273. Verse 5. And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunders and voices, signifies illustration, understanding, and the perception of the Divine truth in the heavens from the Lord. This is evident from the signification of "lightnings, thunders, and voices," as predicated of Divine truth; "lightnings" referring to its illustration, "thunders" to its understanding, and "voices" to the perception of it; that these things are thereby signified will be made clear by passages in the Word where they are mentioned. But let something first be said in respect to the origin of these significations. All things that appear before the eyes of men in the visible heaven, as the sun, the moon, the stars, the air, the ether, light, heat, clouds, mists, showers, and many more, are correspondences; they are correspondences for the reason that all things in the natural world correspond to those in the spiritual world. These are also correspondences in heaven where the angels are, because like things are seen by them but there they are not natural but spiritual (as can be seen from what is shown respecting them in the work on Heaven and Hell, On the Sun and Moon in Heaven, n. 116-125; On Light and Heat in Heaven, n. 126-140; and in general, On the Correspondence of Heaven with all Things of the Earth, n. 103-115; and on Appearances in Heaven, n. 170-176), Therefore "lightnings" and "thunders" also are correspondences; and because they are correspondences, they have the like significance as the things have to which they correspond. Their significance in general is Divine truth received and uttered by the highest angels; which, when it descends to the lower angels sometimes appears as lightning, and is heard as thunder with voices. From this it is that "lightning" signifies Divine truth in respect to illustration; "thunder" Divine truth in respect to understanding; and "voices" Divine truth in respect to perception. It is said in respect to the understanding and in respect to the perception, since what enters into the mind through the hearing is both seen and perceived; seen in the understanding, and perceived through communication with the will. (What perception is, strictly, such as the angels in heaven have, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 140.)

[2] From this then it is that "lightnings" and "thunders" in the Word signify Divine truth in respect to illustration and in respect to the understanding, as can be seen from the following passages. In David:

Thou hast with Thine arm redeemed Thy people. The clouds poured out waters; the skies gave forth a voice; Thine arrows also went forth; the voice of Thy thunder into the world; the lightning lightened the world (Psalms 77:15, 17-18).

Here the establishment of the church is treated of; "the clouds poured out waters" signifies truths from the sense of the letter of the Word; "the skies gave forth a voice" (that is, the higher clouds), signifies truths from the spiritual sense of the Word; "the arrows that went forth" (meaning thunderbolts, from which there is an appearance as of arrows from a bow and which are present when there are thunders and lightnings) signify Divine truths; "the voice of thunder into the world" signifies Divine truth in respect to perception and understanding in the church; and "the lightnings lightened the world" signifies Divine truth in respect to illustration thence; "the world" signifies the church.

[3] In the same:

A fire shall go before Jehovah, and burn up His enemies round about; His lightnings shall lighten the world (Psalms 97:3-4).

From these words also it is clear that "lightnings" signify Divine truth in respect to illustration, for it is said "His lightnings shall lighten the world."

[4] In Jeremiah:

The Maker of the earth by His power, He prepareth the world by His wisdom, and by His intelligence stretcheth out the heavens; at the voice that He giveth forth there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and He maketh the vapors to go up from the end of the earth, He maketh lightnings for the rain (Jeremiah 10:12-13; 51:16; Psalms 135:7-8).

Here again the establishment of the church is treated of. That "the voice of thunder" signifies Divine truth in respect to perception and understanding, and "lightnings" Divine truth in respect to illustration, can be seen from its being said, "The Maker of the earth prepareth the world by His wisdom, and by His intelligence stretcheth out the heavens;" and then, "at the voice that He giveth forth there is a multitude of waters in the heavens," and "He maketh lightnings for the rain;" "earth" and "world" signifying the church; "waters in the heavens" spiritual truths; "rain" these truths when they descend and become natural; "lightnings" their illustration.

[5] In the second book of Samuel:

Jehovah thundered from heaven, and the Most High gave forth His voice and sent forth His arrows and scattered them, lightning, and discomforted them (2 Samuel 22:14-15).

Thunders are here described by "thundering from heaven" and by "giving forth a voice," flying thunderbolts by "arrows," and all these signify Divine truths, and "lightning" their light; and as these vivify and illustrate the good, so they terrify and blind the evil, which is meant by "He sent forth arrows and scattered them, lightning, and discomfited them;" for the evil cannot bear Divine truths, nor any light at all from heaven, therefore they flee away at their presence.

