Verse 24. Then it shall be, if such error arise from ignorance or inadvertence, or both as to the understanding and the will, and thus as to all the powers of the mind, then acknowledgement shall be made to the Lord that this error sprang from the innocence of ignorance in the natural man, which is now newly sanctified to the Lord, such acknowledgement also being internally from spiritual good and truth according to order, and being also accompanied by the confession of sin and its removal by means of the truth of faith involving some charity from the Lord.

5150. 'And Joseph answered and said' means revelation resulting from perception received by the celestial within the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'answering and saying' as revelation resulting from perception, dealt with above in 5121; and from the representation of 'Joseph' as the celestial within the natural, dealt with in 5086, 5087, 5106. The reason 'Joseph' here means the celestial within the natural is that the natural is the subject. With regard to the celestial and the spiritual, the celestial itself and the spiritual itself which flow into heaven from the Lord's Divine reside principally in the interior rational, for the forms there are more perfect ones and apt receivers. Even so, the celestial and the spiritual also flow from the Lord's Divine into the exterior rational, and into the natural too, doing so both indirectly and directly. They flow indirectly by way of the interior rational, and directly from the Lord's Divine itself. What flows in directly is that which brings order, and what flows in indirectly is that to which order is brought. This is what happens in the exterior rational, as also in the natural. From this one may recognize what the celestial within the natural is.

[2] The celestial has its origin in Divine Good and the spiritual in Divine Truth - both having their origin in the Lord. When they exist in the rational they are called the celestial and spiritual within the rational, and when they exist in the natural they are called the celestial and spiritual within the natural. The rational and natural are used to mean the person himself insofar as he has been formed to receive the celestial and spiritual; but the rational is used to mean his internal and the natural his external. By reason of what flows into him, and depending on his reception of it, a person is called a celestial man or else a spiritual man - a celestial man if the Lord's Divine Good is received in the will part of his mind, a spiritual man if it is received in the understanding part.