The Word and Its Spiritual or Internal Sense - 2
What makes the Word the Word: Enlightenment
What makes the Word the Word: Enlightenment
Those who are of any religion accept that there must be a Word - a Revelation of some kind from God - which expresses His wishes of well being for them. To the Christians, it usually is the Old and New Testaments. These, they accept as being Sacred and Holy. With those of the New Church there is a new Revelation that has also been accepted - the Word of the Divine Human. The Divine Human is the Glorified Lord Jesus Christ who arose from the grave. This new Word is so called because it was written in the Latin language and, so, is sometimes called the Latin Word. It is also known as the 'Third Testament', because it has come to mankind after the Old and New Testaments.
In prior doctrinal papers it has been shown that there is an internal sense within the Word which reveals the genuine sense, while the literal sense reveals merely apparent truths. These literal and natural truths are accommodated to mankind's understanding, because we, now, live in the natural world and are separated from Heaven and from God. Of course, the Lord wants us to understand His truths and not just according to their apparent truth, which very often if taken literally leads to fallacies. The reason is obvious since often the understanding of the literal sense is contrary to what are the Lord's attributes and His qualities. Plus, at times, there is a contradiction when the Word is seen in the natural sense, and is simply because it is not understood even by someone who is learned.
It becomes necessary that in order to understand the word so that its genuine truths are known and acknowledged one must be enlightened. However, there is a common error that is made by even those who look to the Word as God's and as Divine whether they have knowledge of the correspondences revealed in the Latin Word or not. That error is engrained in a man since his fall from Paradise. It is his hereditary evil tendencies. It is rooted in man's desire to learn and to know what is the truth and good from self and the world and not from God. We can see this truth in God providing the tree of lives or of life in midst of the Garden of Eden and in giving warning to man to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that was also in the garden. Needless to say, man did not listen and he soon found himself outside the garden without the Lord's love and presence. Of course, the Lord did not leave man, but man was now unable to hear Him as before, because of his sins. God had to find another way in which man could hear His truths and know His love.
This is evidenced in the Word, even when understood naturally, for we see the Lord's love in it revealed. The results was that over the many thousands of years since man's turning away from God as depicted in the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We have seen that He has revealed Himself through the written Word the Old and the New Testaments and an earlier Word as evidenced in the Old Testament. Before that, truths came to man from within through perception. However, they now enter man's mind externally, through the natural senses. This has caused the establishment of many different 'Churches' over the many years since (See the five lectures on the Churches). There is another meaning of the word 'Church' that those who are of the New Church come to understand. They see the 'Church' as where the Lord's abode is within a man. It is the Lord's good and His truths in man and is seem in one's love or charity and is one's faith. We can see this in the Gospels spoken by the Lord in His teachings where He says that the Father and He make their abode and will dwell within such a person. Where we are aware of this is our mind, our will and understanding, which is often referred to in the Word as one's 'heart' and mind, for that is where, not only do truths come into, but is where our affections and desires are found.
The problem is that along with the truths that we find taught in the Word there also comes fallacies and falsities since our understanding is only natural and we see truths only in appearances. We have pointed out that this is because truths, now, must enter man through an external way through the senses and from the world. As such, the spiritual sense in not understood any longer. One of the truths or a doctrinal of the New Church is that in the coming again of the Lord there also was a new Revelation given in which the internal or spiritual sense is revealed and the genuine sense can be learned, known, and acknowledged. Why this Revelation took so long to come or was not revealed in the Old and New Testaments is because mankind had to first become prepared for the Lord's coming and to take His rightful place in His Kingdom - where His truths and His goodness reign - again within man. This, of course, is Heaven and Heaven we learn is within us as the Lord Himself taught. The development of this was the Church within man and this can be seen in the lectures concerning the five Churches on earth.
