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Isaiah 1

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1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.

5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.

11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.

12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?

13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

15 And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:

23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

24 Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:

25 And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:

26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellers as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.

27 Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.

28 And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

29 For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen.

30 For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water.

31 And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

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The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms #1

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The Prophetical Books:

1. Internal Meaning of Isaiah, Chapter 1 (1)

1-8 The church has been vastated by evil of life, (3)

9 so that there is little of a residue. (3)

10-15 Therefore their external worship is of no avail. (3)

16-19 Exhortation that they should repent of the evil of life, and thus they will receive good. (3)

20-23They falsify the Word. (3)

24-27 The Lord when He comes will destroy them, and will establish the church with others; (1, 11)

28-31 This when nothing of the church remains with them. (3)

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.

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Apocalypse Revealed #618

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618. And no one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand. This symbolically means that no other Christians could understand and so acknowledge out of love and faith that the Lord alone is God of heaven and earth but those received by the Lord into this new heaven.

The song symbolizes an acknowledgment and glorification of the Lord as being God of heaven and earth (nos. 279, 617). To learn means, symbolically, to perceive inwardly in oneself that something is the case, which is to understand and so to accept and acknowledge. Someone who learns without perceiving learns and does not learn, because he does not retain what he has learned. The hundred and forty-four thousand mean people who acknowledge the Lord alone as God of heaven and earth (no. 612:1-4).

Other Christians were unable to learn that song, that is, to acknowledge that the Lord alone is God of heaven and earth, because from early childhood they had had impressed on them that there were three persons in the Godhead, each distinct from the others. For the doctrine of the trinity 1 contains the statement, "There is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit," and also, "The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God." And even though they find it added there that the three are one, still in their thinking they divide the Divine essence into three, despite the fact that it cannot be divided.

For that reason they also approach the Father, because He is first in order. And church leaders moreover taught them to pray to the Father to send the Holy Spirit for the sake of the Son. This entrenched in their thinking the idea of three persons, and they could not then think of the Son as God, on a par with the Father and one with the Father, but thought of the Son as being on a par with any other person, even though He alone as to His humanity is the embodiment of righteousness and is called "Jehovah our Righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:5-6; 33:15-16).

[2] Because of that idea in their thinking, it came about that they could not comprehend how the Lord as one born in the world could be God of heaven and earth, and still less be alone God, despite how often they heard and read all those passages we cited in no. 613 above, including the following there:

"All things that the Father has are Mine." (John 16:15)

"He who sees Me sees Him who sent Me." (John 12:45)

...the Father had given all things into (the Son's) hands... (John 13:3)

"Father..., ...You have given (Me) authority over all flesh... All that is Mine are Yours, and what are Yours are Mine...." (John 17:1-3, 10)

"All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth." (Matthew 28:18)

There is the further fact that He was conceived of Jehovah as His Father, and therefore that His soul came from Him (Luke 1:34-35, 38). He possesses therefore the Divine essence. Many similar statements are found in addition elsewhere. That these statements are said in reference to the Lord born in the world is something everyone can see. As for example, that He and the Father are one, and that He is in the Father and the Father in Him. Or that whoever sees Him, sees the Father. (See John 10:28-38; 14:6-11.)

Even though those Christians hear and read these things, still they cannot let go of the idea they have conceived from childhood and later had affirmed by teachers - an idea that so closed up their rationality that they could not see, that is, could not understand these words of the Lord:

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6)

He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber... I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved... (John 10:1, 9)

[3] They also could not see that the Lord glorified His humanity, that is, that He united it to the Divinity of the Father, namely to the Divinity that He had in Him from conception, in order that the human race might be united to God the Father in Him and through Him. This was the reason for the Lord's advent into the world, and for the glorification of His humanity, as is plainly taught in John 14, 15, 17. For He says,

In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. (John 14:20)

He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch... withered... into the fire... (John 15:5-6)

For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified in the truth... that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You..., I in them and You in Me... (John 17:19, 21, 23, 26)

See also John 6:56, and elsewhere.

It is clearly apparent from these passages that the Lord's advent into the world and the glorification of His humanity had as a goal the conjunction of people with God the Father in the Lord and through Him, thus that it is He who is to be approached.

This the Lord also confirmed by His saying so many times that people must believe in Him to have eternal life (see no. 553 above).

[4] Who cannot see that the Lord said all these things about Himself in His humanity, and that He never would have said, or could have said, that He was in people and people in Him, and that they must believe in Him to have eternal life, unless His humanity was Divine?

To ask the Father in the Lord's name 2 does not mean to go directly to God the Father, neither does it mean to ask for the sake of the Son, but it means to go to the Lord, and to the Father through Him, because the Father is present in the Son, and they are one, as the Lord Himself teaches. This is the symbolic meaning of "in His name," as can also be seen from the following:

...he who does not believe (in the Son) is judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:17-18)

...these things are written that you may believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. (John 20:31)

(Jesus) said..., "Whoever receives this little child in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me." (Luke 9:48)

"Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do...." (John 14:13-14)

And so on in other places, where something in the name of the Lord is mentioned: Matthew 7:22; 18:5, 20; 19:29; 23:39; Mark 9:37; 16:17; Luke 13:35; 19:38; 24:47; John 1:12; 2:23; 5:43; 12:13; 15:16; 16:23-24, 26-27; 17:6.

The symbolism of the name of God, and that the Father's name is the Lord in respect to His Divine humanity, may be seen in nos. 81, 165, 584 above.

Voetnoten:

1. I.e., the Athanasian Creed.

2. John 15:16; 16:23

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

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