever enlightenment could reach, is evident from the signification of the “mother’s house,” as being the good of the external man, that is, natural good. (That a “house” denotes good may be seen above, n. 2233, 2234, 2559; also that man’s external or natural is from the mother, but the internal from the father, n. 1815.) The good with man is compared in the Word to a “house,” and on this account a man who is in good is called a “house of God;” but internal good is called the “father’s house,” and the good that is in the same degree is called the “house of the brethren;” but external good, which is the same as natural good, is called the “mother’s house.” Moreover all good and truth are born in this manner, namely, by the influx of internal good as of a father into external good as of a mother.

[2] As this verse treats of the origin of the truth which is to be conjoined with good in the rational, it is therefore said that Rebekah (by whom this truth is represented) ran to the house of her mother, for that was the origin of this truth. For as before said and shown, all good flows in by an internal way (that is, by the way of the soul) into man’s rational, and through this into his faculty of knowing, even into that which is of the senses; and by enlightenment there it causes truths to be seen. Truths are called forth thence, and are divested of their natural form, and are conjoined with good in the midway, that is, in the rational, and at the same time they make the man rational, and at last spiritual. But how these things are accomplished is utterly unknown to man; because at this day it is scarcely known what good is, and that it is distinct from truth; still less that man is reformed by means of the influx of good into truth, and by the conjunction of the two; neither is it known that the rational is distinct from the natural. And when these things, which are most general, are not known, it cannot possibly be known how the initiation of truth into good, and the conjunction of the two, is effected-which are the subjects treated of in this chapter in its internal sense. But whereas these arcana have been revealed, and are manifest to those who are in good, that is, who are angelic minds, therefore however obscure they may appear to others, they nevertheless are to be set forth, because they are in the internal sense.

[3] Concerning the enlightenment from good through truth in the natural man, which is here called the “mother’s house,” the case is this: Divine good with man inflows into his rational, and through the rational into his natural, and indeed into its memory-knowledges, that is, into the knowledges and doctrinal things therein, as before said; and there by a fitting of itself in, it forms truths for itself, through which it then enlightens all things that are in the natural man. But if the life of the natural man is such that it does not receive the Divine good, but either repels it, or perverts it, or suffocates it, then the Divine good cannot be fitted in, thus it cannot form for itself truths; and consequently the natural can no longer be enlightened; for enlightenment in the natural man is effected from good through truths; and when there is no longer enlightenment, there can be no reformation. This is the reason why in the internal sense the natural man also is much treated of in regard to its quality; thus whence truth is, namely, that it is from good there.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.