The Word is not understood except one becomes enlightened. So, in that sense, even though one has the Word, even the Third Testament, where he learns the correspondences between Heaven and earth and may come to know what is signified in the Word by the various things used the histories, the stories, parables, and prophecies he still must become enlightened in order to understand the spiritual and genuine truths. It is the human rational that must become enlightened, for, as we saw when man rejected the truths coming from the Lord and turned to know the truth from his self, then evils, in time, entered. And, today, there is that tendency for a man to inherit the ways of his parents and, even, the ways of his forefathers, which is to sin.
You probably have come to the idea that each Church has its own doctrine derived from the Word and substantiates it by the Word. One faith says one thing and another says something else though the subject may be the same. In fact, this is because the Word understood in its literal sense is not constant with its self and in places appears to contradict itself. Thus, it is not strange that it is interpreted differently by different Churches today. They do so to confirm and to defend their corporeal and worldly loves.
Now, if it is love that determines what one's faith and Church affiliation, then it is love that will enable us to become enlightened and to see genuine truths. Herein is the key 'as it were' that enlightens one's understanding - love. First, enlightenment begins by a love for the truth. Most people would say that God has given all men a desire to know the truth, especially when it pertains to how to live a descent and successful life in this world, and to have some peace and enjoyment in his life, and to just know the mysteries of life. So, one reads the Word because he wants to know the truth and that he may in some way benefit. A man, in any of the Churches, will confirm that he loves the truth, even that he loves the Lord, yet there are differences in each one's belief. And, of course, each may say he is enlightened and that his faith is the true faith, etc. After all, he does love the truth and desire to know it. However, examine that love more deeply and you will learn why he usually is not truly enlightened. Isn't it his love that wants the truth? Question: what is that love his? Why does he love the truth? What is his motive to know the truth? You may find that it is because he wants notoriety, or maybe wealth and power, or honor, reputation and, of course, gain. In other words such a person's love is of and for himself. Therefore, what enlightenment he has only is of this world; it is from a love of self. Remember the cause of man's interiors being closed to the Lord, and being shut off from him, was just from such a selfish love.
Thus, the love that brings enlightenment to a man is not just his love for the truth, but is his love for the truth and the good, because it is the truth and is good. These are they who have affection for not only the truth, but who love the good of life. By the good of life is meant living from the Lord who is within and not claiming life as one's own. This love opens one's internal or spirit once again to where a man sees the Lord as His life coming from within; he is, but a vessel in which God's truths and His goodness comes into. It is in this way that one is raised up into the light of Heaven. Of course, Heaven is within, for the Lord is there within as He has said.
We come to see that enlightenment is actually the opening of the interiors of one's mind and where the Lord is within man, even as the tree of lives was in the midst of the garden where man was to live. Thus, then, does the man hold the Word Holy and sacred, although he is often unaware of it's holiness. In this process the Lord leads man into enlightenment. We can see that it is not the man himself who leads, but it is the Lord who does so. As a result, these are those who love the truth are led by the Lord, and thus, these are they who live according to the Divine truths. In this way the Word is made living within a man according to the life of his love and faith. Thus, it is that one comes to understand that the things of his own intelligence are not of life there is no life in them because they are of one's proprium, that is, of what is one's own and rather of what is of the self, not of the Lord. Who cannot see that if there is nothing of the Lord with man, then man has no real life, no eternal life, and the life he thinks he has is at best only an apparent life, and is often no life at all, but only leads to his eternal damnation. This is not life, but is death, for as we learned in Genesis, those who took and ate of the knowledge of good and evil, those who appropriated this knowledge as their own died. These truths they have taken from God and have claim as theirs from their own intelligence, and thus, they have no life, for there is nothing good in them and instead of truths are falsities. Life is the Lord's; it is His goodness and His truthfulness within man. Those who confirm themselves in false doctrine cannot be enlightened.
The understanding of a man is what is enlightened; the understanding is receptive of truth, the will being receptive of good. Into the understanding comes ideas and from them comes one's thoughts into which doctrinal things are then formed and perceived. These ideas are natural since a man lives in this world. Thus, he thinks in the Natural sense. In the world, man, because he lives only in his natural, unless he becomes enlightened, cannot understand spiritual ideas. And, so he must have affection for the truth for its own sake, which is to live a good life, which comes only from the Lord who dwells within him in a new will and understanding. And, as was said, it is the understanding that becomes enlightened. The question is: if a man, while in this world, cannot think spiritually until he comes into spiritual ideas after his death and in the spiritual world, then, wherein is his enlightenment that is to lead him, while in this world?
