199. The Lord, when He was in the world, spoke by means of correspondences; so He spoke spiritually as well as naturally. This can be proved by His parables, the individual expressions of which contain a spiritual sense. Let us take as an example the parable of the ten virgins. He said:

The kingdom of the heavens is like ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were wise, but five were foolish. The foolish ones, when they took their lamps, failed to take oil, but the wise ones took oil in their lamps. But when the bridegroom was late, they all became drowsy and went to sleep. However, in the middle of the night a cry went up, Look, the bridegroom is coming, go out to meet him. Then all those virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. But the foolish ones said to the wise ones, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. The wise ones, however, replied and said, Perhaps there may not be enough for us and for you; go rather to the sellers and buy some for yourselves. While they were away buying it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. At length the other virgins came too, and said, Lord, Lord, open the door to us. But he replied and said, In truth I tell you, I do not know you, Matthew 25:1-12.

No one who does not know that there is a spiritual sense, and what sort of sense it is, can see that each of these details contains a spiritual sense, and therefore a Divine holiness. In the spiritual sense the kingdom of the heavens means heaven and the church, the bridegroom means the Lord, the wedding the Lord's marriage with heaven and the church by means of the good of love and the truth of faith. The virgins mean those who belong to the church, ten means all, five a part. The lamps mean things to do with faith, oil things to do with the good of love. Sleeping and waking mean a person's life in the world, which is natural, and his life after death, which is spiritual. Buying means acquiring, going to the sellers and buying oil means acquiring the good of love from others after death. Because it cannot then any longer be acquired, although they came with their lamps and the oil they had bought to the door where the wedding was, still the bridegroom told them, I do not know you. This is because after his life in the world a person remains such as his life in the world made him. It is plain from this that the Lord spoke purely in correspondences, and this was because He spoke from the Divine which was in Him and was His. It is because virgins stand for those who belong to the church that we find so often in the prophetic parts of the Word mention of the virgin and daughter of Zion, of Jerusalem, of Judah, or of Israel, and it was because oil stands for the good of love, that all the holy things of that church were anointed with oil. It is the same in the rest of the parables and in every expression which the Lord used; thus it is that the Lord says that His words are spirit and life (John 6:63).

257. An example from nature may serve to illustrate this idea, that many things in the literal sense of the Word are appearances of truth, in which genuine truths are hidden; and that it is not injurious to think and to speak in simple terms according to the appearances of truth, but that it is injurious to confirm them, since this destroys the Divine truth hidden within them. This example is offered because what is natural provides a clearer illustration and proof than what is spiritual.

It appears to the eye that the sun travels round the earth every day and also once every year. Thus we talk of the sun rising and setting; causing morning, noon, evening and night, as well as the seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter, and thus days and years. Yet the sun stands unmoved, for it is a sea of fire, and it is the earth which rotates every day and travels around its orbit every year. A person, who in simplicity or ignorance thinks that the sun travels round the earth, does not destroy the natural truth, which is that the earth rotates on its axis and every year travels around the ecliptic. But if a person convinces himself of the sun's apparent motion by the reasonings of the natural mind, and more so if he does so from the Word, because it speaks of the sun rising and setting, he weakens the truth and destroys it; and afterwards he is hardly able to see it, even though he is given a visual demonstration that the whole starry sky rotates similarly every day and every year in appearance, although not a single star changes its fixed position relative to another. The movement of the sun is an apparent truth; its not moving is a genuine truth. Yet everyone speaks according to the apparent truth, saying that the sun rises and sets. This is allowed, because it could not be otherwise. But to think like this from conviction blunts and dulls the rational understanding.