2760. Preface

WHEN people stay with Scripture’s literal meaning alone and do not seek out an inner meaning from other passages in the Word to explain it, they are delusional. The extent of their delusion can be plainly seen from the number of heresies that exist, each of which uses the Word’s literal meaning to prove its own dogma. Consider especially the major heresy generated by self-love and materialism (in all their insanity and hellishness) on the basis of the Lord’s words to Peter:

"I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail over it. And I will give you the keys to the kingdom of the heavens; and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in the heavens, and whatever you unbind on earth will be unbound in the heavens." (Matthew 16:15, 16, 17, 18, 19)

[2] People who stress the literal meaning think that these words have to do with Peter and that he was personally given this immense power. Yet they know that Peter lived an extremely simple life, that he never exercised this kind of power, and that to do so would be an assault on God’s divinity. Even so, self-love and materialism in all their insanity and hellishness prompt them to claim for themselves the highest power on earth and in heaven, and to make themselves gods. They therefore interpret the passage according to its literal meaning and vehemently defend their interpretation. In reality, the inner meaning of the words is that true faith in the Lord has this power (and such faith exists only in people who love the Lord and show kindness to their neighbor). Even at that, it is not faith but the Lord, the source of faith, who has the power. The rock here means this faith, just as it does everywhere else in the Word. It is on this rock that the church is built, and against it the gates of hell cannot prevail. Faith in the Lord has the keys to the kingdom of the heavens. It closes heaven to keep out evil and falsity, and it opens heaven to what is good and true. That is the inner meaning of the words.

[3] Like the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve apostles actually represented all aspects of faith in the Lord (§§577, 2089, 2129, 2130 at the end). Peter represented faith itself; James represented neighborly love; and John represented the good done by neighborly love (see the preface to Genesis 18). Their representation resembled that of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi (Jacob’s first children in the representative Jewish and Israelite religion), as can be seen from a thousand places in the Word. The words above were addressed to Peter because he presented an image of faith.

This shows what thick darkness people plunge into—dragging others with them—by interpreting everything literally, as we see from this declaration to Peter, which they use in denying the Lord the power to save the human race and usurping it for themselves.

2760. ² In John - in the Book of Revelation - the Word as to its internal sense is described as follows,

I saw heaven standing open, and, behold, a White Horse; and He who sat on it was called faithful and true, and in righteousness He judges and goes into battle. His eyes a flame of fire, and on His head many jewels, He has a name written which nobody knows but He Himself, and He is clothed in a garment dyed with blood, and His name is called the Word of God. And the armies that are in heaven were following Him on white horses and were clothed in linen, white and clean. And on His garment and on His thigh He has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. Revelation 19:11-14, 16.

What each individual part of this description embodies nobody can know except from the internal sense. Plainly, each one is representative and carries a spiritual meaning, such as 'heaven standing open'; 'the horse which was white'; 'He who sat on it was called faithful and true, and in righteousness He judges and goes into battle'; 'His eyes a flame of fire'; 'on His head many jewels'; 'He has a name which nobody knows but He Himself'; 'He is clothed in a garment dyed with blood'; 'the armies in heaven following Him on white horses'; 'clothed in linen, white and clean'; 'on His garment and on His thigh He has a name written'. It is stated openly that the One sitting on the White Horse is the Word, and that He is the Lord who is the Word, for it is said, 'His name is called the Word of God', and after that, 'on His garment and on His thigh He has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords'.

[2] From the interpretation of each individual expression it is evident that the Word as to the internal sense is described here. 'Heaven standing open' represents and means that the internal sense of the Word is not seen except in heaven and by those to whom heaven stands open, that is, those in whom love to the Lord and faith in Him-derived from that love are present. 'The horse which was white' represents and means the understanding of the Word as regards its interior contents. The next paragraph shows that 'a white horse' has this representation and meaning. 'He who sat on it' is, it is clear, the Word and the Lord who is the Word. He is called 'faithful' and 'one who judges out of righteousness' by virtue of good, and 'true' and 'one who goes into battle out of righteousness' by virtue of truth; for the Lord Himself is righteousness. 'His eyes a flame of fire' means Divine Truth glowing from the Divine Good that issues from His Divine Love. 'On His head many jewels' means all things of faith. 'He has a name written which nobody knows but He Himself' means that nobody sees the essential nature of the Word in the internal sense except the Lord Himself and he to whom He reveals it. 'Clothed in a garment dyed with blood' means the Word in the letter. 'The armies in heaven that were following Him on white horses' means people who have an understanding of the Word as regards its interior contents. 'Clothed in linen, white and clean' means that in these same persons love and faith derived from love are present. 'On His garment and on His thigh a name written' means truth and good. From these verses in Revelation and from those which come before and after them it is evident that around the last period [of the Church] the internal sense of the Word will be opened. But what is going to happen in that last period is also described in verses 17-21 of that chapter.

Footnotes:

2135. Preface to Genesis 18

THE end of the previous chapter discussed the Last Judgment and showed what it means: not the end of the world but the final days of the church. The Lord says that when this time is imminent he will "come in the clouds of the heavens with strength and glory" (Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27). No one so far has realized what the clouds of the heavens mean, but it has been made clear to me that they actually mean the literal sense of the Word. I have also been shown that the strength and glory mean the Word's inner sense. The Word's inner meaning is where its glory lies, because everything in it speaks of the Lord and his kingdom. (see §§1769-1772 in the second volume.)

[2] The cloud that surrounded Peter, James, and John when the Lord appeared to them in his glory means the same thing. Luke says this of it:

A voice came from the cloud saying, "This is my beloved Son; listen to him!" But when the voice had finished, Jesus was found alone. (Luke 9:35, 36)

In that scene, Moses and Elijah, who were talking with the Lord, represented the Old Testament Word, which is even called "Moses and the Prophets." Moses represented the books of Moses and the narrative books in general; the prophet Elijah represented all the books of the prophets. Peter, James, and John represented faith, charity, and the good actions that charity inspires, as they do everywhere else they are mentioned in the Gospels. The fact that they were the only witnesses meant that people who are devoted to faith, the charity that comes of faith, and the good actions that come from charity are the only ones who can see the glory of the Lord in his Word. It is true that others could see it, but in fact they do not see it, because they do not believe. This is the inner meaning in regard to [the clouds and glory]. Throughout the Prophets as well, a cloud symbolizes the Word in its letter, while glory symbolizes the Word as a living thing.

I have defined and described the Word's inner meaning in many places and illustrated it in the explanations of the individual words.

The people of the Lord's day least likely to believe that anything written in the Word had to do with him were the experts in [divine] law. Their counterparts today do know that the Word speaks of him, but they will perhaps be the last to believe that it contains any other glory than the kind that appears in the letter. Yet the letter is merely the cloud in which the glory lies.

Genesis 18

THE current chapter makes it especially clear what the Word's inner meaning is like and what angels perceive in it when people on earth read it.

This is all that can be gleaned from the literal meaning of the narrative: Jehovah appeared to Abraham in the form of three men, and Sarah, Abraham, and his houseboy prepared food for them–cakes of flour-meal, the young of an ox, and butter and milk.

Although such details are historically true–this really did happen–that is not what angels perceive in it. They see what the details represent and symbolize (as outlined in the summary below) in complete isolation from the literal meaning. The images presented as part of the story there are replaced by the state of perception the Lord's human side had achieved and the way it communicated with his divine side at that time. (This was before his divine nature had become completely one with his human nature, or his human nature with his divine.) That is the same state the Lord refers to in these words:

God has never been seen by anyone; his only Son, who is in the Father's embrace, is the one who has revealed him. (John 1:18)

[2] What the foods mentioned in the current chapter mean to the angels are heavenly and spiritual kinds of goodness, as discussed in the explanation [§§2177, 2180, 2184].

To go further, they take what is said about the child Sarah would bear at the set time the next year to be purely and simply about the fact that the Lord's human rationality would become divine.

Finally, Abraham's conversation with Jehovah about the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah suggests nothing to them but the Lord's intervention on behalf of the human race. The numbers fifty, forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, and ten there suggest his intervention on behalf of people in whom truth was attached to goodness and who acquired goodness as a result of trials and struggles or other conditions.

It is the same with all other images in the Word. This can be seen more clearly from the explanations of individual words, in which those words are shown to involve similar meanings in both the narrative and the prophetic parts of the Word.

[3] The inner meaning speaks exclusively of the Lord, of his kingdom in the heavens, of his church on earth and in each individual person there, and so of the good that love inspires and the truth that leads to faith. By looking at the Gospels' quotations from the Old Testament, anyone can see that this kind of meaning exists throughout the Word. In Matthew, for instance:

The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit on my right till I make your enemies your footstool." (Matthew 22:44; Psalms 110:1)

The literal meaning of the cited verse from Psalms likewise does not make it at all clear that the subject is the Lord, but the verse does refer to him and him alone, as he himself teaches here in Matthew.

[4] In the same author:

You, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah, since from you will emerge a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. (Matthew 2:6; Micah 5:2)

Even people who stick to the literal meaning, such as Jews, see from this that the Lord was to be born in that place. However, they are waiting for a ruler and monarch who will take them back to the land of Canaan, so they interpret the words according to their literal meaning. They equate the land of Judah with the land of Canaan, and Israel with Israel, even though they do not know where the Israelites are; and they still assume the ruler will be their Messiah. Nonetheless Judah and Israel mean something else; specifically, Judah means heavenly people and Israel means spiritual ones, in heaven and on earth. The ruler means the Lord.

[5] In the same author:

A voice was heard in Ramah – mourning, crying, and much wailing, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they are no more. (Matthew 2:18; Jeremiah 31:15)

People who stay in the literal meaning never grasp the meaning that lies within those words, but it is there, as the Gospel makes clear. In the same author:

Out of Egypt I called my child. (Matthew 2:15; Hosea 11:1)

The original statement in Hosea reads as follows:

When Israel was a boy, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my child. They called them, so they went from their presence. And I made Ephraim go. (Hosea 11:1, [2, 3])

People who do not realize there is an inner meaning cannot see that this passage is not talking about Jacob's move to Egypt or his descendants' departure or that Ephraim does not mean the tribe of Ephraim. They assume the subjects are the same as in the Word's narrative books, and yet the Gospel scripture above makes it clear that such things symbolize the Lord. No one would be able to see what each of them symbolizes, though, unless it were revealed through the inner meaning.