1023. The symbolism of And I — yes, I — am setting up my pact as the presence of the Lord in charity can be seen from the symbolism of a pact, given in §§ [665,] 666. That section showed that a pact symbolizes rebirth, and more especially the Lord's close connection with a regenerate person through love. It also showed that the heavenly marriage is the most genuine compact, and in consequence that the heavenly marriage inside everyone who has regenerated is such a covenant too.

The nature of this marriage — this covenant — has also been shown before [§§155, 162, 252].

[2] For the people of the earliest church, the heavenly marriage existed within the sensation that they had their own power of will. For the people of the ancient church, however, the heavenly marriage developed within the sensation that their power of understanding was their own. When the human race's willpower had become thoroughly corrupt, you see, the Lord split our intellectual sense of self off from that corrupted voluntary sense of self in a miraculous way. Within our intellectual selfhood he formed a new will, which is conscience, and into conscience he injected charity, and into charity innocence. In this way he joined himself to us or, to put it another way, entered into a compact with us.

[3] To the extent that our self-will can be detached from this sense of intellectual autonomy, the Lord can be present with us, or bind himself to us, or enter into a pact with us.

Times of trial and other similar means of regeneration suppress our self-will to the point where it seems to disappear and almost die out. To the extent that this happens, the Lord can work through the conscience implanted in charity within our intellectual selfhood. This, then, is what is being called a pact in the present verse.

252. The meaning of the woman as the church can be seen from the heavenly marriage described above in §155. The heavenly marriage is a relationship in which heaven (and so the church) is united to the Lord through its sense of self. In fact heaven and the church are to be found in the feeling of independent existence, because without it there could never be union. When the Lord in his mercy infuses our selfhood with innocence, peace, and goodness, it still seems to be our own, but it becomes heavenly and full of the greatest blessings, as you may see above at §164.

I cannot yet say, though, what a heavenly, angelic identity received from the Lord is like, nor a hellish, diabolical identity generated by ourselves. ¹ The difference between them is like the difference between heaven and hell.

Footnotes:

3812. Laban said to him, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh!” means that they were united in regard to truth and goodness. This can be seen from the symbolism of you are my bone and my flesh as union. It was standard for the ancients to speak of people in the same household or clan or in some relationship with them as “my bone and my flesh” (see §157). That is why these words symbolize union.

The union extended to both truth and goodness because all spiritual union depends on them, and all earthly union relates to them. In addition, bone and flesh symbolize human autonomy—bone, autonomy of intellect, and flesh, autonomy of will. So bone symbolizes autonomy in regard to truth, truth being a matter of the intellect, while flesh symbolizes autonomy in regard to goodness, goodness being a matter of the will (see §§148, 149).

[2] Regarding autonomy in general, there are two kinds. One is hellish; the other, heavenly. We receive the hellish kind from hell and the heavenly kind from heaven, or rather through heaven from the Lord. All evil and consequent falsity flows in from hell, but all goodness and consequent truth, from the Lord.

People know this because faith teaches it, but scarcely one in a million believes it, which explains why people adopt the evil that flows into them from hell, or make it their own. It also explains why the goodness that comes from the Lord does not move them and is therefore not credited to them.

The reason we do not believe that evil flows in from hell and goodness from the Lord is that we love ourselves. Self-love carries this disbelief with it—so much so that we become outraged when told that everything comes to us from elsewhere. The result is that our whole sense of self is pure evil; see §§210, 215, 694, 731, 874, 875, 876, 987, 1023, 1044, 1047. If we do believe that evil comes from hell and goodness from the Lord, it is because we love our neighbor and the Lord rather than ourselves. This love carries such a belief with it, enabling us to receive a heavenly sense of self from the Lord. Heavenly autonomy is discussed in §§155, 164, 731, 1023, 1044, 1937, 1947, 2882, 2883, 2891.

