10484. 'And said, Whoever is for Jehovah, [come] to me' means those whose concern for external things springs from what is internal. This is clear from the representation of 'Moses' as the internal, dealt with in 10468; and since a person's internal resides in heaven and his external in the world, and heaven comes into a person's external by way of the internal, it is evident that by 'those who are for Jehovah' those people whose concern for external things springs from what is internal should be understood. When it is said that heaven comes in, the Lord's doing so should be understood, because that which is Divine and the Lord's constitutes heaven. It is also evident that these people are meant from the consideration that they are opposed to those whose interest lies in external things separated from what is internal. It is further evident from the consideration that the sons of Levi who gathered themselves to Moses represent those who are in possession of truths springing from good; and with those in possession of truths springing from good the concern for external things springs from what is internal.

654. This is in keeping with what is well known in the Churches today about faith coming through hearing. But faith is in no sense mere intellectual awareness of the things that constitute faith, that is, of things that demand belief. That amounts to no more than knowledge. Faith is acknowledgement, yet acknowledgement cannot possibly exist with anyone unless the chief thing of faith resides with him, namely charity, or love towards the neighbour, and mercy. When charity is present so is acknowledgement, and so is faith. Anyone who thinks otherwise is as far from being aware of what faith is as land is distant from sky. When charity, which is the goodness constituting faith, is present, then acknowledgement, which is the truth of faith, is present too. When therefore a person is being regenerated in accordance with factual knowledge, rational concepts, and intellectual concepts, the end in view is that the ground, which is his mind, shall be made ready for receiving charity, from which, or rather from the life of which, he afterwards thinks and acts. At that point he has been reformed or regenerated, not before.