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.

6405. 'A troop will ravage him' means that works performed without judgement will dislodge him from a state of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'a troop' as works, dealt with in 3934, here works performed without judgement, for those who perform works that are motivated by truth but not as yet by good have a darkened understanding, whereas those whose works are motivated by good have an enlightened understanding because that good gives it light (the light of truth from the Lord flows by way of good into the understanding part of the mind, then on into truth, but not directly into truth, much as sunlight flows by means of heat into members of the vegetable kingdom - such as trees, young plants, and flowers - and causes them to grow and blossom; the direct inflow of sunlight does not cause them to do so, for when light flows in without heat, as in wintertime, nothing grows or blossoms); and from the meaning of 'ravaging him' as dislodging him from a state of truth.

[2] But one must state who exactly those people are who are meant here by 'Gad'. They are those who suffer delusions regarding what is true and yet are led by their deluded view of it to perform works, so that these are not works of truth, much less of good. Through those works they are dislodged from a state of truth, for as soon as the person guided by truth but not as yet by good is moved on religious grounds to put some idea into practice, he then defends that idea as though it were the absolute truth. He sticks to it and does not allow it to be altered except insofar as he moves on into good. For by putting the idea into practice he becomes engrossed in it and enamoured with it. In this way works dislodge him from a state of truth. But quite apart from all this, he believes things to be true which are not so; for these people too, like those meant by 'Dan', judge a thing from their senses, thus without judgement. Let some examples shed light on the matter. Take a person who has the idea that one person is his neighbour in exactly the same way as any other and who for that reason does what is good in exactly the same way to the evil as to the good, and by doing good to the evil, he does harm to others. After he has put the idea into practice several times he then defends it, saying that everyone is his neighbour, and that he is not concerned with what a person is like, only with doing good to him. Thus his works are performed without judgement, and he also acts in ways contrary to the real truth, for the real truth is that all are one's neighbour but each is so in a different degree, and that those governed by good are pre-eminently one's neighbour, 2417, 3419, 3820, 5025.

[3] 'Gad' also means those who think that the whole of salvation rests in works alone, like the Pharisee to whom the Lord referred in His parable,

The Pharisee stood and prayed these words to himself, God, I thank You that I am not like all other people - extortioners, unjust ones, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice in a week; I give tithes of all that I possess. Luke 18:11-12.

Thus he thought that absolute truths consisted in external actions. People such as he are also in the Lord's kingdom, though only on the edge of it, which is why the Lord says,

I tell you, the tax collector went down to his house [more] justified than the other. Luke 18:14.

In saying this He implied that the Pharisee too went down justified, since he had performed works because of the command to do them. In short, 'Gad' represents those who declare that to be true which is not in fact so and who are motivated to perform works by what is not in fact the truth. Consequently their works and truths are alike, for works are nothing else than will and understanding expressed in action. What saves those people is their intention to do what is good and the presence of a measure of innocence within their ignorance.

[4] People motivated to perform works of an external nature by what they believe to be true but which is not in fact so are also meant by 'Gad' in Isaiah,

You who forsake Jehovah, who forget My holy mountain, who set a table for Gad, and who fill a drink-offering for Meni. Isaiah 65:11.

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'Setting a table for Gad' stands for an interest solely in works. And in Jeremiah,

Against the sons of Ammon. Thus said Jehovah, Israel, has he no heir? Why then does his king inherit God, and his people dwell in his cities? Jeremiah 49:1.

'Inheriting Gad' stands for leading a life in which works are motivated by what are not truths. 'The sons of Ammon' are people who falsify truths and lead lives in accordance with those falsified truths, 2468, and these things said about Gad in this prophet apply to them.