1016. The fact that pour out into the earth and multiply on it symbolizes increasing goodness and truth in our outer self, which is the earth, and that pouring out has to do with goodness, and multiplying with truth, can be seen from the remarks just above. It can also be seen from the symbolism of the earth as the outer self. For these meanings, see the statements and illustrations at verse 1 of the present chapter, in §983. ¹

[2] The reason the text speaks of pouring out into the earth and consequently multiplying on it is this: In the outer self of a regenerate person, nothing multiplies — nothing good or true increases — if charity does not have an effect on it. Charity is like springtime or summertime warmth, which makes grain, grasses, and trees grow. Without charity, or spiritual warmth, nothing grows. That is why the current verse says "pour out into the earth" first. This clause has to do with goodness, which is a matter of charity and which causes goodness and truth to multiply.

Anyone can grasp what the situation is here: nothing inside us grows or multiplies without some kind of affection [or desire]. The pleasure afforded by affection makes things not only put down root but also grow. Everything proceeds in accord with affection's influence.

[3] What we love we willingly seize, hold on to, and keep. Anything that supports our desires we likewise seize, hold on to, and keep. If something fails to support our desires, we have no interest in it; we discount and in fact reject it.

The kind of affection we have, however, determines how things multiply in us. When we have been reborn, our affection for goodness and truth develops out of an impulse for charity granted by the Lord. So any argument supporting a charitable affection is something we seize, hold on to, and protect, and we use it to strengthen the goodness and truth inside us. This is what "pour out into the earth and multiply" means.

Footnotes:

82. Genesis 2:1. And the heavens and the earth were completed, and their whole army.

This means that we are now spiritual — so much so that we have become "the sixth day." Heaven is our inner and the earth our outer being. Their army is love and faith, and knowledge about love and faith. These things were symbolized earlier by the great lights and the stars.

Scriptural passages quoted in the preceding chapter demonstrate that the inner being is called heaven and the outer being is called earth. ¹ Let me add another from Isaiah:

I will render a man more rare than solid gold, and a human being [more rare] than the precious gold of Ophir. ² Therefore I will strike the heavens with terror, and the earth will quake out of its place. (Isaiah 13:12-13)

And another:

You will forget Jehovah your maker, who stretches out the heavens and founds the earth. But I will put my words in your mouth, and in the shadow of my hand I will hide you, to stretch out heaven and found the earth. (Isaiah 51:13, 16)

All of this makes it clear that both heaven and earth refer to humankind.

Although the earliest church forms the subject here, the Word in its inner depths is such that whatever it says about the church applies also to every individual in the church. If we were not each a church, we could not be part of the church. Likewise, anyone who is not a temple to the Lord cannot be what the Temple symbolizes: a church and a heaven.

This is why the earliest church is referred to as a human being in the singular.

Footnotes: