103. And hast not failed, signifies so far as they could. This is evident from the signification of "not failing," in reference to those who are eager for the knowledges of truth and good, as being so far as they could; for in what now follows, a life according to these knowledges is treated of. Those who are in a life according to these go forward and do not fail; but those who are as yet in knowledges alone, go forward as far as they can, but do not yet have the light of life, from which is vigor.

93. The angel of the Ephesian church is the first here written to; and by the angel of that church all those in the church are meant who are in the knowledges of truth and good, thus in the knowledges of such things as are of heaven and of the church, and who still are not, or not yet, in a life according to them. By these knowledges are especially meant doctrinals; but doctrinals alone, or the knowledges of truth and good alone, do not make a man spiritual, but a life according to them; for doctrinals or knowledges without a life according to them abide only in the memory and thence in the thought, and all things that abide there only, abide in the natural man; consequently a man does not become spiritual until these enter the life, and they enter the life when a man wills the things which he thinks, and consequently does them.

That this is so anyone can see from this alone, that if anyone knows all the laws of moral and civil life, and does not live according to them, he still is not a moral and civil man; he may indeed talk about them more learnedly than others, but still he is rejected. It is the same with one who knows the ten precepts of the Decalogue, so as to be able even to explain and discourse about them with intelligence, and yet does not live according to them. Those, therefore, within the church who are in the knowledges of such things as pertain to the church, that is, who are in knowledges of truth and good from the Word, but are not, or not yet, in a life according to them, are here first treated of, and these are described by the things written to the angel of the Ephesian church.