Arcana Coelestia#680
680. The fact that goods and truths are man's real food may be clear to anyone, for the person who is deprived of them has no life within himself, and is a dead man. The food on which the soul of the person feeds who is dead in this sense consists of the delights arising from evils, and of the pleasures gained from falsities. These are the food of death. These delights and pleasures also derive from bodily, worldly, and natural things, which have no life at all within them. Furthermore such a person does not know what spiritual and celestial food is. Every time 'food' or 'bread' is mentioned in the Word he assumes that food for the body is meant. In the words of the Lord's Prayer, 'Give us our daily bread', for example, he thinks purely of nourishment for the body. There are some whose ideas do extend further and who assert that this petition includes all other physical requirements, such as clothing, money, and so on. Indeed they will argue fiercely that no other kind of food is meant, even though they clearly see that the petitions coming before and after it entail purely celestial and spiritual things, and refer to the Lord's kingdom, and possibly know as well that the Lord's Word is celestial and spiritual.
[2] From this and other similar considerations it becomes sufficiently clear just how bodily-minded the man of today is, and that like the Jews, he is unwilling to accept anything stated in the Word except in a very crude and materialistic way. The Lord Himself clearly teaches what His Word means by 'food' and 'bread': He speaks of food in John as follows,
Jesus said, Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man gives you. John 6:27.
And of bread He says in the same gospel,
Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living Bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread he will live for ever. John 6:49-51, 58.
Even today there are people who, like those who first heard these words, declare,
This is a hard saying; who can listen to it? And some drew back and no longer walked with Him. John 6:60, 66.
To those people the Lord said,
The words which I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. John 6:63.
[3] It is similar with water, in that it means the spiritual things of faith: He speaks of water in John as follows,
Jesus said, Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but he who drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up into eternal life. John 4:13-14.
Even today there are people like the woman to whom the Lord spoke at the spring, who replied,
Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to draw. John 4:15.
[4] In the Word 'food' means nothing other than spiritual and celestial food, which is faith in the Lord and love. This is clear from many places in the Word, as in Jeremiah,
The enemy has stretched out his hand over all the desirable things of Jerusalem, because she saw the nations come into her sanctuary, concerning whom You did command, They shall not enter your congregation. All the people groan as they search for bread. They have given their desirable things for food to restore the soul. Lamentations 1:10-11.
Here no other bread or food is meant than spiritual, for the subject is the sanctuary. In the same author,
I called to my lovers, they deceived me. My priests and my elders breathed their last in the city, for they sought food for themselves to refresh their soul. Lamentations 1:19.
Here the meaning is similar. In David,
They all look to You to give them their food in due season. You givest to them - they gather it up. You openest Your hand - they are satisfied with good. Psalms 104:27-28.
This in like manner stands for spiritual and celestial food.
[5] In Isaiah,
Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Isaiah 55:1.
Here 'wine and milk' stands for spiritual and celestial drink. In the same prophet,
A virgin is conceiving and bearing a son, and you will call His name Immanuel. Butter and honey will He eat that He may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. It will be that because of the abundance of milk they produce he will eat butter, for butter and honey will everyone eat that is left in the midst of the land. Isaiah 7:14-15, 22.
Here 'eating honey and butter' means that which is celestial-spiritual, and 'those who are left' stands for remnants, which are referred to in Malachi as well,
Bring all the tithes 1 to the storehouse that there may be food in My house. Malachi 3:10.
'Tithes' 1 stands for remnants. Further concerning the meaning of 'food', see 56-58, 276.
脚注:
1. or tenths
John第4章
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Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John
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(although Jesus himself didn't baptize, but his disciples),
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he left Judea, and departed into Galilee.
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He needed to pass through Samaria.
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So he came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph.
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Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being tired from his journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
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A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink."
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For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
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The Samaritan woman therefore said to him, "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
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Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."
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The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From where then have you that living water?
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Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, as did his children, and his livestock?"
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Jesus answered her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again,
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but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life."
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The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I don't get thirsty, neither come all the way here to draw."
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Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here."
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The woman answered, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You said well, 'I have no husband,'
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for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly."
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The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
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Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship."
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Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father.
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You worship that which you don't know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews.
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But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshippers.
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God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
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The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah comes," (he who is called Christ). "When he has come, he will declare to us all things."
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Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who speaks to you."
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At this, his disciples came. They marveled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no one said, "What are you looking for?" or, "Why do you speak with her?"
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So the woman left her water pot, and went away into the city, and said to the people,
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"Come, see a man who told me everything that I did. Can this be the Christ?"
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They went out of the city, and were coming to him.
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In the meanwhile, the disciples urged him, saying, "Rabbi, eat."
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But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you don't know about."
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The disciples therefore said one to another, "Has anyone brought him something to eat?"
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Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.
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Don't you say, 'There are yet four months until the harvest?' Behold, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest already.
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He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit to eternal life; that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.
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For in this the saying is true, 'One sows, and another reaps.'
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I sent you to reap that for which you haven't labored. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."
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From that city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman, who testified, "He told me everything that I did."
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So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed there two days.
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Many more believed because of his word.
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They said to the woman, "Now we believe, not because of your speaking; for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world."
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After the two days he went out from there and went into Galilee.
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For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.
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So when he came into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they also went to the feast.
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Jesus came therefore again to Cana of Galilee, where he made the water into wine. There was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum.
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When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him, and begged him that he would come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.
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Jesus therefore said to him, "Unless you see signs and wonders, you will in no way believe."
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The nobleman said to him, "Sir, come down before my child dies."
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Jesus said to him, "Go your way. Your son lives." The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.
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As he was now going down, his servants met him and reported, saying "Your child lives!"
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So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. They said therefore to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever left him."
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So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, "Your son lives." He believed, as did his whole house.
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This is again the second sign that Jesus did, having come out of Judea into Galilee.