While it is true he cannot think spiritually as angels or even good spirits, but he can think abstractly. Thus, his ideas and thoughts concerning true doctrine and knowing genuine truths are accommodated to his present state, for is not death the absence of the Lord's life with a man. Are not truths and goods of the Lord made vivified or made alive in man when there is the absence of falsities and evils and they are 'as it were' put aside? It is in that sense that one becomes enlightened and his ideas and thoughts, then, become spiritual / natural, that he then lives in his spirit in the spiritual world, while living here in this natural world, although he is unaware of it.
From where does man get his ideas and, hence, his thoughts? Today, man is so far from the truth, that is, from the Lord, who is the Truth and the Way, that he thinks truths are of himself, thinking they are his own that he comes into truth of his own. He thinks what is good is what he loves and, thus, that it is the truth. Yet, he would have no understanding of any kind at all without perception, whether it comes from within from the Lord Himself or from without through his senses. A man receives his ideas from others, from the spiritual world, either from good or evil spirits, for we have shown that he is no longer conjoined with the Lord immediately, having been 'as it were' sent out from Paradise. Yet, this is where life comes, from the Lord, that is, the Lord who was present with him immediately, but is now cut off. That presence with him, now, unless he listens and is obedient to the Lord's Word, because he loves truth for the sake of truth, is gone and nothing except falsities and evil remains. There is only one life and that is the Lord's. It proceeds or flows from the Lord to man, either through angels and good spirits or through evil spirits and from hell. The Truth still proceeds to man, though thoughts have been turned into falsities; such life in the Word is called death. These are evil spirits, the devils; that is, these are truths that have turned falsities and goods have been changed into evils, because the man has only love for himself.
Do not evil thoughts come from hell and good thoughts from Heaven where God is with angels? Do not true ideas and thoughts come from the Lord and Heaven and false ideas and thoughts from devils and evil spirits whose abode is in hell? Faith that leads to Heaven is from Heaven; it is where one's true faith is opened or made manifest in man where their qualities become known. This is where the true life of a man lies. It is where angels and where men are conjoined with the Lord in His love and with His Wisdom and is according to his affection for them.
As a Christian, one knows there is another life after this one - an everlasting or eternal life - and, therefore, a spiritual life as well as this natural life. He thus, knows this life - the natural life - and a life that is in another world - a spiritual world - were he, one day will come into. Now, how do you think the man that is to live in the other world - the spiritual world - comes into and exists and live there? Isn't it the truth that God has made us a living soul with a spirit and body? Don't we live in this world in our body, since our ancestors, because of rejecting the true life, that spiritual life, where God lives within?
Now, if the spirit has been shut off, closed 'as it were', from us because of our sin, then, isn't it still within us? Thus, when we, who now live in the natural state of life and who loves truth for the sake of truth become enlightened, then doesn't the Lord's truth, which is inmost within us, enlightening our spirit, and is where life proceeds into. Does not Jehovah God, the Lord God breathe into us the breath of life and we become a living soul? And, in so doing, then are not truths from the Lord conjoined with our spirit and the falsities that are with us, then flee.
We have said that enlightenment is of the understanding and that false understanding is from hell, being one together with evil spirits. Thus, a man can think, for he receives ideas and thoughts and, so, can develop them, either through good from Heaven or through evil from hell. As a result, a man develops a rational and when the ideas and thoughts are from the Lord and, thus, are truths, the rational formed in man is from the Lord. It is a new Rational from the Lord and not from one's self. It is then that a life of reasoning from truths and from a willingness to do good become lived and is not merely stored in the memory, which is not believing at all. Such life in the memory is devoid of all life of perception and affection of the Lord. This new life is from the Rational, which is truly the Lord's within man.
