9373. Come up unto Jehovah. That this signifies conjunction with the Lord, is evident from the signification of “coming up,” as being to be raised toward interior things (see n. 3084, 4539, 4969, 5406, 5817, 6007), consequently also to be conjoined (n. 8760). That it denotes conjunction with the Lord, is because by “Jehovah” in the Word is meant the the Lord, (n. 1343, 1736, 1793, 2004, 2005, 2018, 2025, 2921, 3023, 3035, 5663, 6280, 6303, 6905, 8274, 8864, 9315). A secret which also lies hidden in the internal sense of these words, is that the sons of Jacob, over whom Moses was the head, were not called and chosen; but they themselves insisted that Divine worship should be instituted among them (according to wh at has been said in n. 4290, 4293); and therefore it is here said, “and He said unto Moses, Come up unto Jehovah,” as if not Jehovah, but another, had said that he should come up. For the same reason in what follows it is said that “the people should not go up” (verse 2); and that “Jehovah sent not His hand unto the sons of Israel who were set apart” (verse 11); and that “the appearance of the glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the sons of Israel” (verse 17); and lastly that Moses, being called the seventh day, “entered into the midst of the cloud.” For by “the cloud” is meant the Word in the letter (n. 5922, 6343, 6752, 6832, 8106, 8443, 8781); and with the sons of Jacob the Word was separated from its internal sense, because they were in external worship without internal, as can be clearly seen from the fact that now, as before, they said, “all the words which Jehovah hath spoken we will do” (verse 3); and yet scarcely forty days afterward they worshiped a golden calf instead of Jehovah; which shows that this was hidden in their hearts while they were saying with their lips that they would serve Jehovah alone. But nevertheless those who are meant by “the called and the chosen” are those who are in internal worship, and who from internal worship are in external; that is, those who are in love to and faith in the Lord, and from this in love toward the neighbor.

491. The same things are signified by “sons” and “daughters” in this chapter (verses 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 26, 30), but such as is the church, such are the “sons and daughters” that is, such are the goods and truths; the truths and goods here spoken of are such as were distinctly perceived, because they are predicated of the Most Ancient Church, the principal and parent of all the other and succeeding churches.

2. THE LORD IS THE GOD OF HEAVEN

The first essential is to know who the God of heaven is, since everything else depends upon that. Throughout the whole of heaven no other than the Lord alone is acknowledged as the God of heaven. There they declare as He Himself taught,

That He is one with the Father; that the Father is in Him and He in the Father, that he who sees Him sees the Father, and that everything that is holy goes forth from Him. John 10:30, 38; 14:10-11; 16:13-15.

I have quite often talked with angels on this matter and they have constantly declared that in heaven they are unable to distinguish the Divine into three, because they know and perceive that the Divine is One and that it is one in the Lord. They even said that people who come from this world from the Church having an idea of three Divine beings cannot be admitted into heaven because their thought wanders from one to another, and it is not allowable there to think of three and say one. ¹ This is because everyone in heaven speaks from the thought, for there they have a cogitative speech or thought speaking. Consequently, those who in this world have distinguished the Divine into three and have adopted a separate idea of each, and have not made that idea one in the Lord and centred it there, cannot be received. For in heaven, they have a communication of the thoughts of all, so that if anyone came there, thinking of three and saying one, he would immediately be discovered and rejected. It ought to be known, however, that all those who have not separated truth from good, or faith from love, receive, when instructed in the other life, the heavenly idea of the Lord, that He is the God of the universe. It is indeed otherwise with those who have separated faith from life, that is, who have not lived in accordance with the precepts of a true faith.

Imibhalo yaphansi: