359. We could not be images of God according to his likeness unless he were within us and were our life from our very center. God's presence within us and God's being our life from our very center follow from what I explained in 4-6 above, namely that God alone is life and that we and angels are life-receivers from him.

The Word tells us that God is in us and makes his home with us; and because the Word tells us this, preachers are fond of telling us to prepare ourselves to let God come into our lives so that he may be in our hearts and that our hearts may be his dwelling. The devout say the same in their prayers. Some [preachers] talk and preach more explicitly about the Holy Spirit, who they believe is within them when they are filled with holy zeal as the source of their thought, speech, and preaching. I have explained in 51-53 of Teachings for the New Jerusalem on the Lord that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and not some God who is a separate individual. The Lord actually says, "In that day you will know that you are in me and I in you" (John 14:21 [20]), and he says similar things in John 15:24 [4] and John 17:23.

1198. 'From whom they came forth' means that cognitions, as these exist with them, are facts. This is clear from what has been stated. These are not said to have been 'begotten' by those who belonged to Egypt but to have 'gone forth', for they are not such as use natural and factual knowledge to reason about spiritual and celestial things and in so doing fabricate for themselves doctrinal teachings, as do those described before. Instead they learn cognitions of faith from another source, but have no other end in view to knowing and retaining these in the memory than they have with other things in which they have no interest beyond merely knowing them, and only then for the reason that by so knowing they may be promoted to positions of importance, and for other like reasons. So different is knowledge of cognitions of faith from knowledge of natural things that the two have scarcely anything in common. This explains why they are not said to have been 'bore' but to have 'gone forth' from them. Such being the character of 'Philistines' they inevitably pervert cognitions of faith by means of reasonings from them, and as a consequence fabricate false doctrines for themselves. They belong therefore among those who are barely able to be regenerated and to receive charity, both because they are uncircumcised at heart and because the false assumptions and consequently the life of their understanding hinder and prevent.