Preface

THE first two volumes explained [the first] fifteen chapters of Genesis and said what is contained in their inner meaning. Attached to each chapter [in those volumes] was a record of what the Lord in his divine mercy has given me the opportunity to see and hear in the world of spirits and the heaven of angels. Now comes the third volume, which includes similar reports likewise attached to each chapter. The article appended to the present chapter, Genesis 16 [§§1966–1983], concerns visions and dreams (including prophetic dreams) in the Word.

I know few will believe that anyone can see into the other world or report from there on the state of souls after death, because few believe in the resurrection, and even fewer of the well-educated than of the naive. It is true that they say with their lips that they will rise again, because this accords with official theology, but they deny it at heart.

[2] Some even confess openly that they would believe it if someone were to rise from the dead and they were to see, hear, and touch the person. If this happened, though, it would be an isolated experience and would fail to convince those who at heart deny the resurrection. A thousand objections would occur to them and harden them in their negative frame of mind.

Some do claim to believe they will rise again, but on the day of the Last Judgment. The picture they have formed of this is that everything in the visible world will cease to exist on that day; and since they have been awaiting it in vain for so many centuries, they too are dubious. What is meant by the Last Judgment mentioned in the Word, however, will be summarized at the end of the next chapter, Genesis 17, the Lord in his divine mercy willing [§§2117–2133].

[3] These attitudes indicate what kind of people make up the Christian world today. The Sadducees told of in Matthew 22:23 and the verses that follow openly denied the resurrection, but they acted better than people today who deny it at heart but claim they do not (since it is the official teaching, as noted) Their words contradict their beliefs, and their beliefs contradict their words.

To prevent them from growing even more firmly entrenched in this misguided opinion, the Lord in his divine mercy has given me the privilege of experiencing the next world in spirit while bodily present in this world (since a human being is a spirit clothed with a body). There I have spoken with souls recently revived after death, and in fact with almost everyone I knew during physical life who had since died. Every day now for several years I have also talked with spirits and angels and seen astounding sights that it has never occurred to anyone to imagine. No illusion of any kind was involved.

[4] Many people say that if someone comes to them from the other life, they will believe, so we shall see now whether they can be persuaded despite their hard hearts.

This I can assert positively: People who come into the next life from the Christian world are the worst of all. They hate their neighbor, they hate the religion, they deny the Lord (since it is the heart rather than the mouth that does the talking in the other world), not to mention the fact that they are more adulterous than anyone else. Because heaven is starting to move away from people inside the church, then, clearly the last days are at hand, as I have learned for certain.

To learn about the identity and nature of the Word’s inner meaning, see the statements and illustrations in the first two volumes, §§1–5, 64, 65, 66, 167, 605, 920, 937, 1143, 1224, 1404, 1405, 1408, 1409, 1502 at the end, 1540, 1659, 1756, 1767–1777 and 1869–1879 (particularly), 1783, 1807; and in the present volume, §§1886–1889.

1886. Genesis 16

THIS chapter has to do with Hagar and Ishmael, but until now no one has recognized what they represent and symbolize on an inner level. No one could have recognized it, because so far the world (even the scholarly world) has supposed that the stories of the Word are mere narratives, with no deeper implications. They have said that every jot is divinely inspired, but they do not mean much by it. All they mean is that the contents have been revealed [by God] and that some amount of doctrine relevant to their theology can be drawn from it and used by teachers and students. Because the stories have been divinely inspired (the world reasons), they have divine force in people's minds and do them more good than any other history.

Taken at face value, however, the narratives do little to improve us. They have no effect at all on our eternal life, because in the other world historical detail is obliterated from memory. What good would it do us there to know about Hagar the slave, about the fact that Sarai gave her to Abram, about Ishmael, or even about Abram? In order to go to heaven and partake of its joy (that is, of eternal life), our souls need only what belongs to and comes from the Lord. This is what his Word is for, and this is what it contains in its depths.

1408. The events of this verse and later ones happened as written, but the historical facts are representative and the words are each symbolic.

This is true of all the narrative parts of the Word — not only the books of Moses but Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings as well. Nothing but history appears in any of them. Yet although the literal meaning is a history, the inner meaning holds the mysteries of heaven, which lie hidden there. These mysteries can never be seen, as long as we train our mind's eye on the historical details; they are not unveiled until we withdraw our minds from the literal meaning.

The Lord's Word is like a body with a living soul. Anything having to do with the soul remains invisible — to the point that we scarcely believe we even have a soul, let alone that it lives on after death — as long as the body monopolizes our thinking. As soon as concern for our person ebbs from our minds, though, qualities of the soul and of life reveal themselves. That is why everything connected with our body has to die before we can be born anew or regenerate. Not only that, the body itself also has to die, so that we can enter heaven and behold heavenly sights.

[2] The case with the Lord's Word is the same. Its "body" is the contents of the literal meaning, and as long as we fix our minds on those, we see nothing deeper. When they "die," though, [the deeper content] first stands out in plain sight.

Still, the features of the literal sense are like those things in us that belong to the body. Specifically, they are like facts that we glean from our sense impressions and retain in our memory. These are general containers that hold deeper levels inside. ¹ You can see from this that containers are one thing, the vital concepts contained within them are another. The containers are earthly; their vital contents are spiritual and heavenly. So also with the historical passages of the Word, and with the individual words there as well. They are general containers that are earthly and even physical, and they hold spiritual and heavenly features. The latter never enter our field of vision except through the inner meaning.

[3] Anyone can see this merely from the consideration that the Word often speaks in accord with appearances and even in accord with illusions of the senses. It says, for instance, that the Lord feels anger, punishes people, curses them, kills them, and so on, when in fact the inner meaning says the opposite — that the Lord never feels anger or punishes people, let alone cursing or killing them. Yet it does not hurt people to believe in simplicity of heart that the Word is just what they take it to be in the letter, as long as they live lives of neighborly love. The reason it does no harm is that the Word teaches nothing but the need for each of us to live in charity with our neighbor and to love the Lord above all. People who do this have deeper dimensions inside, so any illusions they acquire from the literal meaning are easily dispelled.

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