Lastly, what is enlightened to man is the literal sense of the Word. For unless it be made clear, man understands only apparent truths, many of which, if confirmed, leads only to fallacies, if not, in time to falsities, and such a man is without enlightenment. In time, these soon become false ideas and thoughts that lead to hell. Such a mind is darkened and the Lord is even further away. Its confirmation of which will not be removed even in the next world. End.
In prior doctrinal papers it has been shown that there is an internal sense within the Word which reveals the genuine sense, while the literal sense reveals merely apparent truths. These literal and natural truths are accommodated to mankind's understanding, because we, now, live in the natural world and are separated from Heaven and from God. Of course, the Lord wants us to understand His truths and not just according to their apparent truth, which very often if taken literally leads to fallacies. The reason is obvious since often the understanding of the literal sense is contrary to what are the Lord's attributes and His qualities. Plus, at times, there is a contradiction when the Word is seen in the natural sense, and is simply because it is not understood even by someone who is learned.
It becomes necessary that in order to understand the word so that its genuine truths are known and acknowledged one must be enlightened. However, there is a common error that is made by even those who look to the Word as God's and as Divine whether they have knowledge of the correspondences revealed in the Latin Word or not. That error is engrained in a man since his fall from Paradise. It is his hereditary evil tendencies. It is rooted in man's desire to learn and to know what is the truth and good from self and the world and not from God. We can see this truth in God providing the tree of lives or of life in midst of the Garden of Eden and in giving warning to man to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that was also in the garden. Needless to say, man did not listen and he soon found himself outside the garden without the Lord's love and presence. Of course, the Lord did not leave man, but man was now unable to hear Him as before, because of his sins. God had to find another way in which man could hear His truths and know His love.
This is evidenced in the Word, even when understood naturally, for we see the Lord's love in it revealed. The results was that over the many thousands of years since man's turning away from God as depicted in the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We have seen that He has revealed Himself through the written Word the Old and the New Testaments and an earlier Word as evidenced in the Old Testament. Before that, truths came to man from within through perception. However, they now enter man's mind externally, through the natural senses. This has caused the establishment of many different 'Churches' over the many years since (See the five lectures on the Churches). There is another meaning of the word 'Church' that those who are of the New Church come to understand. They see the 'Church' as where the Lord's abode is within a man. It is the Lord's good and His truths in man and is seem in one's love or charity and is one's faith. We can see this in the Gospels spoken by the Lord in His teachings where He says that the Father and He make their abode and will dwell within such a person. Where we are aware of this is our mind, our will and understanding, which is often referred to in the Word as one's 'heart' and mind, for that is where, not only do truths come into, but is where our affections and desires are found.
The problem is that along with the truths that we find taught in the Word there also comes fallacies and falsities since our understanding is only natural and we see truths only in appearances. We have pointed out that this is because truths, now, must enter man through an external way through the senses and from the world. As such, the spiritual sense in not understood any longer. One of the truths or a doctrinal of the New Church is that in the coming again of the Lord there also was a new Revelation given in which the internal or spiritual sense is revealed and the genuine sense can be learned, known, and acknowledged. Why this Revelation took so long to come or was not revealed in the Old and New Testaments is because mankind had to first become prepared for the Lord's coming and to take His rightful place in His Kingdom - where His truths and His goodness reign - again within man. This, of course, is Heaven and Heaven we learn is within us as the Lord Himself taught. The development of this was the Church within man and this can be seen in the lectures concerning the five Churches on earth.
The Word is not understood except one becomes enlightened. So, in that sense, even though one has the Word, even the Third Testament, where he learns the correspondences between Heaven and earth and may come to know what is signified in the Word by the various things used the histories, the stories, parables, and prophecies he still must become enlightened in order to understand the spiritual and genuine truths. It is the human rational that must become enlightened, for, as we saw when man rejected the truths coming from the Lord and turned to know the truth from his self, then evils, in time, entered. And, today, there is that tendency for a man to inherit the ways of his parents and, even, the ways of his forefathers, which is to sin.
