Father in the Word means what is most interior, and in those things that are following the Lord's order, it means what is good. In the highest sense Father means the Lord Himself, the creator. In the generation of natural children it is the father who provides the soul or the most interior receptacle of life, and an internal heredity, and the mother who provides all of the substance that the soul uses to form its body, plus an external heredity. In this process the soul comes from the Lord through the father, and not from the father, since all life is from the Lord. The wise person calls the Lord his father and the church his mother because his interior loves come from the Lord, but are given form and actuality through the truths taught by the church. Those things thus brought forth are a person's spiritual "children". In the New Testament, when speaking of Jesus and the Father, what is meant is the outward manifestation with the divine itself as the soul inside. Because Jesus was born from a natural mother, He had a natural body and a natural Jewish heredity. Throughout his life as He was tempted by the hells, He slowly put off all he had from His mother and replaced it with what He had from Himself inside, the Father. In doing this he made himself one with the Father that was His inmost so He could truly say, "I and my Father are one".

3216. 为更好地了解来世代表物的性质, 也就是说, 出现在灵人界的那些事物的性质, 再举几个例子. 当天使正在谈论仁与信的教义时, 在相对应的灵人社群所在的较低领域有时会看到一座或数座城的形态或模型, 城内有宫殿. 这些宫殿的建筑设计如此巧妙, 令人叹为观止, 以至于你会说, 这里就是建筑艺术的家乡, 一切灵感所在之处, 更不用说各种形状的房子了. 说来奇妙, 在每一座宫殿或每一间房子里面, 甚至连最小的点或最细微的可见细节都无不代表天使观念和言谈的某个方面. 由此清楚可知它们所包含的细节何等数不胜数, 以及圣言中先知们所看到的城, 圣城或新耶路撒冷, 圣言的预言部分所提到的城是什么意思, 也就是说, 它们表示仁与信的教义 (n. 402, 2449) .