"Seek ye first the kingdom of the heavens and its righteousness, and all these things (which are recounted), shall be added unto you." (Matthew 6:33)

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Comparison of the kingdom of God:

1. With the human body from inmosts to outmosts; and therefore concerning that society wherein the Messiah is the Soul, and which shall form one body as one man.

2. With the kindred in the house of Abraham and Nahor.

3. With the land of Canaan and its bordering countries.

4. With the Paradise of Eden.

5. With a marriage and a feast.

[For the above comparisons, see:

(1) n. The Word Explained 596 seq.

(2) n. 567-568.

(3) n. 477 seq.

(4) n. 498 seq.,

(5) n. 586.]

Men are men only so far as they walk in the way of truth. But so far as they turn aside therefrom, they approach to the nature of a beast.

567. Jacob was now called Laban's bone and flesh, and this because he was in that body which was formed by marriages and thus by continual consanguinities. There were two houses, namely, that of Abraham and that of Nahor Abraham's brother. Both houses came from a single house which was that of Terah the father of them both. The house of Abraham was in the land of Canaan; that of Nahor was outside that land in Ur of the Chaldees, Syria of the rivers, or Mesopotamia. In what way the one house had been joined to the other by marriages, namely the house of Abraham to the house which was Nahor's, may be evident from n. 558 above. From the Abrahamic house came the Jacobean and Israelitish house, that is, the Jewish and Israelitish people. Thus they came likewise from the house of Nahor, but only in respect to the daughters of that house who were taken to wife by the sons of the house of Abraham. Thus the two houses coalesced into one, as though into a single body. Hence it is now said to Jacob: Surely thou art my bone and my flesh.

596. THE KINGDOM OF GOD, AND THE OLD CREATION OR PARADISE.

THE CREATION OF THE OLD MAN AND OF THE NEW4

4 This heading is taken from the inside of the back cover of Codex 69.

It can be known to everyone that, in respect to God the Creator and Former, the inmost is the first; consequently that interiors are prior. In inmosts lies the Divine itself, the heavenly itself, the truly spiritual, the holy and the pure, the very soul and life. But let us illustrate this matter by example. The inmost in man is his soul or veriest life; this also is his first; for the soul is infused through the seed of the parent, and from this, is produced the body. The inmost in every human society is divine worship, which is the very soul of such society. The inmost in the Divine Word is the Messiah, his kingdom, and the church, this inmost being also the life or soul of all the other senses, as said above [n. 505, 509]. The inmost in that great society, which constitutes the kingdom of God, is the Messiah; for he is the soul of that society, and consequently the verimost life of that kingdom. The inmost in the church is the Messiah, who is thus its soul and its one only Life; and the same is true of all things of the church, these being comparable to a body.