The Word and its Spiritual or Internal Sense - 3
Understanding the Word through Doctrine from the Word - 1
Understanding the Word through Doctrine from the Word - 1
The Word is only understood through doctrine that is derived from the Word. Thus, any Church needs to form its doctrine from the Word. Christians know that the Word often calls the Word the Truth and that the word 'water' means truths. So, truths come or are drawn from the Word as 'water' from a well. Truth makes doctrine or teachings for the Church and since people make a Church, then, also, there is meant the Church within a man.
It is by doctrine that a man has correspondence with the Lord and therefore with the Truth. Let us see how and why this is. Doctrine is derived from the literal understanding of the Word since man lives in the natural degree of life. It is our present natural state while we live here in this world. It therefore seems that such a doctrine somehow conjoins man with God, for what Christian person does not believe the Lord is in some way with him? However, this is not the case. Just because one may have these truths stored in his memory does not mean that such is the case. In fact, very often one learns of people, of ministers and priests and others that know the Word of God almost verbatim, but whose life is far from Christian. Yet, we may have known others who appear to know very little of the Word, yet we see that they live lives very close to the Lord, that is, lives a good life. Such a person lives according to the truths - usually the Ten Commandments - that he has taken from the Word and has acted upon to the best of his or her ability. Such truths have a correspondence between him and God, but not with those who do not act accordingly.
You can see that such a person has true doctrine from the Word and thus, the Church within him or her is according to the good of his life, either little or much, and not according to what he knows in his natural understanding, though that may be great. You must understand true doctrine is more than just knowing a set of teachings that concerns what one is to believe. There must be interior truths learned, for it is these that are the truths that are conjoined with one's internal understanding - that sense that the angels are in, and are in God's presence.
How does this correspondence with interior truth come to be within a man? Or, how does the true doctrine become communicated with a man? The key is in living according to the man's understanding of the truth. This can be seen in this way: the angles that are with a man are only within one's interior truths and are not within the person's memory. The person, of course, is only in a literal understanding of the Word. So, he or she is unaware that such is the case. However, because such a person has love for the Lord, he lives according to these truths. Those truths that are lived are in his affection and thus within his will. Such affections are the Lord's goodness, and thus, there is a communication by the doctrinal truths with Heaven and the Lord, and thus, a correspondence between him and God.
Those who think the Word is only understood literally will not understand this. Yet, ask yourself if God's essence is Love and you will see that all good comes from God. Again, ask yourself if God's essence is, also, of Wisdom and you will see as well that all truths come from Him. Surely, then, is He not in the goodness as well as in the truthfulness in man when truth is lived accordingly by that man? True, basically, man does not see the internal sense of the Word, but only the external or literal sense. However, that does not mean that the man, because he knows what truth and good is, that he has good and has the truth. Do we not say that a man is either 'good' or not depending on how he lives, whether according to the truths taught in the Word or not? Does not such a man worship the Lord? Of course, we know the man's living comes from the Lord, who gives him that true life.
What is here described is a man, whose doctrine is seen only in the literal sense of the Word, but such a doctrine that is lived according to his affection for that truth and the good it teaches. The point is: such a true doctrine comes only from the Word and the Word or Truth comes from God. Let an example clearly show this. In the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper are the words, "This is my body, and this is my blood." A man knows that this refers to the Lord and, if he is in affection for the Lord and for His truths where there are angels within, then there is an idea of love to the Lord's body or to bread, which represents His body and, also, of charity towards the neighbor, for this corresponds to the blood or to wine, which represents His blood. In such are correspondence and when there is an affection that flows out of Heaven from the Lord through the angels into the holy state of the person at that time. So, the man receives this affection according to the good of his life.
Angels dwell in such affection for good, just as do devils dwell in a man's affection for evil. One can see, here, that if his life disagrees with doctrinal truths from the Word, then the affection of good does not flow in to him. The result is that the doctrine with that man is not from the Word, for his life is not according to the Word and this because the man's life is from an affection of gaining honors and riches by the means of doctrinals found in the Word.
