119. This is why in the Word the Lord is compared to the sun when the focus is on love and to the moon when the focus is on faith. It is also why the sun means a love for the Lord that comes from the Lord, and the moon means a faith in the Lord that comes from the Lord. Compare the following passages.

The light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days. (Isaiah 30:26)

When I annihilate you, I will cover the heavens and blacken the stars.

I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not make its light. I will blacken all the luminaries in the heavens above you and send darkness over your land. (Ezekiel 32:7-8)

I will darken the sun in its rising, and the moon will not make its light shine. (Isaiah 13:10)

The sun and the moon will be blackened and the stars will withdraw their shining; the sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood. (Joel 2:2, 10, 31, 3:15)

The sun became black as hairy sackcloth, and the moon became like blood, and the stars fell to earth. (Revelation 6:12-13)

Immediately after the affliction of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven. (Matthew 24:29)

And elsewhere. In these passages, the sun means love and the moon faith, while the stars mean instances of recognizing what is good and true. ¹ These are said to be darkened, to lose their light, and to fall from heaven when they no longer exist.

The Lord's appearance as a sun in heaven may also be inferred from his transfiguration before Peter, James, and John, when "his face shone like the sun" (Matthew 17:2). This is how the Lord was seen by those disciples when they had been lifted out of their bodies and were in the light of heaven.

For this reason, when the early people (who constituted a representative church) were engaged in their divine worship, they faced the sun in the east. It is why they set their temples to face the east.

Mga talababa:

349. All the people who have acquired intelligence and wisdom in the world are received in heaven and become angels, according to the quality and amount of their individual intelligence and wisdom. Whatever we have acquired in this world stays with us. We take it with us after death, where it is increased and filled out, all within the level of our own affection and desire for what is true and good, and not beyond that level. People who have had little affection and desire accept little, but still as much as they can accept on their own level. People who have had great affection and desire accept much. The actual level of affection and desire is like a measure that is filled to the brim. This means more for people whose measure is great and less for people whose measure is small. This is because the love to which affection and desire belong accepts everything that suits it, so the amount of love determines the amount of receptivity. This is the meaning of the Lord's words, "To all who have, it will be given, and they will have more abundantly" (Matthew 13:12; 25:29); "Into your lap will be given a good measure, pressed down, shaken, and overflowing" (Luke 6:38).