Arcana Coelestia#10645
10645. 'Therefore you shall not bow down to any other god' means that the Lord alone is to be worshipped in faith and love. This is clear from the meaning of 'bowing down' as adoring and worshipping. The reason why the Lord alone and no other is the One who is to be worshipped is that 'Jehovah' and 'God' are used in the Word to mean the Lord, see in the places referred to in 9315, 9373, and that the Lord is the God of heaven and earth, also the one and only God, in the places referred to in 9194. The reason for saying that the Lord is to be worshipped in faith and love is that worship of the Lord springs either from faith or from love. Worship that springs from faith is called worship in accord with truths, for truths belong to faith, and worship that springs from love is called worship springing from good, for good belongs to love. Those who are in the Lord's spiritual kingdom worship Him in faith, whereas those who are in His celestial kingdom do so in love.
[2] But something must be said to show what worship of the Lord in faith and love is like. Very many people suppose that they worship the Lord in faith when they believe the things contained in the teachings of the Church, and that they worship the Lord in love when they love Him. But worship of the Lord does not consist in mere belief nor in mere love; rather it consists in leading a life in accord with His commandments. For those who do so, they alone are the ones who believe in the Lord and love Him. All others may say that they believe in the Lord but they do not in fact believe in Him, and they may say that they love Him but they do not in fact do so. The reason why only those who lead a life in accord with His commandments believe in the Lord and love Him is that the Lord cannot be where there is an understanding of truth but no will or desire for it, only where there is an understanding of truth coupled with a will or desire for it. For truth does not enter a person and become his until he wills or desires it, and in willing it does it; for the will is the real person, whereas the understanding is the person only insofar as it is rooted in the will. The Lord is also present with a person in his truths that spring from good with him; and truths springing from good are ones that a person wills or desires and consequently does, not those which he understands and does without any desire for them in his will. For without any desire in the will the doing of them is hypocrisy, since they are done before men and not before the Lord.
[3] Neither does the Lord reside with a person who is an empty shell, that is, who possesses no knowledge of His truths and does not do them. It is in those truths which spring from good, that is, which a person wills or desires and does, that the Lord is present with a person; for truths springing from good compose the Church as it exists in him, and they compose heaven as this exists in him. In short, they cause the Lord Himself to reside in him.
[4] Reason alone tells people that this is so, if they weigh the matter up; they can see that truths serve to shape the whole understanding part of the human mind, and forms of good to shape the whole will part. For all things that exist throughout creation have connection with truth and with good; and the human understanding has been made to receive truths and the human will to receive forms of good. The truths which a person believes are called the truths of faith, and the forms of good that fill a person with delight are called forms of the good of love. From this it becomes clear that what the truths of faith shaping the understanding are like, and what the forms of the good of love shaping the will are like, determines what a person is like; for a person is a person by virtue of his understanding and will. If therefore God's truths come to shape his understanding and become the constituents of his faith, and the forms of good which become the components of his love give shape to his will, it follows that heaven then exists within that person, and that the Lord resides with that person as in His heaven. For Divine Truths which make up the understanding and forms of Divine Good which make up the will come from the Lord, or are the Lord's; and those things which are the Lord's are Himself. From this it is evident that believing in the Lord consists in filling one's understanding with the truths of faith, that loving the Lord consists in filling one's will with forms of the good of love, and that neither of these things is accomplished except by learning truths from the Word, willing them, and doing them. Whether you say willing and doing or you say loving, it amounts to the same thing; for what a person loves he wills, and what he actively wills he loves.
[5] From all this it may now be seen what worshipping the Lord in faith and love really is. That the nature of it is as described is also evident from the consideration that the Lord wills or desires the salvation of all. His desire to save a person implies His desire to lead him towards Himself, to heaven. This cannot be accomplished unless the Lord is in him; and the Lord cannot be in him at all except in such things residing in him as come from Himself. Those things are truths springing from good, thus commandments of His which the person does in faith and in love; for nothing else exists in a person, or is ever able to exist, that receives the Lord and heaven. Nor does heaven itself consist of anything else.
[6] The truth that believing in the Lord and loving Him consist in doing His commandments is also what the Lord teaches in John,
If you love Me, keep My commands. He who has My commandments and does them, he it is who loves Me. If anyone loves Me he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words. John 14:15, 21, 23-24.
And elsewhere in the same gospel,
Remain in My love. If you keep My commands, you will remain in My love. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. John 15:9-10, 14.
The commandments which are to be kept, and in accordance with which people ought to conduct their lives, are presented in the teachings about charity and faith 1 .
脚注:
1. i.e. in the preliminary sections of the chapters explaining Exodus
Exodus第34章
1
Yahweh said to Moses, "Chisel two stone tablets like the first: and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.
2
Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain.
3
No one shall come up with you; neither let anyone be seen throughout all the mountain; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mountain."
4
He chiseled two tablets of stone like the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up to Mount Sinai, as Yahweh had commanded him, and took in his hand two stone tablets.
5
Yahweh descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Yahweh.
6
Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, "Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth,
7
keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children's children, on the third and on the fourth generation."
8
Moses hurried and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.
9
He said, "If now I have found favor in your sight, Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us; although this is a stiff-necked people; pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance."
10
He said, "Behold, I make a covenant: before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been worked in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which you are shall see the work of Yahweh; for it is an awesome thing that I do with you.
11
Observe that which I command you this day. Behold, I drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
12
Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare in the midst of you:
13
but you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherim;
14
for you shall worship no other god: for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
15
"Don't make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play the prostitute after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you and you eat of his sacrifice;
16
and you take of their daughters to your sons, and their daughters play the prostitute after their gods, and make your sons play the prostitute after their gods.
17
"You shall make no cast idols for yourselves.
18
"You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib; for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt.
19
"All that opens the womb is mine; and all your livestock that is male, the firstborn of cow and sheep.
20
The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb: and if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. No one shall appear before me empty.
21
"Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest: in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.
22
"You shall observe the feast of weeks with the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of harvest at the year's end.
23
Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel.
24
For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither shall any man desire your land when you go up to appear before Yahweh, your God, three times in the year.
25
"You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left to the morning.
26
"You shall bring the first of the first fruits of your ground to the house of Yahweh your God. "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk."
27
Yahweh said to Moses, "Write you these words: for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."
28
He was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread, nor drank water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
29
It happened, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses didn't know that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.
30
When Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come near him.
31
Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses spoke to them.
32
Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them all of the commandments that Yahweh had spoken with him on Mount Sinai.
33
When Moses was done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.
34
But when Moses went in before Yahweh to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and he came out, and spoke to the children of Israel that which he was commanded.
35
The children of Israel saw Moses' face, that the skin of Moses' face shone: and Moses put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.