You probably have come to the idea that each Church has its own doctrine derived from the Word and substantiates it by the Word. One faith says one thing and another says something else though the subject may be the same. In fact, this is because the Word understood in its literal sense is not constant with its self and in places appears to contradict itself. Thus, it is not strange that it is interpreted differently by different Churches today. They do so to confirm and to defend their corporeal and worldly loves.
Now, if it is love that determines what one's faith and Church affiliation, then it is love that will enable us to become enlightened and to see genuine truths. Herein is the key 'as it were' that enlightens one's understanding - love. First, enlightenment begins by a love for the truth. Most people would say that God has given all men a desire to know the truth, especially when it pertains to how to live a descent and successful life in this world, and to have some peace and enjoyment in his life, and to just know the mysteries of life. So, one reads the Word because he wants to know the truth and that he may in some way benefit. A man, in any of the Churches, will confirm that he loves the truth, even that he loves the Lord, yet there are differences in each one's belief. And, of course, each may say he is enlightened and that his faith is the true faith, etc. After all, he does love the truth and desire to know it. However, examine that love more deeply and you will learn why he usually is not truly enlightened. Isn't it his love that wants the truth? Question: what is that love his? Why does he love the truth? What is his motive to know the truth? You may find that it is because he wants notoriety, or maybe wealth and power, or honor, reputation and, of course, gain. In other words such a person's love is of and for himself. Therefore, what enlightenment he has only is of this world; it is from a love of self. Remember the cause of man's interiors being closed to the Lord, and being shut off from him, was just from such a selfish love.
Thus, the love that brings enlightenment to a man is not just his love for the truth, but is his love for the truth and the good, because it is the truth and is good. These are they who have affection for not only the truth, but who love the good of life. By the good of life is meant living from the Lord who is within and not claiming life as one's own. This love opens one's internal or spirit once again to where a man sees the Lord as His life coming from within; he is, but a vessel in which God's truths and His goodness comes into. It is in this way that one is raised up into the light of Heaven. Of course, Heaven is within, for the Lord is there within as He has said.
We come to see that enlightenment is actually the opening of the interiors of one's mind and where the Lord is within man, even as the tree of lives was in the midst of the garden where man was to live. Thus, then, does the man hold the Word Holy and sacred, although he is often unaware of it's holiness. In this process the Lord leads man into enlightenment. We can see that it is not the man himself who leads, but it is the Lord who does so. As a result, these are those who love the truth are led by the Lord, and thus, these are they who live according to the Divine truths. In this way the Word is made living within a man according to the life of his love and faith. Thus, it is that one comes to understand that the things of his own intelligence are not of life there is no life in them because they are of one's proprium, that is, of what is one's own and rather of what is of the self, not of the Lord. Who cannot see that if there is nothing of the Lord with man, then man has no real life, no eternal life, and the life he thinks he has is at best only an apparent life, and is often no life at all, but only leads to his eternal damnation. This is not life, but is death, for as we learned in Genesis, those who took and ate of the knowledge of good and evil, those who appropriated this knowledge as their own died. These truths they have taken from God and have claim as theirs from their own intelligence, and thus, they have no life, for there is nothing good in them and instead of truths are falsities. Life is the Lord's; it is His goodness and His truthfulness within man. Those who confirm themselves in false doctrine cannot be enlightened.
The understanding of a man is what is enlightened; the understanding is receptive of truth, the will being receptive of good. Into the understanding comes ideas and from them comes one's thoughts into which doctrinal things are then formed and perceived. These ideas are natural since a man lives in this world. Thus, he thinks in the Natural sense. In the world, man, because he lives only in his natural, unless he becomes enlightened, cannot understand spiritual ideas. And, so he must have affection for the truth for its own sake, which is to live a good life, which comes only from the Lord who dwells within him in a new will and understanding. And, as was said, it is the understanding that becomes enlightened. The question is: if a man, while in this world, cannot think spiritually until he comes into spiritual ideas after his death and in the spiritual world, then, wherein is his enlightenment that is to lead him, while in this world?
While it is true he cannot think spiritually as angels or even good spirits, but he can think abstractly. Thus, his ideas and thoughts concerning true doctrine and knowing genuine truths are accommodated to his present state, for is not death the absence of the Lord's life with a man. Are not truths and goods of the Lord made vivified or made alive in man when there is the absence of falsities and evils and they are 'as it were' put aside? It is in that sense that one becomes enlightened and his ideas and thoughts, then, become spiritual / natural, that he then lives in his spirit in the spiritual world, while living here in this natural world, although he is unaware of it.
From where does man get his ideas and, hence, his thoughts? Today, man is so far from the truth, that is, from the Lord, who is the Truth and the Way, that he thinks truths are of himself, thinking they are his own that he comes into truth of his own. He thinks what is good is what he loves and, thus, that it is the truth. Yet, he would have no understanding of any kind at all without perception, whether it comes from within from the Lord Himself or from without through his senses. A man receives his ideas from others, from the spiritual world, either from good or evil spirits, for we have shown that he is no longer conjoined with the Lord immediately, having been 'as it were' sent out from Paradise. Yet, this is where life comes, from the Lord, that is, the Lord who was present with him immediately, but is now cut off. That presence with him, now, unless he listens and is obedient to the Lord's Word, because he loves truth for the sake of truth, is gone and nothing except falsities and evil remains. There is only one life and that is the Lord's. It proceeds or flows from the Lord to man, either through angels and good spirits or through evil spirits and from hell. The Truth still proceeds to man, though thoughts have been turned into falsities; such life in the Word is called death. These are evil spirits, the devils; that is, these are truths that have turned falsities and goods have been changed into evils, because the man has only love for himself.
Do not evil thoughts come from hell and good thoughts from Heaven where God is with angels? Do not true ideas and thoughts come from the Lord and Heaven and false ideas and thoughts from devils and evil spirits whose abode is in hell? Faith that leads to Heaven is from Heaven; it is where one's true faith is opened or made manifest in man where their qualities become known. This is where the true life of a man lies. It is where angels and where men are conjoined with the Lord in His love and with His Wisdom and is according to his affection for them.
As a Christian, one knows there is another life after this one - an everlasting or eternal life - and, therefore, a spiritual life as well as this natural life. He thus, knows this life - the natural life - and a life that is in another world - a spiritual world - were he, one day will come into. Now, how do you think the man that is to live in the other world - the spiritual world - comes into and exists and live there? Isn't it the truth that God has made us a living soul with a spirit and body? Don't we live in this world in our body, since our ancestors, because of rejecting the true life, that spiritual life, where God lives within?
Now, if the spirit has been shut off, closed 'as it were', from us because of our sin, then, isn't it still within us? Thus, when we, who now live in the natural state of life and who loves truth for the sake of truth become enlightened, then doesn't the Lord's truth, which is inmost within us, enlightening our spirit, and is where life proceeds into. Does not Jehovah God, the Lord God breathe into us the breath of life and we become a living soul? And, in so doing, then are not truths from the Lord conjoined with our spirit and the falsities that are with us, then flee.
We have said that enlightenment is of the understanding and that false understanding is from hell, being one together with evil spirits. Thus, a man can think, for he receives ideas and thoughts and, so, can develop them, either through good from Heaven or through evil from hell. As a result, a man develops a rational and when the ideas and thoughts are from the Lord and, thus, are truths, the rational formed in man is from the Lord. It is a new Rational from the Lord and not from one's self. It is then that a life of reasoning from truths and from a willingness to do good become lived and is not merely stored in the memory, which is not believing at all. Such life in the memory is devoid of all life of perception and affection of the Lord. This new life is from the Rational, which is truly the Lord's within man.
Lastly, what is enlightened to man is the literal sense of the Word. For unless it be made clear, man understands only apparent truths, many of which, if confirmed, leads only to fallacies, if not, in time to falsities, and such a man is without enlightenment. In time, these soon become false ideas and thoughts that lead to hell. Such a mind is darkened and the Lord is even further away. Its confirmation of which will not be removed even in the next world. End.
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