34. Love and faith cannot possibly be separated for they constitute one and the same thing. This is why, when first the [great] lights are dealt with and they are taken to be one, it is said [using a singular verb with a plural noun], 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens'. Let some marvels relating to this be mentioned here. Since celestial angels possess from the Lord that kind of love, they possess by virtue of that love every cognition of faith, and by virtue of that love the kind of life and light of understanding that almost defies description altogether. On the other hand spirits who without love have a knowledge of the doctrinal matters concerning faith live such cold lives and are in such dull light that they cannot approach even the outer gateway to heaven before running off in the opposite direction. Some claim to have believed in the Lord, but they have not lived according to His teaching. The Lord refers to these people in Matthew as follows,

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does My will. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? and so on. Matthew 7:21-22-end.

[2] From this is clear that those who have love have faith as well, and so heavenly life, whereas those who claim to have faith and yet have none of the life inherent in love do not. The life of faith devoid of love is like sunlight devoid of warmth, as is the case in wintertime when nothing grows and every single thing is inactive and dies off. But faith deriving from love is like the sunlight in springtime when everything grows and blossoms, for it is the warmth of the sun that brings it out. It is similar with spiritual and celestial things, which are normally represented in the Word by the things found in the world and on earth. An absence of faith, and faith devoid of love, are also compared by the Lord to winter where He foretold the close of the age in Mark,

Pray that your flight may not happen in winter, for those will be days of affliction. Mark 13:18-19.

'Flight' means the final period, also the time when a person dies; 'winter' is life which is destitute of love, 'days of affliction' his wretched condition in the next life.

2276. 'Perhaps thirty will be found [there]' means some existence of conflict. This is clear from the meaning of the number 'thirty'. The reason 'thirty' means some existence of conflict, thus a small amount of conflict, is that this number is the product of 'five', meaning that which is small, times 'six', meaning toil or conflict, as shown in Volume One, in 649, 720, 737, 900, 1709.

[2] Hence also that number, wherever one reads it in the Word, means something relatively small, as in Zechariah,

I said to them, If it is good in your eyes, give me my wages; and if not, withhold them. And they weighed out my wages, thirty pieces of silver. And Jehovah said to me, Throw it to the potter, the magnificent price I was valued at among them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw it into the house of Jehovah, to the potter. Zechariah 11:12-13.

This stands for how small a value those people placed on the Lord's merit, and on redemption and salvation from Him. 'The poster' stands for reformation and regeneration.

[3] This explains the reference to the same thirty pieces of silver in Matthew,

They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him whom they had bought from the children of Israel, and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me. Matthew 27:9-10.

From these words it is quite clear that 'thirty' here stands for the small price set on him. A slave, who was not considered to be worth much, was valued at thirty shekels, as is clear in Moses,

If the ox gores a slave or a servant-girl, the owner shall give to his master thirty shekels of silver; and the ox shall be stoned. Exodus 21:32.

How little a slave was considered to be worth is clear from verses 20-21, of that same chapter. In the internal sense 'a slave' stands for toil.

[4] The reason Levites were called upon for ministerial duty - which is described as one 'coming to perform military service and to do the work in the tent [of meeting] - from thirty up to fifty years of age', Numbers 4:3, 23, 30, 35, 39, 43, was that 'thirty' means those who were beginners, thus those who as yet could perform little of what was meant in the spiritual sense by 'military service'.

[5] There are other places in the Word besides these where 'thirty' is mentioned, such as in the requirement that with a young bull a minchah of three tenths [of fine flour] was to be offered by them, Numbers 15:9. Such was required because the sacrifice of an ox represented natural good, as shown above in 2180, and natural good is small in comparison with spiritual good, which was represented by the sacrifice of a ram, and smaller still in comparison with celestial good, which was represented by the sacrifice of a lamb, with which sacrifices a different number of tenths to the minchah were required, as is clear in verses 4-6 of that chapter, and also in Numbers 28:12-13, 20-21, 28-29; 29:3-4, 9-10, 14-15. These differing numbers of tenths, or proportions, would never have been commanded if they had not embodied heavenly arcana within them.

[6] 'Thirty' again stands for that which is small in Mark,

The seed which fell into good ground yielded fruit, growing up and increasing. One bore thirty-fold, and another sixty, and another a hundred. Mark 4:8.

'Thirty' stands for a small yield and for that which has laboured to only a small extent. Those numbers would not have been specified unless they had embodied the things meant by them.