10097. 'And it shall be a heave offering from among the children of Israel from their peace-offering sacrifices, it is a heave offering to Jehovah' means reception in the heavens and in the Church, and acknowledgement that they are the Lord's alone. This too is clear from what has been shown above in 10093. The words 'from peace-offering sacrifices' are used because worship offered in freedom is meant by those sacrifices; for peace-offering or eucharistic sacrifices were voluntary ones, and voluntary offerings are those which a person gives in freedom. That which is done out of love, and so because the will desires it, is said to be 'free'; for what a person loves, that he wills. The Lord flows into the person's love, thus into his will, and enables him to receive what he receives in freedom; and what he receives in freedom, that too becomes free. The person loves it, and consequently it becomes part of his life. From this it is evident what worship offered in freedom, meant by 'peace-offering sacrifices' or voluntary ones, is. It is also evident what is meant by a heave offering from those sacrifices, namely the fact that they are the Lord's alone.

All worship in general is meant by 'sacrifices', see 6905, 8936, 10042.

A person's freedom belongs essentially to what he loves, 2870-2893, 3158, 4031, 7349, 9096, 9585-9591.

3158. 'Tell me; and if not, tell me' means a state in which they are free to deliberate. This is evident from the sense of the words themselves. From all that has gone before it is clear that while the sense of the letter in this chapter is dealing with the betrothal and marriage of Rebekah to Isaac, the internal sense is dealing with the introduction and joining together of truth and good, for the introduction and joining together of truth and good is spiritual betrothal and spiritual marriage. In both instances a free state to deliberate is necessary. The necessity for it in betrothal and marriage is well known, but the necessity for it in the introduction and joining together of truth and good is not so well known because it is not visible to the natural man and belongs among the things that go on quite apart from any reflecting on them. Yet this activity continues moment by moment in one who is being reformed and regenerated, that is to say, he experiences a free state when truth is being joined to good.

[2] Everyone may know, if he merely stops to think, that nothing ever exists as a person's own unless it forms part of his will. That which belongs solely to the understanding does not become a person's own until it belongs also to his will, for what belongs to the will constitutes the essential being (esse) of a person's life, whereas what belongs to the understanding constitutes the manifestation (existere) of that essential being. Consent flowing from the understanding alone is not consent, but all consent springs from the will. Unless therefore the truth of faith which belongs to the understanding is received by the good of love which belongs to the will it is in no sense truth that has been acknowledged, and so is not faith. In order that it may be received by good that belongs to the will it is necessary that a free state should exist. Everything that belongs in the will looks to be free. The state itself of the will is freedom, for what I will, I choose and desire since that is what I love and acknowledge as that which is good. From this it becomes clear that the truth of faith in no sense becomes a person's own until it has been accepted by the will, that is, introduced and joined to the good there, which cannot happen except in a free state.