671. The following passages establish plainly that acts of washing prefigured and adumbrated what was mentioned above, that is, they represented spiritual washing, which is purification from evils and falsities.

When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and has washed away the blood in a spirit of judgment and a spirit of purging, Isaiah 4:4.

If you wash yourself with soda and use soap repeatedly on yourself, still your iniquity will retain its stains, Jeremiah 2:22; Job 9:30-31.

Wash me from my iniquity and I shall be whiter than snow, Psalms 51:2, 7.

Wash your heart free from wickedness, Jerusalem, so that you may be saved, Jeremiah 4:14.

Wash yourselves, cleanse yourselves, put away the wickedness of your deeds from before my eyes, cease to do evil, Isaiah 1:16.

[2] The washing of a person's spirit is meant by the washing of his body; and the internals of the church were represented by such external rituals as were practised by the Israelite church. This is obvious from the Lord's words in this passage:

The Pharisees and Scribes, seeing that His disciples ate bread with unwashed hands, found fault. For the Pharisees and all Jews do not eat unless they have washed their hands up to the fist; there are many other things they have accepted as a practice to be kept up, such as the washing of cups and pots, and of bronze vessels, and beds. The Lord said to them and to the crowd, Listen to me all of you and understand. There is nothing outside a person which can make him unclean if it enters into him; but it is what comes out that makes him unclean, Mark 7:1-4, 14-15; Matthew 15:2, 11, 17-20.

Also elsewhere:

Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, because you clean the outside of the cup and dish, but the inside is full of robbery and violence. You blind Pharisee, clean first the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside too may be clean, Matthew 23:25-26.

It is plain from these passages that the washing called baptism stands for spiritual washing, which is being purified from evils and falsities.

618. XII. Regeneration is impossible without truths through which faith may be formed, and with which charity may link itself.

There are three means by which a person is regenerated: the Lord, faith and charity. These three would lie as deeply hidden as the choicest gems buried underground, if they were not exposed by Divine truths from the Word. In fact they would be hidden from the sight of those who deny man's co-operation, even if they read the Word a hundred or a thousand times; yet there they stand out in bright light.

As regards the Lord, can anyone who has convinced himself of present-day faith open his eyes to see the following doctrines in it: that the Lord and the Father are one, and that He is the God of heaven and earth, and that it is the Father's will that people should believe in Him, as well as countless similar statements in both Testaments? The reason is that they are not in possession of truths, and so not in light which could make things of this sort plain to see. Even if they were given light, still their falsities would snuff it out, and then the truths would be passed over like phrases deleted, or like subterranean passages which people walk over and cross. These remarks have been made to make it known that without truths this first step towards regeneration could not be seen.

[2] As regards faith, neither is that possible without truths, for faith and truth make a single entity. Good is like the soul of faith, and truths make up its body. So to talk of believing or having faith without knowing any of its truths is like pulling the soul out of the body and carrying on a conversation with that invisible object. Moreover, all the truths which make up the body of faith emit light, illuminating it and making its face visible. It is much the same with charity. This emits heat, with which the light of truth combines, just as in the world heat is combined with light in springtime, and this combination makes animals and plants on earth resume reproduction. It is much the same with spiritual heat and light. These likewise combine in a person, when he is in possession of the truths of faith and at the same time the kinds of good which make up charity. For, as I said before in the chapter on faith, there flows from each truth an illuminating light, and from each kind of good a heat which sets on fire. Spiritual light is in its essence intelligence, and spiritual heat is in its essence love. It is the Lord alone who combines these two when He regenerates a person. For the Lord said:

The words which I speak are spirit and life, John 6:63.

Believe in the light, so that you may be sons of light. I have come a light to the world, John 12:36, 46.

In the spiritual world the Lord is the sun, the source of all spiritual light and heat. That is the light which illuminates, the heat that sets on fire; and a person is quickened and regenerated by them both being combined.