874. This scene depicts the first stage of regeneration following trial for the people of this church, a stage common to everyone who is being reborn: we imagine that we are doing good deeds and thinking true thoughts under our own power. Because we still cannot see clearly at all, the Lord lets us think this way.

Still, none of the good we do and none of the truth we contemplate while holding this opinion (a mistaken one) is the kind of goodness or truth that makes a part of faith. Nothing that we produce from ourselves can be good, because it is from ourselves — an impure and very unclean source. From an impure and unclean source nothing good can spring, because we are always thinking about how deserving and righteous we are. Some people, as the Lord teaches in Luke 18:9-14, go further and despise others in comparison with themselves. Others do other things just as bad. Self-centered desires add themselves to the mixture, making the exterior look good, although the interior is filthy.

As a consequence, the good that we do at this stage is not the good that belongs to faith. It is the same with the truth that we think. Even if the idea we adopt is absolutely true and is in itself a valid religious concept, nonetheless as long as we adopt it for selfish reasons, it has no religious good within it. Any truth, in order to be theologically true, has to have the good of faith from the Lord within it. That is when it first becomes good and true.

2198. 'Abraham and Sarah were old' means that the human with the Lord was to be cast off. This is clear from the representation of 'Abraham and Sarah', and also from the meaning of 'old' or old age. 'Abraham' here represents the Lord as regards rational good, while 'Sarah' represents the Lord as regards rational truth, as stated above in various places in this chapter. Thus each here represents the human with the Lord, the reason being, as stated above, that Jehovah was now present and spoke to Abraham. And Jehovah was the Lord's Divine itself, not separate from Him even though it presents itself in representative historical events as separate; for by means of historical events it cannot be represented in any other way. But when it is said that Abraham and Sarah were old the meaning is that that human was to be cast off. 'Old age' does not imply anything other than a final period. In the Word reference is made in various places to 'old age' and to the fact that people 'died'. But neither old age nor death of the body is ever perceived in the internal sense, but something other than these which is evident from the whole sequence of thought; for those in the next life do not know what old age is or what death is. What is meant here is evident, as has been said, from the whole train of thought, which is that the Lord was to cast off the human.