71. Conjugial love makes man be love

Man is created to be love and consequently wisdom, since the Lord is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom. It is by creation that man is an image and likeness of the Lord,Genesis 1:26-27; and this could not happen without true conjugial love. By this man's all can be turned into love, for in marriage either may love from the heart the body too, and thus dispose the soul and consequently everything to the form of love. This is not otherwise possible; the inmost and the outermost there make one and bring about that form, which is the form of heaven.

5629. 'Grant you mercy before the man' means so that spiritual truth may accept you favourably. This is clear from the meaning of 'granting mercy' as accepting favourably, and from the representation of Joseph, when he is called 'the man', as spiritual truth, as above in 5627.