[3] Bone and flesh symbolize autonomy in both senses. Accordingly, bones in the Word symbolize truth, and in a negative sense, falsity. Flesh symbolizes goodness, and in a negative sense, evil. This symbolism of bones can be seen from the following passages. In Isaiah:

Jehovah will guide you always and satisfy your soul in the barrens and make your bones ready so that you may be like a well-watered garden. (Isaiah 58:11)

Making someone’s bones ready stands for bringing a person’s intellectual autonomy to life, or shedding the light of understanding in a person’s mind. That is why the verse says, “So that you may be like a well-watered garden”—a garden meaning understanding (see §§100, 108, 1588). In the same author:

Then you will see, and your heart will rejoice, and your bones will sprout like grass. (Isaiah 66:14)

Bones sprouting like grass have a similar meaning.

[4] In Jeremiah:

The Nazirites were whiter than snow; they were whiter than milk. Their bones were redder than jewels; their polish was sapphire. Darker than black was their form; they are not recognized on the streets. Their skin clung to their bone; it dried out; it became like wood. (Lamentations 4:7, 8)

A Nazirite stands for a heavenly person (§3301). Being whiter than snow and whiter than milk stands for knowing heavenly truth. Heavenly truth develops out of a love for what is good, so the passage says that their bones were redder than jewels.

White is mentioned in connection with truth (3301); red, in connection with goodness (3300); and jewels, in connection with truth that develops out of goodness (114). “Their skin clung to their bone” depicts a change in regard to the heavenly qualities of love that leaves bone without flesh, or without goodness anymore. Under those conditions, all truth is like skin that clings to bone, dries out, and becomes like wood.

[5] In Ezekiel:

Utter a parable against the house of rebellion and say to them, “This is what the Lord Jehovih has said: ‘Put the pot on, put it on, and also pour water into it, gathering its pieces into it, every good piece, thigh and shoulder. With the choice of the bones fill it, taking the choice of the flock; and a burning-pile of bones should also go under it. And let them cook the bones within it.’” (Ezekiel 24:3, 4, 5, 10)

The pot stands for violence inflicted on goodness and truth, for which reason verse 6 of the same chapter calls the pot a blood-soaked city. The pieces and the good piece, thigh and shoulder, gathered into the pot, are pieces of flesh, which mean different kinds of goodness. The choice of the bones with which the pot was filled stands for truth. The burning-pile of bones stands for a desire for truth. “Let them cook the bones within it” stands for violence inflicted on truth. Anyone can see that this parable hides a secret, divine meaning, and that the meaning can never be known until one knows the inner-level symbolism of the pot, the pieces, thigh and shoulder, the choice of the bones, the burning-pile of bones, and the cooking. In Micah:

Is it not your part to know judgment?—you who hate goodness and love evil, who strip people’s skin off them, and their flesh off their bones, who have eaten the flesh of my people and torn their skin off them and splintered their bones and split them up as into a pot and as flesh into the midst of a cauldron. (Micah 3:[1,] 2, 3)

The meaning is similar.

[6] In Ezekiel:

He brought me out in the spirit of Jehovah and put me in the middle of the valley, which was full of bones. He said to me, “Will these bones live?” He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of Jehovah. This is what the Lord Jehovih has said to these bones: “See? I am bringing breath into you so that you may live. I will put tendons on you and bring flesh up over you and draw skin over you and put breath in you so that you may live.”’”

I prophesied, and the bones assembled, bone to its bone. I looked, when there!—tendons on them; and flesh came up and skin was drawn over them on top, and there was no breath in them. And breath came into them and they came back to life and stood on their feet. (Ezekiel 37:1 and following verses)

The general subject of this passage is the establishment of religion among people outside the church; the specific subject is an individual’s rebirth. Dry bones stand for intellectual autonomy, which is lifeless until it receives from the Lord the life force belonging to goodness; this life animates it, or brings it to life. The flesh the Lord brings up over the bones is autonomy of will, which is called heavenly autonomy and therefore consists of goodness. Breath is the Lord’s life. When this life flows into the goodness that we seem to will and do on our own, the goodness comes alive and brings truth to life, and out of dry bones a human being is formed.

