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Genesis 1:17

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17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

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De Verbo (The Word) # 14

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14. XIV. The Word in the heavens.

The Word exists in all the heavens, and it is read there as it is in the world, and sermons are based on it. For it is the Divine Truth which is the source of the angels' intelligence and wisdom. For without the Word no one knows anything about the Lord, love and faith, redemption, and all the other secrets of heavenly wisdom. In fact without the Word heaven would not exist, just as without the Word there would be no church in the world, so that there would be no linking with the Lord. I demonstrated above that natural theology is impossible without revelation, and in the Christian world without the Word. If it is not granted in the world, neither would it be granted after death. For the nature of a person's religious belief in the world dictates its nature after death, when he becomes a spirit. The whole of heaven is not made up of angels created before the world or at the same time as it, but of those who were people on earth, and were then angels inwardly. By means of the Word these in heaven acquire spiritual, that is, inner wisdom, because the Word there is spiritual.

[2] The Word in the Lord's spiritual kingdom is not the same as the Word in the world. In the world there is the natural Word, but in that kingdom there is a spiritual Word. The difference is like that between its natural and spiritual senses. The nature of the spiritual sense has been demonstrated at length in my Arcana Caelestia, where the whole contents of Genesis and Exodus have been explained in accordance with that sense. The difference is such that no word is the same. Things take the place of names, and likewise of numbers; the histories are replaced by matters concerning the church. The surprising thing is that, when an angel reads it, he is unaware that it is not the same as what he read in the Word while in the world. This is because he no longer has any natural ideas, since they are replaced with spiritual ones; and the natural and the spiritual are linked by correspondences into a kind of unity.

So when someone passes from the natural into the spiritual, it seems to him as if they were the same. In fact an angel does not know that he is wiser than he was in the world, though his wisdom is really so superior as to be comparatively indescribable. He is unable to recognise the difference, because in his spiritual state he knows nothing of the natural state, which he had in the world; and he is unable to compare and differentiate them, because he cannot return to his former state so as to make a comparison. Still an angel in heaven is constantly being brought to a higher degree of perfection in wisdom than he had in the world, because his affection for spiritual truth is purer. 1

[3] However, the Word in the Lord's celestial kingdom is far superior and wiser than the Word in His spiritual kingdom. The difference is of the same kind as that which distinguishes the natural Word in the world from the spiritual Word, as has been stated. For that Word contains an inmost sense, called celestial, which in all its details refers to nothing but the Lord. In this Word the Lord is read in place of Jehovah, and of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and also the Lord is named in place of David, Moses, Elijah and the rest of the Prophets; and His divinity is distinguished by special marks. The names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and also the names of the Apostles, when read there, convey something about the Lord as regards the church; and so with all the rest. From this it became plain to me that the whole of the Sacred Scripture deals in its inmost sense with nothing but the Lord.

The difference which distinguishes the two Words, the spiritual and the celestial, is like that between thoughts, the province of the intellect, and affections, the province of the will. For the angels of the celestial kingdom are guided by love to the Lord and so affection for good; the angels of the spiritual kingdom are guided by faith in the Lord and so by perception of truth.

[4] Another difference between the celestial and spiritual Words is their script. The script of the spiritual Word is made up of letters resembling the printed letters of our world; but each letter has a meaning. If therefore you were to see that script, you would not understand a single word. For one letter succeeds another without a break, with dashes and dots above and below, since it is in accordance with spiritual speech, which has nothing in common with natural speech. The wiser angels are, the more they see of the inner secrets of their Word so written, more so than the simpler angels. What is stored there is plainly visible to the eyes of the wise, but not to the eyes of the simple. It is similar to what happens with our Word, but to a greater degree; here too the wise see more than the simple.

The script of the celestial Word, however, is made up of letters not known in the world. They are indeed alphabetical, but each one of them is composed of curved lines with serifs above and below, and there are small marks or dots in the letters, and also above and below them. I was told that the most ancient people on this earth had such a script. Some details agree with the Hebrew script, but not much. Such a script expresses the affections which make up a love; so it contains more secrets than they themselves can ever utter. They express these unutterable secrets which they perceive from their Word by means of representations. The wisdom hidden away in this Word surpasses the wisdom in the spiritual Word as a thousand does one.

