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.

666. The fact that a pact means nothing else than rebirth with all it entails can be seen from numerous passages in the Word that call the Lord himself a covenant [or pact]. The term is applied to him because he is the only one to regenerate us and the only one to whom the reborn individual looks. He is also the all-in-all of love and faith.

The fact that the Lord is the pact itself can be seen in Isaiah:

I, Jehovah, have called you in justice and am holding your hand and guarding you; and I will give you as a pact with the people, as a light for the nations. (Isaiah 42:6)

The pact stands for the Lord, while the light for the nations means faith. Isaiah 49:6, 8 has a similar message. In Malachi:

Watch: I am sending my angel, and suddenly to his Temple will come the Lord, whom you are seeking, and the angel of the covenant, whom you desire. Watch: He is coming! Who can endure the day of his coming? (Malachi 3:1-2)

In this passage the Lord is called the angel of the covenant. The Sabbath is referred to as an eternal pact in Exodus 31:16 because it symbolizes the Lord. It also symbolizes us when he has regenerated us to the point of being heavenly.

[2] As the Lord is the pact itself, we can conclude that everything binding us to the Lord is part of the contract. Love and faith, then, are part of it, as is everything that comes of love and faith. These things are the Lord's, and the Lord is in them. Consequently the covenant itself is in those things wherever they are received. And they are not received except in one who has been reborn. Everything in a person reborn that belongs to the Regenerator — the Lord — is part of the compact or, in other words, is the compact. In Isaiah, for example:

My mercy will not withdraw from you, and the compact of my peace will not recede. (Isaiah 54:10)

The mercy and the compact of peace are the Lord and everything that is his. In the same author:

Bend your ear and come to me; listen and let your soul live, and I will strike with you an eternal pact — the reliable mercies [that I showed] to David. Here, now, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and lawgiver for the nations. (Isaiah 55:3-4)

David stands for the Lord. The eternal pact consists in attributes of the Lord's and is fulfilled by means of them. These are the things meant by going to him and listening so that our souls may live.

[3] In Jeremiah:

I will give them one heart and one way, to fear me every day, with good result to them and to their children after them. And I will strike an eternal pact with them, [pledging] that I will not turn away from doing good to them; and fear of me I will put into their heart. (Jeremiah 32:39-40)

These words stand for people who are being reborn. They stand also for qualities in the person who has been reborn, those qualities being the one heart and one way. One heart and one way in turn are charity and faith, which are the Lord's and so are part of the compact. In the same author:

"Look! The days are coming," says Jehovah, "when I will strike a new pact with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah unlike the pact that I struck with their ancestors, because they nullified my pact. But this is the pact that I will strike with the house of Israel after these days: I will put my law in the midst of them, and upon their heart I will write it, and I will become their God, and they will become my people." (Jeremiah 31:31-32, 33)

This explains openly what a covenant is: love for the Lord and faith in him as adopted by one who is regenerating.

[4] The same author calls love a compact with the day and faith a compact with the night (Jeremiah 33:20). In Ezekiel:

I, Jehovah, will become their God, and my servant David will be chief in their midst. And I will strike a pact of peace with them and bring an end on the earth to the evil wild animal; and they will live securely in the wilderness and sleep in forests. (Ezekiel 34:24-25)

This is obviously about regeneration. David stands for the Lord. In the same author:

David will be chief over them forever. I will strike a pact of peace with them; it will be an eternal pact with them. I will put my sanctuary in their midst forever. (Ezekiel 37:25-26)

Again this is about rebirth. David and the sanctuary stand for the Lord. In the same author:

I entered into a pact with you, and you were mine; and I washed you with water and cleaned your blood off you and anointed you with oil. (Ezekiel 16:8-9, 11)

Plainly this is about rebirth. In Hosea:

I will strike a pact with them on that day — with the wild animal of the field, and with the bird in the heavens and the creeping animal of the earth. (Hosea 2:18)

This stands for regeneration. The wild animal of the field stands for what the will holds, the bird in the heavens for what the intellect holds. In David:

He has sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. (Psalms 111:9)

This stands for rebirth. It is called a covenant or contract because it is given and received.

[5] There are some, however, who do not regenerate. To put it another way, there are some who consider the outward show of worship to be worship, and who value and revere themselves, their own wishes, and their own thoughts as gods. Because they alienate themselves from the Lord, they are portrayed as nullifying the compact. In Jeremiah, for instance:

They abandoned the compact of Jehovah their God and bowed down to other gods and served them. (Jeremiah 22:9)

In Moses:

Whoever goes against the compact by serving other gods — the sun, the moon, the whole army of the heavens — will be stoned. (Deuteronomy 17:2 and following verses)

The sun stands for self-love, the moon for assumptions based on falsities, and the army of the heavens for the falsities themselves.

All of this now indicates that the ark of the covenant, containing the testimony (or covenant), was the Lord himself; that the book of the covenant was the Lord himself (Exodus 24:4, 7; 34:4, 5, 6, 7, 27; ¹ Deuteronomy 4:13, 23); and that the blood of the covenant was the Lord himself (Exodus 24:6, 8). The Lord alone is the Regenerator, so the covenant is regeneration itself.

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