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.

2180. And took the young of an ox, tender and good symbolizes something heavenly on the earthly plane, which his rationality procured for itself so that he would be able to unite with the perception received from his divine side. This can be seen from the scriptural symbolism of a young ox, or the young of an ox, as earthly goodness. Because this has to do with the Lord's rational mind, the ox is called tender (for its heavenly spirituality, or the truth that grows out of goodness) and good (for heavenliness itself, or goodness itself). Genuine rationality contains a desire for truth and a desire for goodness, but its primary ingredient is desire for truth, as shown before, in §2072. That is why "tender" comes first. As it usually does, though, the Word still mentions both, for the sake of the marriage between truth and goodness, which is discussed above in §2173.

[2] The symbolism of a young ox as something heavenly on the earthly plane–earthly goodness, in other words'stands out with special clarity from the sacrifices, which were the main representative acts of worship in the Hebrew church, and later in the Jewish. What were sacrificed were members either of the herd or of the flock, and so various kinds of clean animals: adult cattle, young cattle, he-goats, sheep, rams, she-goats, kids, and lambs, and in addition turtledoves and pigeon chicks.

All the sacrifices symbolized deeper dimensions of worship–that is, heavenly and spiritual dimensions (§§2165, 2177). Specifically, those involving herd animals symbolized heavenly qualities on the earthly plane, while those involving flock animals symbolized heavenly qualities on the rational plane. Both kinds–the earthly ones and the rational ones–occur at deeper and deeper levels and in various forms, which is why so many different genera and species of those animals were used in sacrifices. The same thing can also be seen from the rules laying out just what animals were to be offered in burnt offerings and in sacrifices of various kinds: daily, Sabbath, and feast day; freewill offerings, thanksgiving, and vows; atonement for guilt and sin; purification and cleansing; and ordination. The animals are explicitly named, as is the number of them to be used in each type of sacrifice, which would never have happened if each had not had its own symbolism. This is obvious to see in passages that discuss the sacrifices, such as Exodus 29; Leviticus 1, 3, 4, 9, 16, 23; Numbers 7, 8, 15, 29. This is not the place to explain the symbolism of each, however. The case is similar where the animals are mentioned in the Prophets. This evidence shows that young cattle symbolized heavenly qualities on the earthly plane.

[3] The fact that only heavenly things are symbolized can also be seen from the guardian beings seen by Ezekiel and from the living creatures that John saw before the throne. The prophet says this about the guardian beings:

The likeness of their faces: the face of a human, and the face of a lion on the right for the four of them, and the face of an ox on the left for the four of them, and the face of an eagle for the four of them. (Ezekiel 1:10)

This is what John says about the four living creatures before the throne:

Around the throne were four living creatures; the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like a young ox, the third living creature having a face like a human, the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. They were saying, "Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come." (Revelation 4[6,] 7, 8)

Anyone can see that the guardian beings and these living creatures–including the ox and the young ox mentioned–represented something sacred. It is similar with the ones in Moses' prophecy concerning Joseph, of whom he says:

Let [a blessing] come on the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of the Nazirite among his brothers. The firstborn of his ox has honor, and the horns of the unicorn are his horn. With them he will strike all the peoples at once, to the ends of the earth. (Deuteronomy 33:16, 17)

No one could possibly understand these words without knowing what an ox, a unicorn, horns, and so on symbolize on an inner level.

[4] To take up sacrifices in general: It is true that they were demanded of the Israelite people by Moses, but the earliest church, which preceded the Flood, never knew anything about them. It never entered their minds to worship the Lord by slaughtering animals. The ancient church, which followed the Flood, was also ignorant of sacrifices. It did subscribe to representative practices, but not to sacrifices. The first church to establish sacrifices was the next one, called the Hebrew church. From there the custom spread to the surrounding nations, from there again to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and so to their descendants. Section 1343 showed that non-Jewish nations had sacrificial worship. So did Jacob's descendants before they left Egypt and therefore before Moses commanded sacrifices on Mount Sinai. This can be seen from Exodus 5:3; 10:25, 26; 18:12; 24:4, 5.

[5] It is especially clear to see in their idolatry before the golden calf, which Moses reports on as follows:

Aaron built an altar before the calf, and Aaron proclaimed and said, "A feast to Jehovah tomorrow!" And they got up the next morning and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat to eat and drink and got up to play. (Exodus 32:5, 6)

This happened while Moses was on Mount Sinai and so before any commandment concerning the altar and the sacrifices had reached them. The reason it came to be commanded was that their sacrificial worship had turned idolatrous, as it had among non-Jews. They could not be detached from this worship because they assigned supreme holiness to it. Once a thing has been implanted in us as holy during our childhood (especially if our forebears have implanted it) and so has taken root, the Lord refuses to break it but rather bends it, unless it violates the divine plan itself. This was the reason they were ordered to establish the sacrifices mentioned in the books of Moses.

[6] Sacrifice was never welcome to Jehovah; he merely tolerated and put up with it for the reason given, as is plain to see in the Prophets. This is what Jeremiah says about the subject:

Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel, has said, "Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat the meat. I did not speak to your ancestors or command them (on the day when I brought them out of the land of Egypt) concerning the matters of burnt offering and sacrifice, but this word I commanded them, saying 'Obey my voice and I will become your God.'" (Jeremiah 7:21, 22, 23)

In David:

Jehovah, sacrifice and gift you have not wished for, burnt offering and sin sacrifices you have not sought. I have desired to do your will, my God. (Psalms 40:6, 8)

In the same author:

You do not take pleasure in sacrifice, that I should give it; burnt offering you do not welcome. The sacrifices of God are a chastened spirit. (Psalms 51:16, 17)

In the same author:

I will not accept a young ox from your house, he-goats from your folds. Sacrifice praise to God! (Psalms 50:9, 14; 107:21, 22; 116:17; Deuteronomy 33:19)

In Hosea:

Mercy I wish for and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6)

Samuel said to Saul:

Does Jehovah take satisfaction in burnt offerings and sacrifices? Look: submission [is better] than the sacrifice of oxen, obedience than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15:22)

In Micah:

With what am I to meet Jehovah [or] bow down to God on high? Am I to meet him with burnt offerings, with calves that are offspring of a year? Will Jehovah take satisfaction in thousands of rams, in myriads of torrents of oil? He has pointed out to you, friend, what is good and what Jehovah is requiring of you: merely to carry out judgment and love mercy and be humble walking with your God. (Micah 6:6, 7, 8)

[7] These passages now make it clear that sacrifices were not commanded but tolerated. The only thing in the sacrifices that God paid attention to was their inward intent; it was the inner content that was pleasing, not what was happening on the outside. That is why the Lord abolished them, as Daniel predicted in these words:

In the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and oblation. (Daniel 9:27)

This is about the Lord's Coming. See what was said about sacrifices in the first two volumes, at §§922, 923, 1128, 1823.

As for the young of an ox that Abraham prepared for the three men, its meaning was similar to that of the one used in sacrifices. The similarity of its symbolism can be seen from Abraham's request to Sarah to take three pecks of flour. This is what Moses says about the proportion of flour to one young ox:

When you come into the land: When you prepare the young of an ox as a burnt offering or sacrifice, calling it a vow or a peace offering to Jehovah, you shall offer on the young of the ox a minha of flour–three tenths [of an ephah] mixed with oil. (Numbers 15[2,] 8, 9)

This passage likewise speaks of three: here, three tenths; there, three pecks. A ram, on the other hand, required only two tenths, and a lamb, one (Numbers 15:4, 5, 6).