[6] Likewise in David:

Jehovah thundered in the heavens, and the Most High gave forth His voice; and He sent forth His arrows and scattered them, and many lightnings and discomfited them (Psalms 18:13-14).

Lighten forth lightning and scatter them; send forth Thine arrows and discomfit them (Psalms 144:6).

That "thunders" and "lightnings" signify Divine truth in respect to the understanding and illustration is still further evident from the following passages.

In David:

In distress thou didst call and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place with thunder (Psalms 81:7).

In Revelation:

I heard one of the four animals saying, as with a voice of thunder, Come and see (Revelation 6:1).

Again:

And the angel took the censer and filled it from the fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth; and there followed thunders and voices and lightnings (Revelation 8:5).

Again:

The angel cried with a great voice, as a lion, and when he cried the seven thunders uttered their voices (Revelation 10:3-4

Again:

The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in the temple the ark of the covenant; and there followed lightnings and voices and thunders (Revelation 11:19).

Again:

I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunder (Revelation 14:2).

And again:

I heard the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, as the voice of vehement thunders, saying, Alleluia; for the Lord our God, the Almighty, hath received the kingdom (Revelation 19:6).

Moreover, since "thunders" and "lightnings" signify Divine truths, when Jehovah came down upon Mount Sinai to promulgate these truths:

There were voices and lightnings, and also the voice of a trumpet (Exodus 19:16).

That "the voice of a trumpet" signifies Divine truth in respect to revelation, see above (n. 55, 262);

A voice out of heaven to the Lord was heard as thunder (John 12:28-29).

That James and John were called Boanerges, sons of thunder (Mark 3:14, 17).

140. Perception.

Perception is seeing what is true and good by means of an inflow from the Lord: 202, 895, 7680, 9128. Perception is found only in people who have a love for the Lord that comes from the Lord and who devote their lives to doing good: 202, 371, 1442, 5228. Perception is found in those in heaven who, while they were living in this world, took the church's teachings from the Word and immediately put them into action in their daily lives instead of first storing them away in their memory. Therefore the deeper levels of their minds were formed to accept inflow from the Divine, with the result that in heaven their understanding is continually coming into greater and greater enlightenment: 104, 495, 503, 521, 536, 1616, 5145. They know countless things and are immensely wise: 2718, 9543. People who have perception do not resort to logical argumentation to identify the truths that belong to religious faith, and if they were to use that sort of argumentation, they would lose their perceptiveness: 586, 1385, 5937. If we believe that we are wise and knowledgeable on our own, we cannot have perception: 1386. Scholars have no idea what this kind of perception is: 1387 (which includes evidence from eyewitness experience).

The people who are in the Lord's heavenly kingdom have perception, but the people who are in the spiritual kingdom do not have perception; instead, they have conscience: 805, 2144, 2145, 8081. The people of the Lord's heavenly kingdom do not base their thinking on faith the way the people of the Lord's spiritual kingdom do, because the people of the heavenly kingdom receive from the Lord the ability to perceive everything belonging to faith: 202, 597, 607, 784, 1121, 1387, 1398, 1442, 1919, 7877, 8780. As a result, all that the heavenly angels say about the truths that belong to religious faith is "Yes, yes," or "No, no," because they perceive and see them; but spiritual angels have to use their reason to determine whether the truths taught by their religious faith are actually true or not: 2715, 3246, 4448, 9166, 10786 (these passages explain the Lord's words "Let your communication be ‘Yes, yes; no, no. ' Whatever is more than these comes from evil" [Matthew 5:37]). Because heavenly angels have this higher perception that allows them to recognize which truths to believe, they do not even like to say the word "faith": 202, 337. The difference between heavenly angels spiritual angels: 2088, 2669, 2708, 2715, 3235, 3240, 4788, 8521, 9277, 10295. On the perception of the people of the earliest church, which was a heavenly church: 125, 597, 607, 784, 895, 1121, 5121.

There are deeper and shallower levels of perception: 2145, 2171, 2831, 5920. Sometimes people in this world have a perception of what is upright and equitable; they rarely have a perception of what is spiritually good or true: 2831, 5937, 7977. The light of perception is radically different from the light of conviction; the light of conviction may seem like perception to some people, but in fact it is not: 8521, 8780.