Thus, the doctrine of a true Church is from the Word, though the Word is not understood without doctrine. There has been in the past and often is, even, today, contention as to what the Word means in the Churches and, even, within a man's own mind. Thus, one comes to understand why there are differences of faith. However, the Word is spiritual, for the Word is the Lord and It treats of the spiritual things of the Lord, of His Kingdom in Heaven and on earth, that is, of the Church.
Such contention about truths in general helps man to fight against falsities and to defend and to be delivered from such falsities. Still, contention, strife or dispute, about truth separates the man of the Church, that is, it weakens the truths of the Church. Such weaking comes from one's understanding of the Word's literal sense or from a general truth, such as, scientific knowledge that he takes from the Word. These are what truths are, which are from the literal sense of the Word. Such understanding of the literal sense often appears as if contradictory.
These truths, which are called 'scientifics' or general truths, are not the 'truths of faith' from which doctrine comes to the Church. Truths of faith come only from an explanation of the former - of the scientific truths. Simply put, when they are explained, the person is instructed. So, such appearances and apprehension are very often true doctrines not seen or known. However, it is the internal sense of the Word that such truths of doctrine - 'truths of faith' - come from, truth being spiritual and in which the angels in Heaven are in.
Many men of the Church, such as priests or ministers, teach and learn the truths from the Word's literal sense. There are others who teach and learn from doctrine from the Word - this is the doctrine of faith of the Church. The difference between these two can be seen in their perception. The problem comes in trying to distinguish them. The average church person cannot distinguish them, as they both speak nearly alike. Here, then, is the difference: when the literal sense of the Word is taught without doctrine as a guide, then nothing is learned by such things which are only natural or external, for they do not seem to have a correspondence with spiritual things.
However, those who teach and learn from true doctrine from the Word understand things which are spiritual or internal. Thus, because there are these two teachings there is a contention within and among the churches. The result is that the Word can only be understood by true doctrine, for true doctrine is taught and learned only from the spiritual sense of the Word. However, how is one to know the true doctrine of the Word? How are there some - priests and others - who understand the spiritual sense of the Word while others do not? Today, in the churches, most would say that the true doctrine is seen and taught and learned from the literal sense of the Word and readily reject any idea of the Word having an internal sense. So, the question is how can a person be brought up or elevated out of the Word's natural sense to see the spiritual sense?
The case is such because of man's sin, because of his hereditary nature, his tendency to evil, thus, he has been shut off from the Divine, and, so, from the spiritual truth. In truth, such love their self and the world more than the Lord. And, so, such see from the world's light, the natural light of understanding (lumen) and spiritual light is as darkness to them. However, when light from Heaven enters into a man's external it enlightens the man.
Who does not today, who claim they have faith, believe that the Word is Divine? Can anyone understanding the Divine truths of the Word, except from doctrine which is derived from the Word? What comes from this is that such a doctrine from the Word is as a lamp (a light as it were) to guide one from falling into error, and this because of an obscurity in his understanding and by the delight of his will, he or she is led to the things of their love and of the world.
The lamp is the internal sense of the Word that some people may come into some degree that lies open to everyone. Within the external, the natural, there is an internal or spiritual, for there cannot be an external without an internal. Can there be an earth without a Heaven? Would the Lord God create man and not provide him with any way of being conjoined with Him and from which comes delight and joy? Would not God create man having within an internal, that is, a spiritual or a Heaven in the least form? And, would not that be the man's internal? It is into such, into a man's internal, that the spiritual Word flows in and enlightens him and imparts to him perception, and so leads him. Still, a man's natural ideas correspond to those interior intellectual ideas, although they are unalike to him, unless the man comes to learn what these correspondences are. Such are men enlightened and their internal sense opened according to the light while he is capable of receiving through the knowledge that he has appropriated. Thus, the doctrine of the Word is as a lamp to those who read the Word with a love for it.
The question remains, from where does one receive the true doctrine of faith and who are they who become enlightened who comes into true doctrine? First, true doctrine is not from anyone who is not enlightened, for the rational of natural man is in appearances of goodness and truthfulness, and thus, from that he comes into fallacies as has been shown. We therefore, must look to a Divine origin - the Divine Itself - which is the Divine Human, that is, to the glorified Lord. It must become obvious that the Lord is doctrine Himself, for He is the Way, the Truth, and the Door, which leads to a life in Heaven.
