663. Verses 11, 12. And after the three days and a half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them that beheld them. And they heard a great voice out of heaven saying unto them, Come up hither! And they went up into heaven in the cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

11. "And after the three days and a half," signifies when it is finished, thus the end of the old church and the beginning of the New Church (n. 664); "the spirit of life from God entered into them," signifies enlightenment and the reception of the influx of Divine truth from the Lord with some for the beginning of the New Church n. 665; "and they stood upon their feet," signifies a new life such as the regenerated man of the church has n. 666; "and great fear fell upon them that beheld them," signifies a state of anxiety with those who did not receive and acknowledge (n. 667).

12. "And they heard a great voice out of heaven saying unto them," signifies the Lord's Divine providence (n. 668); "Come up hither," signifies separation and consequent protection (n. 669); "and they went up into heaven in the cloud," signifies separation in respect to things internal, and their protection n. 670; "and their enemies beheld them," signifies knowledge and acknowledgment with those who are interiorly opposed to the goods and truths of the Word and of the church n. 671.

2621. That 'conceived and bore' means received essential being and was given manifestation - that is to say, the Divine Rational received and was given these from the Lord's Divine spiritual united to His Divine celestial - is clear from the meaning of 'conceiving and bearing'. The fact that no other kind of conceptions and bearings or childbirths is meant in the internal sense of the Word but spiritual and celestial ones, see 2584. But here Divine conceivings and bearings are meant because the subject is the Lord's Rational when it had been made Divine; to Him, that is, to the Lord, are Being and Manifestation pre-eminently attributable since He alone has [underived] Being and Manifestation. In addition to this, Being and Manifestation appear to be almost the same as each other, but they are not. Every person or thing receives Being by conception but Manifestation by being born; so that Being is prior to Manifestation as conception is prior to birth.

[2] The soul constitutes a person's essential Being, while the powers of the senses or the body constitute the Manifestation of it; for the former manifests itself in the latter. Celestial and spiritual love is the Being itself of one who is being regenerated, while the rational part and the sensory part of him - when these are endowed with that love - are the Manifestation of it. The same may be said of every single thing in the universe, for nothing ever exists without conception to give it Being and birth to give it Manifestation. This may also be illustrated for learned people from the idea that every effect has its cause, and every cause has its end. The end is the Being of the cause, and the cause is the Manifestation of the end. In the same way the cause is the Being of the effect, and the effect is the Manifestation of the cause.