Padre en la Palabra significa lo más interior, y en las cosas que siguen el orden del Señor, significa lo que es bueno. En el sentido más elevado, Padre significa el Señor mismo, el creador. En la generación de los hijos naturales es el padre quien proporciona el alma o el receptáculo más interior de la vida, y una herencia interna, y la madre quien proporciona toda la sustancia que el alma utiliza para formar su cuerpo, más una herencia externa. En este proceso el alma viene del Señor a través del padre, y no del padre, ya que toda la vida viene del Señor.

La persona sabia llama al Señor su padre y a la iglesia su madre porque sus amores interiores provienen del Señor, pero se dan forma y actualidad a través de las verdades enseñadas por la iglesia. Lo que se produce así son los "hijos" espirituales de la persona.

En el Nuevo Testamento, cuando se habla de Jesús y del Padre, lo que se quiere decir es la manifestación exterior con lo divino mismo como alma interior. Como Jesús nació de una madre natural, tenía un cuerpo natural y una herencia judía natural. A lo largo de su vida, mientras era tentado por los infiernos, poco a poco se despojó de todo lo que tenía de su madre y lo sustituyó por lo que tenía de sí mismo en su interior, el Padre. Al hacer esto, se hizo uno con el Padre que era su interior para poder decir verdaderamente: "Yo y mi Padre somos uno".

(Referências: Apocalipsis Revelado 170; Arcana Coelestia 1815, 3703 [4]; La Divina Providencia 330 [1,2]; La Verdadera Religión Cristiana 103 [1,2])

1815. 'He said to him, I am Jehovah' means the Lord's Internal Man which is Jehovah, from whom perception came. This is clear from what has been stated in various places already, to the effect that the Lord's Internal, that is, whatever the Lord received from the Father, was in Him Jehovah - for He was conceived from Jehovah. That which a person receives from the, father is one thing, while that from the mother is another. From the father a person receives everything that is internal, the soul itself or life being from the father; but from the mother he receives everything that is external. In short, the interior man or spirit itself comes from the father, but the exterior man or body itself from the mother. This anyone may grasp merely from the consideration that the soul itself is inseminated by the father, and starts to clothe itself in the ovum with a tiny body. All else that is subsequently added to it, both in the ovum and in the womb, comes from the mother, for it receives nothing contributing to its growth from anywhere else.

[2] From this it becomes clear that internally the Lord was Jehovah. Since however the external which the Lord received from the mother was to be united to the Divine, or Jehovah - and this, as has been stated, was accomplished by means of temptations and victories - it inevitably appeared to Him that when He spoke to Jehovah, it was as if to another. But in fact He spoke to Himself, that is to say, insofar as He had become joined to Jehovah. The perception which the Lord possessed - being most perfect, far superior to that of every other who has ever been born - sprang from His Internal Man, that is, from Jehovah Himself; and this is meant here in the internal sense by 'Jehovah said to him'.