By now we know that every doctrinal of truth and good comes from the Divine Good and the Divine Truth and these are one as in a marriage. Of course, the Word is accommodated to the man, who is in the natural, and whose rational comes from the Divine. Doctrine to him is understood only in appearances of faith and formed by apprehension. Still, with such appearances, seen in the Word, have within spiritual truths and goods from a celestial origin, and the two - spiritual truths and celestial goods - are conjoined, although the man does not realize this.
There is a process by which a man is enlightened and that is through the Divine entering into him in a true Rational from the Lord, but not the contrary, the man entering into the Lord's Divine Rational. This is just as the Soul enters into the body and forms it, but not the body into the soul, it is like light enters into shade and modifies it and not the reverse. So, when a person consults his natural rational for things which are of doctrine such doctrine becomes null and void of Divine truth. Thus, the process of enlightenment was affected by the Lord Himself when He came on earth, for the Divine entered into Him and, today, that Rational from Him can now enter man. The Word Itself is not doctrine as so many people today think. Yet, doctrine is from the Word; it is derived from the Word.
Let us see this explained. The truth of how one's enlightenment comes to a person. A person who collects the truths found in the Word needs to be enlightened from the Lord and he is enlightened when he love's the truth for the sake of the truth and not for the sake of self and the world. Such persons also communicate with Heaven, and thus, with the Lord. In this way they see the truths of the Word as they who are in Heaven do, and so, they see its spiritual sense. It is the man's interior understanding that is enlightened.
Finally, in furthering the explanation of this process it can be seen that while goods and truths of the Lord flow into the understanding of man though Heaven, the Lord also flows into the person with faith. However, it is only by co-operation in a new will, which is at such a time being effected with the truth for the sake of the truth. Thus, is the doctrine of truth and good given to man.
Nonetheless, we come to see that this doctrine supports the Word in its literal sense, for the truth is when a man thinks from doctrine, that he sees truths in the Word from his doctrine and are according to it. And, those things that do not coincide with his doctrine or that appear contradictory, he passes it by not seeing or understanding them. However, we point out here that even a heretic knows this.
Yet, there is a genuine doctrine of the truth from the Word and they who are in it are in enlightenment when they read the Word. This person does not dwell upon the things of the Word that are only appearances and are according to the common apprehension of men. They realize that when these appearances are unfolded, and 'as it were' unclothed, that truth appears in its nakedness. So, the falsities that come from fallacies of the external sense do not remain with him. Neither does self love and the love of the world, for they fall away. From this we understand that genuine doctrine of the Church is contained in the internal sense of the Word and not as one who only sees the literal sense, although the literal sense does support doctrine.
In review, the Word is not understood except by means of doctrine from the Word, because doctrine of the Church must first be from the Word. Then, we saw that the Word is not understood without doctrine. Next, true doctrine is as a lamp to those who read the Word and thus, we come to understand that genuine doctrine must be from those who are in enlightenment from the Word.
(This subject will continue in the next doctrinal paper where it will be taught that the Word can be understood by means of doctrine formed by one who is enlightened. We will show that they who are enlightened form doctrine from the Word for themselves. And we will speak of other things that pertain to how the Word is understood from doctrine.)
End.
It is by doctrine that a man has correspondence with the Lord and therefore with the Truth. Let us see how and why this is. Doctrine is derived from the literal understanding of the Word since man lives in the natural degree of life. It is our present natural state while we live here in this world. It therefore seems that such a doctrine somehow conjoins man with God, for what Christian person does not believe the Lord is in some way with him? However, this is not the case. Just because one may have these truths stored in his memory does not mean that such is the case. In fact, very often one learns of people, of ministers and priests and others that know the Word of God almost verbatim, but whose life is far from Christian. Yet, we may have known others who appear to know very little of the Word, yet we see that they live lives very close to the Lord, that is, lives a good life. Such a person lives according to the truths - usually the Ten Commandments - that he has taken from the Word and has acted upon to the best of his or her ability. Such truths have a correspondence between him and God, but not with those who do not act accordingly.
