577. The symbolism of twelve as faith, or as the properties of love and so of faith taken as a whole, can also be demonstrated by many phenomena in the Word: the twelve sons of Jacob and their names, the twelve tribes of Israel, and the Lord's twelve disciples. But these will be covered later [§§3858, 3913:1], by the Lord's divine mercy, especially in chapters 29, 30 of Genesis.

3913. She said, “Look—my maid, Bilhah,” symbolizes an affirmative middle ground between earthly truth and inner truth, as can be seen from the following: A maid or female slave symbolizes a desire for the knowledge suited to the outer self, as discussed in §§1895, 2567, 3835, 3849. This desire is a middle ground uniting inner truth with earthly, outer truth, so the maid symbolizes an affirmative middle ground between them. And Bilhah represents the nature of the middle ground.

On an inner level, the slaves that Rachel and Leah gave to Jacob for his women, to produce offspring, simply represent and symbolize something that serves—in this case, something that serves as a means of union, specifically between inner and outer truth. Rachel represents inner truth, and Leah, outer (§§3793, 3819).

Here where the text speaks of Jacob’s twelve sons, it is dealing with the twelve main, key methods by which we are introduced to spiritual and heavenly values when being reborn, or becoming a church. When we are reborn, or become a church, when from being dead we come alive, or from being body-oriented we become heavenly, the Lord leads us through many phases. The general phases are designated by these twelve sons and later by the twelve tribes, so the twelve tribes symbolize everything involved in faith and love (see what was shown in §3858). After all, general categories embrace all the subcategories and individual details, which relate back to the categories.

[2] When we are being reborn, our inner self needs to unite with our outer self, so the goodness and truth of our inner self need to unite with the goodness and truth of our outer self (since it is truth and goodness that make us who we are). These things cannot unite without a middle ground. By its very nature the middle ground draws partly on one side and partly on the other and causes one side to wane as the other waxes in our minds. This middle ground is what the slaves symbolize. Rachel’s slaves symbolize middle ground verging toward the inner self, and Leah’s slaves, middle ground verging toward the outer self.

[3] Clearly there has to be a means of union, when you consider that the earthly self on its own does not harmonize at all with the spiritual self and in fact clashes with it so strongly as to oppose it altogether. Our earthly self loves and focuses on personal and worldly advantages, but our spiritual self does not regard them except so far as doing so helps promote something useful in the spiritual world. So our spiritual self focuses on the services that personal and worldly advantages can perform and loves them for their usefulness and ultimate purpose.

Our earthly self sees itself as coming to life when it attains high rank and superiority over others, but our spiritual self sees itself as coming to life when it is humble and unimportant. It does not spurn lofty positions so long as they can serve as a means of benefiting our neighbor, society as a whole, and the church. This self considers the station to which we rise not in terms of our own advantage but in terms of the useful activities we look to as our goal.

Our earthly self feels blessed when we are richer than others and possess worldly wealth, but our spiritual self feels blessed when we have lots of knowledge about truth and goodness (which is wealth to the spiritual self), and especially when we do the good that truth teaches. This self does not spurn riches, because they allow us to do good in the world.

[4] These brief remarks show that the states of the earthly and spiritual selves are mutually hostile in their aims. They can still unite, however, when the demands of the outer self are subordinate to the goals of the inner self and serve those goals. If we are to become spiritual, then, everything in our outer self has to be reduced to obedience. We have to shed goals that look to ourselves and the world and clothe ourselves in goals that look to our neighbor and the Lord’s kingdom. But we can never shed the former and put on the latter, we can never join the two together, except through what is intermediate. These intermediaries are symbolized by the slaves, and specifically by the four sons born to them.

[5] The first intermediary is an affirmation of inner truth that says, “Yes, it’s true.” When we affirm this, we come to the threshold of rebirth. Something good is at work inside us causing us to make the affirmation. Before that affirmation, goodness cannot flow into our negative attitude or even into our doubt. After it, the goodness reveals itself in our emotions, when we find ourselves moved by the truth, or starting to delight in it—at first for the pleasure of knowing it but later for the pleasure of acting on it. For instance, take the idea that the Lord is the salvation of the human race. The lessons we learn about the Lord from the Word or in church reside among the facts in our earthly memory. Unless we affirm that the Lord is our salvation, none of these lessons can be internalized by our inner self; none of them can be united to anything that could form part of our inner faith. So a desire for that truth also fails to move us. It cannot even touch our general thinking on this subject, which is so important to our salvation. When we affirm the idea, on the other hand, countless new thoughts crowd in and fill up with inflowing goodness. Goodness constantly flows in from the Lord, but where affirmation is lacking, it is not received.

Affirmation, then, is the first middle ground and the first dwelling place for the goodness that flows in from the Lord.

The case is the same with all other concepts said to belong to faith.