[5] To make the difference between the three Words, the natural, the spiritual and the celestial, intelligible, let us take as an example the first chapters of Genesis, which deal with Adam, his wife and the Garden. 2 In the natural Word which we have in this world there is a description of the creation of the world, the first creation of man, and the earthly pleasures and delights of man and the world. By the persons named following him up to the Flood are meant his descendants, and the numbers mean their ages. But in the spiritual Word the angels of the spiritual kingdom have, this is not what is meant. The first chapter is a description of the reform and regeneration of the people of the most ancient church; this too is called a new creation. The second chapter describes as the Garden the intelligence of the people of that church; Adam and his wife stand for the church itself, and their descendants down to the Flood describe the changes in the state of that church, up to the time when it came to an end and was finally destroyed by the Flood.

But in the celestial Word possessed by the angels of the Lord's celestial kingdom, the first chapter describes the glorification of the Lord's Human; the Garden describes his Divine wisdom. Adam himself is understood to mean the Lord as regards the Divine itself and at the same time the Divine Human. His wife stands for the church, which since it has life from the Lord is called Eve from [the Hebrew word for] life. Adam says of her that she was to be his bone and his flesh, and [they should be] one flesh, because the church comes from the Lord, and is out of Him and with Him as if one. The names of the descendants of Adam describe the successive states by which the Lord was received by the people of that church and linked with them, until there was nothing at all received and so no linking.

[6] So when the first chapters in our Word are read by upright people, especially by boys and girls, and they feel joy at the state when everything was created and at the Garden, then these meanings are unfolded, and the spiritual angels understand them in accordance with their Word, and the celestial angels in accordance with theirs, without being aware that a person or a child is reading it. These meanings are unfolded in their due sequence because they correspond, and correspondences are from creation like this. This makes it plain what the Word is like in its depths, that is, it has three senses. The last is the natural one for men on earth; this deals mainly with worldly matters and where it deals with Divine matters, they are still described by the kind of things which the world contains. The middle sense is the spiritual one, which describes the kind of things which belong to the church. The inmost sense is the celestial one, which contains the kind of things which belong to the Lord. For the whole of nature is a theatre representing the Lord's kingdom; and the Lord's kingdom, heaven and the church, is a theatre representing the Lord Himself. For just as the Lord glorified His Human, so too He regenerates a person; and as He regenerates a person, so too did He create him.

[7] These facts may establish what the Word is like in its depths. The natural Word as possessed by the Christian part of the world contains within itself a spiritual and a celestial Word. For the spiritual sense of our Word is the Word in the heavens which make up the Lord's spiritual kingdom; and the celestial sense of our Word, its inmost sense, is the Word in the heavens which make up the Lord's celestial kingdom. Our Word therefore contains both the spiritual and the celestial Words; but the spiritual Word and the celestial Word do not contain the natural Word. The Word of our world is therefore the one most full of Divine wisdom, and consequently more holy than the Word of the heavens.

Сноски:

1. Reading veri spiritualis for veri spirituali. -Translator

2. i.e. the Garden of Eden. -Translator

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

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Apocalypse Explained # 196

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196. And they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. That this signifies the spiritual life which they have procured by means of the knowledges of truth and good from the Word, is evident from the signification of walking, as being to live (concerning which see above, n. 97), and from the signification of in white, as being in truths, for whiteness and brightness in the Word are said of truths, concerning which we shall speak presently. By walking with Me in white, is signified spiritual life for spiritual life is the life of truth, that is, life according to truths, or according to the precepts of the Lord in the Word; also from the signification of for they are worthy, as being because they have spiritual life from the Lord. In the measure that any one receives from the Lord, in the same measure he is worthy, but in the measure that he receives from himself, that is, from his own, or from his proprium, in the same measure he is not worthy. Nothing else constitutes spiritual life with man but the knowledge of truth and good from the Word applied to life; and these are applied to life when a man makes them the laws of his life; for thus he looks to the Lord in everything and the Lord is present with him, and gives him intelligence and wisdom, with their affection and delight. For the Lord is in His own truths with man, because every truth proceeds from Him; and what proceeds from the Lord is His, so that it is Himself; therefore the Lord says,

"I am the truth and the life" (John 14:6).