You can see that such a person has true doctrine from the Word and thus, the Church within him or her is according to the good of his life, either little or much, and not according to what he knows in his natural understanding, though that may be great. You must understand true doctrine is more than just knowing a set of teachings that concerns what one is to believe. There must be interior truths learned, for it is these that are the truths that are conjoined with one's internal understanding - that sense that the angels are in, and are in God's presence.
How does this correspondence with interior truth come to be within a man? Or, how does the true doctrine become communicated with a man? The key is in living according to the man's understanding of the truth. This can be seen in this way: the angles that are with a man are only within one's interior truths and are not within the person's memory. The person, of course, is only in a literal understanding of the Word. So, he or she is unaware that such is the case. However, because such a person has love for the Lord, he lives according to these truths. Those truths that are lived are in his affection and thus within his will. Such affections are the Lord's goodness, and thus, there is a communication by the doctrinal truths with Heaven and the Lord, and thus, a correspondence between him and God.
Those who think the Word is only understood literally will not understand this. Yet, ask yourself if God's essence is Love and you will see that all good comes from God. Again, ask yourself if God's essence is, also, of Wisdom and you will see as well that all truths come from Him. Surely, then, is He not in the goodness as well as in the truthfulness in man when truth is lived accordingly by that man? True, basically, man does not see the internal sense of the Word, but only the external or literal sense. However, that does not mean that the man, because he knows what truth and good is, that he has good and has the truth. Do we not say that a man is either 'good' or not depending on how he lives, whether according to the truths taught in the Word or not? Does not such a man worship the Lord? Of course, we know the man's living comes from the Lord, who gives him that true life.
What is here described is a man, whose doctrine is seen only in the literal sense of the Word, but such a doctrine that is lived according to his affection for that truth and the good it teaches. The point is: such a true doctrine comes only from the Word and the Word or Truth comes from God. Let an example clearly show this. In the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper are the words, "This is my body, and this is my blood." A man knows that this refers to the Lord and, if he is in affection for the Lord and for His truths where there are angels within, then there is an idea of love to the Lord's body or to bread, which represents His body and, also, of charity towards the neighbor, for this corresponds to the blood or to wine, which represents His blood. In such are correspondence and when there is an affection that flows out of Heaven from the Lord through the angels into the holy state of the person at that time. So, the man receives this affection according to the good of his life.
Angels dwell in such affection for good, just as do devils dwell in a man's affection for evil. One can see, here, that if his life disagrees with doctrinal truths from the Word, then the affection of good does not flow in to him. The result is that the doctrine with that man is not from the Word, for his life is not according to the Word and this because the man's life is from an affection of gaining honors and riches by the means of doctrinals found in the Word.
Thus, the doctrine of a true Church is from the Word, though the Word is not understood without doctrine. There has been in the past and often is, even, today, contention as to what the Word means in the Churches and, even, within a man's own mind. Thus, one comes to understand why there are differences of faith. However, the Word is spiritual, for the Word is the Lord and It treats of the spiritual things of the Lord, of His Kingdom in Heaven and on earth, that is, of the Church.
Such contention about truths in general helps man to fight against falsities and to defend and to be delivered from such falsities. Still, contention, strife or dispute, about truth separates the man of the Church, that is, it weakens the truths of the Church. Such weaking comes from one's understanding of the Word's literal sense or from a general truth, such as, scientific knowledge that he takes from the Word. These are what truths are, which are from the literal sense of the Word. Such understanding of the literal sense often appears as if contradictory.
These truths, which are called 'scientifics' or general truths, are not the 'truths of faith' from which doctrine comes to the Church. Truths of faith come only from an explanation of the former - of the scientific truths. Simply put, when they are explained, the person is instructed. So, such appearances and apprehension are very often true doctrines not seen or known. However, it is the internal sense of the Word that such truths of doctrine - 'truths of faith' - come from, truth being spiritual and in which the angels in Heaven are in.
