1563. That 'Lot also who went with Abram' means the external man residing in the Lord is clear from the representation of 'Lot' as the sensory man, or what amounts to the same, the external man. It is well known to everyone in the Church that everybody has an internal and an external, or what amounts to the same, that man is internal and external. For these matters, see what has appeared already in 978, 994, 995, 1015. The external man receives his life principally from the internal, that is, from his spirit or soul. From there comes his life itself in general, which life cannot be received by the external man in a detailed and distinct manner unless his organic vessels are opened which are to serve as recipients of the particular and individual parts of the internal man. Those organic vessels that are to serve as recipients are not opened except by means of the senses, chiefly those of hearing and sight. And as they are so opened the internal man is able to flow in with the particular and individual parts. They are opened by means of the senses through facts and cognitions, as well as through pleasures and delights - the former being things of the understanding, the latter those of the will

[2] From these considerations it becomes clear that as an inevitable result facts and cognitions which cannot agree with spiritual truths will worm their way into the external man, and that pleasures and delights which cannot agree with celestial goods will worm their way in, even as all those things do which regard bodily, worldly, and earthly things as ends in themselves - which things when regarded as ends drag the external man outwards and downwards and so remove the external man from the internal man. For this reason unless such things have first been dispelled the internal man cannot in any way agree with the external, and therefore before the internal man is able to agree with the external such things have to be removed. The removal or separation of those things in the Lord is represented and meant by Lot's separation from Abram.

996. 'The edible plant' means very lowly manifestations of delights. This becomes clear from what has been stated. Such delights are called 'edible plants' because they are merely worldly and bodily, that is, external. For, as stated, the pleasures that consist in bodily or most external things have their origins in interior delights ranged in order. Delights that are felt in the most external or bodily things are comparatively lowly. It is true of all delight that the more lowly it is the closer it gets to things that are external, while the nobler it is the closer it gets to those that are internal. Consequently, as has been stated, as in order the external things are rolled away or peeled off, the more pleasant and noble delights become, something which becomes quite clear from the fact that the delight inherent in someone's pleasures during his lifetime is lowly in comparison with the delight that is his subsequently when he enters the world of spirits. Indeed it is so lowly that good spirits reject with utter disdain the delights of the body. Nor do they wish to go back to them even if they were granted all the delights existing in the whole world.

[2] The delight which these spirits enjoy becomes similarly lowly when they are raised up by the Lord into the heaven of angelic spirits, for at that point they cast away those interior delights and take on others more interior still. The same applies to angelic spirits - the delight which these have enjoyed in their heaven likewise becomes a lowly delight when they are taken up by the Lord into the angelic or third heaven. Since internal things in that heaven are living, and nothing else but mutual love reigns, the happiness there is indescribable. For interior delight or happiness, see what has been told from experience in 545.

[3] These considerations show what is meant by the statement 'as the edible plant I have given all this to you.' Because creeping things mean both pleasures of the body and pleasures of the senses, to which 'edible plants' has reference, the expression in the original language is one that means both edible plant and green plant, 'edible plant' in reference to pleasures of the will, which are from celestial affections, and 'green plant' in reference to those of the understanding, which are from spiritual affections. That 'edible plants' and 'green plants' mean things that are lowly is clear from the Word, as in Isaiah,

The waters of Nimrim will be desolations, for the grass has withered away, the herb has been consumed, and there is no green plant. Isaiah 15:6.

In the same prophet,

Their inhabitants were shorn of power, ¹ they were dismayed and filled with shame; they became plants of the field and edible grass plants, hay on the rooftops. Isaiah 37:27.

'Edible grass plants' stands for that which is very lowly. In Moses,

The land, into which you are entering to take possession of it, is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come out; in it you may sow your seed and water it with your foot, like a garden of edible plants. Deuteronomy 11:10.

Here 'garden of edible plants' stands for what is lowly. In David,

The wicked are suddenly cut down like the grass, and destroyed like the edible plant. Psalms 37:2.

Here 'grass' and 'edible plant' stand for what is very lowly.

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