[7] In David:

All my bones have come apart; my heart has become like wax; I can count all my bones. They divided my garments for themselves, and over my clothing they cast lots. (Psalms 22:14, 17, 18)

This is about the Lord’s trials in regard both to divine truth, which belonged to him and is therefore called “my bones,” and to divine goodness, which belonged to him and is therefore called “my heart.” A heart means goodness (see §§3313, 3635). Bones symbolize divine truth, and counting them means wanting to dispel that truth through sophistry and distortion. As a consequence the text immediately adds that they divided his garments and cast lots over his clothing, since clothes also mean truth, but outer truth (§§297, 1073, 2576). Dividing his garments and casting lots over his clothing involves much the same meaning, as it also does in Matthew 27:35. In the same author:

My soul rejoices in Jehovah; it is glad in his salvation. Let all my bones say, “Who is like you?” (Psalms 35:9, 10)

The bones clearly have the spiritual meaning of a person’s own intellect. In the same author:

You will make me hear joy and gladness; the bones you crushed will rejoice. (Psalms 51:8)

“The bones you crushed will rejoice” stands for being renewed by truth after we have been tested.

[8] Since a bone symbolized one’s own proper intellect, or autonomy in regard to truth—and in the highest sense divine truth proper to the Lord—one of the statutes for Passover required the people not to break a bone of the Passover lamb. Moses says this about it:

In a single house it shall be eaten; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and not a bone shall you break in it. (Exodus 12:46)

And in another place:

They shall not leave any of it till morning, and not a bone of it shall they break. (Numbers 9:12)

In the highest sense, not breaking a bone stands for not violating divine truth. In a representative sense it stands for not violating the truth belonging to any type of goodness, because truth gives goodness its quality and provides it with a form. It also is a framework for goodness, just as bones are a framework for flesh.

The Word, which consists in truth that is genuinely divine, brings the dead to life, and this was represented by the man in 2 Kings 13:21 who was thrown into Elisha’s grave, touched his bones, came back to life, and got up on his feet. Elisha represented the Lord in regard to divine truth, or the Lord as the Word; see §2762.

The negative symbolism of bones as the falsity produced by human autonomy is evident in the following places. In Jeremiah:

At that time they will bring out the bones of Judah’s monarchs and the bones of its chieftains and the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets and the bones of Jerusalem’s residents from their graves and spread them out before the sun and the moon and the whole army of the heavens, [bones] that they loved and that they served. (Jeremiah 8:1, 2)

In Ezekiel:

I will put the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols and scatter your bones around your altars. (Ezekiel 6:5)

In Moses:

God, who brought them out of Egypt (he has strength like that of a unicorn), will consume the nations, his foes; and their bones he will break and their arrows he will crush. (Numbers 24:8)

In 2 Kings:

King Josiah shattered the pillars and cut down the groves and filled their place with human bones. He took the bones out of the graves and burned them on the altar to defile it. All the priests of the high places who were there he sacrificed on the altars, and human bones he burned on them. (2 Kings 23:14, 16, 20)

In Moses:

The soul who has [gone] on the open field [and] touched one stabbed by a sword, or a dead body, or a human bone, or a grave will be unclean seven days. (Numbers 19:16, 18)

Bones symbolize falsity, and graves symbolize the evil containing that falsity. Hypocrites have a kind of evil that looks good on the outside but is polluted within by falsity and profanation, which is why the Lord says this in Matthew:

Doom to you, scribes and Pharisees—hypocrites! Because you make yourselves like whitewashed tombs that do look beautiful outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of uncleanness. Likewise, yes, on the outside you also look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 23:27, 28)

These quotations now show that bones symbolize a person’s own proper intellect in regard to both truth and falsity.