3452. 'And we said, Let there be now a solemn agreement between us, between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you' means that their matters of doctrine concerning faith, regarded in themselves, should not be refused recognition, that is to say, insofar as they are drawn from the literal sense of the Word. This is clear from the meaning of 'a solemn agreement between us' as the general agreement between matters of doctrine and the literal sense of the Word; from the meaning of 'between us and you' as agreement with the internal sense; and from the meaning of 'let us make a covenant' as the fact that in this way they could be joined together - 'a covenant' meaning a joining together, see 665, 666, 1023, 1038, 1864, 2003, 2021. The meaning which flows from all this is that this being so, their matters of doctrine concerning faith, regarded in themselves, should not be refused recognition, for as has been stated, no matters of doctrine at all, provided they are drawn from the Word, are refused recognition. They are acceptable to the Lord provided that the person who possesses them is leading a charitable life, for everything in the Word is able to be joined to that life. But the interior aspects of the Word are able to be joined to the life present in the interior good that flows from charity. See what has been stated and brought forward in 3324.

1864. That 'on that day Jehovah made a covenant with Abram' means the joining together of the Lord's Interior Man and His Internal Man is clear from the meaning of 'a covenant' as a joining together, dealt with already in 665, 666, 1023, 1038. Here, because in the internal sense the Lord is the subject, it means an interior conjunction. For the Lord advanced more and more towards conjunction and union with Jehovah His Father, till at length He became one, that is, the Human Essence itself also became Jehovah, who was the Lord's Internal itself. These things were represented by 'the covenant which Jehovah made with Abram'. Anyone may see that Jehovah never makes a covenant with man, for such would be contrary to the Divine. What is man but something base and filthy, which of itself thinks and does nothing but evil? All the good that he does comes from Jehovah. From this it becomes clear that this covenant, like every other covenant made with Abram's descendants, was nothing else than a representative of the Divine and of the heavenly things of the kingdom of God. This particular covenant made with Abram was a representative of the joining together of the Lord's Human Essence and His Divine Essence, that is, Jehovah. That it was a representative of the joining together of the Lord's Interior Man and His Internal Man, that is, Jehovah, is clear from what has gone before - that the Lord joined and united Himself more and more through the conflicts brought about by temptations and through victories. What the Interior Man was has been stated already, namely that which was between the Internal and the External.