1608. The symbolism of and to your seed forever as the people who would believe in him can be seen from the symbolism of seed as faith, specifically the faith that comes of charity, as discussed earlier, in §§255, 256, 1025.
The Lord's own words in John make it plain that it was his seed — people believing in him — who would be given the kingdom of heaven:
The Father loves the Son and has given everything into his hand. Those who believe in the Son have eternal life; but those who do not believe in the Son will not see life. (John 3:35-36)
[2] And in the same author:
As many as did accept him, to them he gave the power to be God's children, to those believing in his name, not from blood or from the flesh's will or from a man's will. (John 1:12-13)
These words show what faith is, or belief in the Lord: it exists in people who accept and believe in him not because of the flesh's will or because of a man's will. The will of the flesh means something opposite to love and charity, since flesh symbolizes such an opposite (§999); and a man's will means something opposite to the faith that comes of love or charity, which is what a man symbolizes. The flesh's will and a man's will are what divide, but love and the faith that comes of love are what unite. So people who have love and the faith that comes of love are the ones born of God, 1 and because they are born of God, they are called God's children. They are also his seed who will inherit the kingdom of heaven, as symbolized by the words of the present verse: "All the land that you see I will give to you and to your seed forever."
[3] Anyone willing simply to think about it is capable of seeing that the kingdom of heaven cannot be given to people whose faith is devoid of charity, that is, people who say they have faith and yet hate their neighbor. This kind of faith cannot have any life in it, since hatred — hell, in other words — constitutes its life. Hell consists of pure hatred — not the kinds of hatred that we inherit, but the kinds that we secure for ourselves by the way we actually live.
Footnotes:
1. In referring to "people who are born of God," Swedenborg is quoting a part of John 1:12-13 that was actually omitted from the condensed quotation just above in the text. The full passage, with the omitted portion emphasized, reads as follows: "As many as did accept him, to them he gave the power to be God's children, to those believing in his name, who had their birth not from blood or from the flesh's will or from a man's will but from God." [LHC]