"He that doeth truth cometh to the light, because [his works] are wrought in God" (John 3:21).

"The Word was with God, and God was the Word. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. He was the true light which lighteth every man. And the Word was made flesh" (John 1:1, 2, 4, 9, 14).

The Lord is called the Word because the Word signifies Divine truth, and He is also called the light, because Divine truth is the light of heaven; He is also called the life, because everything that lives, lives from that light; this also is the source of intelligence and wisdom to angels, in which their life consists. He who supposes that life is from any other source than the Divine which proceeds from the Lord, which in heaven is called Divine truth, and appears there as light, is much deceived. It is therefore evident how it is to be understood that God was the Word, that in Him was life, and that the life was the light of men.

[2] The reason why white in the Word is said of truths, is, because Divine truth is the light of heaven, as just said, and from the light of heaven arise whiteness and brightness. This is why,

When the Lord was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, "His face appeared as the sun, and His garments were white as the light" (Matthew 17:2), and as "white, and glistering" (Luke 9:29), "shining white as snow, so as no fuller on earth could whiten them" (Mark 9:3).

Also why

The raiment of the angels at the sepulchre of the Lord was white as snow (Matthew 28:3), and shining (Luke 24:4);

Why there appeared to John seven angels out of the temple clothed in linen clean and shining (Apoc. 15:6);

Why those who stood before the throne of the Lamb were arrayed in white robes (Apoc. 6:11; 7:9, 13, 14; 19:8)

Why the army of Him who sat on the white horse followed Him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean (Apoc. 14:14);

And why also the garments of Aaron were of linen, and he put them on when he went within the veil to the mercy seat (Leviticus 16:1-5, 32).

Linen, from its whiteness, also signifies truth (see Arcana Coelestia 7601, 9959). Because white signifies truth, and truths reveal falsities and evils in man, and so purify him, it is therefore said in David,

"Behold thou desirest truth in the reins, and in the hidden part thou makest me to know wisdom. Thou shalt purify me with hyssop that I may be clean; thou shalt wash me and I shall be whiter than snow" (Psalms 51:6, 7).

[3] Because the Nazarite represented the Lord as to Divine truth in ultimates, which upon earth is the Word in the sense of the letter, and this was falsified and perverted with the Jews, therefore it is said concerning them in the Lamentations,

"Her Nazarites were whiter than snow, they were brighter than milk, their bones were more ruddy than pearls, their polishing was of sapphire; but their form is obscured, that they are not known in the streets" (4:7, 8).

(That the Nazarites represented the Lord as to Divine truth, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 6437; that the crown of the head of the Nazarite denotes Divine truth in ultimates, or the Word in the letter, n. 6437, 9407. That the hair which was of the Nazariteship, and was called the crown of the head of the Nazarite, denotes Divine truth in ultimates, n. 3301, 5247, 10044. That Divine truth in ultimates has strength and power, n. 9836; that hence the strength of Samson was in his hair, n. 3301.)

[4] Hence it is evident what is signified by the Nazarites being whiter than snow, and brighter than milk, and by the sapphire being the polishing of their bones, but that their form was obscured, so that they were not known in the streets. For whiteness and brightness signify Divine truth in its light, as said above; and bones, because they are the ultimates in man, being the supports of his whole body, correspond to the ultimates in heaven. For all things in man corresponding to all things in heaven (see the work, Heaven and Hell 87-102. Bones therefore signify the ultimates in the spiritual world, which are also the ultimates of Divine truth or the Word, Arcana Coelestia 5560-5564, 8005. Sapphire signifies what is translucent from truth, see n. 9407; and, not being known in the streets signifies Divine truth no longer appearing; for streets signify where the truths of doctrine are, n. 2336).

  
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Translation by Isaiah Tansley. Many thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.