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Secrets of Heaven #149

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149. The Word also uses bones as a symbol for a person's sense of self and specifically for a sense of self brought to life by the Lord. In Isaiah:

Jehovah will satisfy your soul in the barrens, and he will make your bones ready; and you will be like a well-watered garden. (Isaiah 58:11)

In the same author:

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

In David:

All my bones will say, "Jehovah, who is like you?" (Psalms 35:10)

This appears still more clearly in Ezekiel, where it talks about bones that will take on flesh and have breath enter them:

The hand of Jehovah put me in the middle of the valley, and the valley was full of bones. And he said to me, "Prophesy over those bones, and you are to 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, and you will live. And I will put tendons on you and bring flesh up over you and draw skin over you and put breath in you, and you will live. And you will know that I am Jehovah."'" (Ezekiel 37:1, 4, 5, 6)

[2] Human selfhood, viewed from heaven, looks completely bony, lifeless, and hideous — inherently dead. But once the Lord gives it life, it appears to have flesh. Human selfhood is in fact nothing more than a dead trifle, even though it seems to its owner to be significant and indeed all-important. Anything living in us comes from the Lord's life. If his life withdrew from us, we would fall dead as a stone. We are merely organs designed to receive life, but the nature of the organ that we are determines how we respond to that life.

Only the Lord has autonomy. By his own power he redeems us and by his own power he saves us. This autonomy or selfhood of his is life, and it causes our selfhood, which is inherently dead, to come alive. The Lord's words in Luke symbolize his selfhood:

A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. (Luke 24:39-40)

Another sign was the fact that not a bone of the Passover lamb was to be broken (Exodus 12:46). 1

Footnotes:

1. Passover is a celebration of Israelite deliverance from Egypt as described in Exodus 12. It included the sacrifice of an unblemished lamb. [LHC]

  
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Many thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation and its New Century Edition team.

The Bible

 

Isaiah 58

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1 Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.

2 Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.

3 Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.

4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.

5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?

6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy reward.

9 Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;

10 And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:

11 And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

12 And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:

14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

   

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