Many men of the Church, such as priests or ministers, teach and learn the truths from the Word's literal sense. There are others who teach and learn from doctrine from the Word - this is the doctrine of faith of the Church. The difference between these two can be seen in their perception. The problem comes in trying to distinguish them. The average church person cannot distinguish them, as they both speak nearly alike. Here, then, is the difference: when the literal sense of the Word is taught without doctrine as a guide, then nothing is learned by such things which are only natural or external, for they do not seem to have a correspondence with spiritual things.
However, those who teach and learn from true doctrine from the Word understand things which are spiritual or internal. Thus, because there are these two teachings there is a contention within and among the churches. The result is that the Word can only be understood by true doctrine, for true doctrine is taught and learned only from the spiritual sense of the Word. However, how is one to know the true doctrine of the Word? How are there some - priests and others - who understand the spiritual sense of the Word while others do not? Today, in the churches, most would say that the true doctrine is seen and taught and learned from the literal sense of the Word and readily reject any idea of the Word having an internal sense. So, the question is how can a person be brought up or elevated out of the Word's natural sense to see the spiritual sense?
The case is such because of man's sin, because of his hereditary nature, his tendency to evil, thus, he has been shut off from the Divine, and, so, from the spiritual truth. In truth, such love their self and the world more than the Lord. And, so, such see from the world's light, the natural light of understanding (lumen) and spiritual light is as darkness to them. However, when light from Heaven enters into a man's external it enlightens the man.
Who does not today, who claim they have faith, believe that the Word is Divine? Can anyone understanding the Divine truths of the Word, except from doctrine which is derived from the Word? What comes from this is that such a doctrine from the Word is as a lamp (a light as it were) to guide one from falling into error, and this because of an obscurity in his understanding and by the delight of his will, he or she is led to the things of their love and of the world.
The lamp is the internal sense of the Word that some people may come into some degree that lies open to everyone. Within the external, the natural, there is an internal or spiritual, for there cannot be an external without an internal. Can there be an earth without a Heaven? Would the Lord God create man and not provide him with any way of being conjoined with Him and from which comes delight and joy? Would not God create man having within an internal, that is, a spiritual or a Heaven in the least form? And, would not that be the man's internal? It is into such, into a man's internal, that the spiritual Word flows in and enlightens him and imparts to him perception, and so leads him. Still, a man's natural ideas correspond to those interior intellectual ideas, although they are unalike to him, unless the man comes to learn what these correspondences are. Such are men enlightened and their internal sense opened according to the light while he is capable of receiving through the knowledge that he has appropriated. Thus, the doctrine of the Word is as a lamp to those who read the Word with a love for it.
The question remains, from where does one receive the true doctrine of faith and who are they who become enlightened who comes into true doctrine? First, true doctrine is not from anyone who is not enlightened, for the rational of natural man is in appearances of goodness and truthfulness, and thus, from that he comes into fallacies as has been shown. We therefore, must look to a Divine origin - the Divine Itself - which is the Divine Human, that is, to the glorified Lord. It must become obvious that the Lord is doctrine Himself, for He is the Way, the Truth, and the Door, which leads to a life in Heaven.
By now we know that every doctrinal of truth and good comes from the Divine Good and the Divine Truth and these are one as in a marriage. Of course, the Word is accommodated to the man, who is in the natural, and whose rational comes from the Divine. Doctrine to him is understood only in appearances of faith and formed by apprehension. Still, with such appearances, seen in the Word, have within spiritual truths and goods from a celestial origin, and the two - spiritual truths and celestial goods - are conjoined, although the man does not realize this.
There is a process by which a man is enlightened and that is through the Divine entering into him in a true Rational from the Lord, but not the contrary, the man entering into the Lord's Divine Rational. This is just as the Soul enters into the body and forms it, but not the body into the soul, it is like light enters into shade and modifies it and not the reverse. So, when a person consults his natural rational for things which are of doctrine such doctrine becomes null and void of Divine truth. Thus, the process of enlightenment was affected by the Lord Himself when He came on earth, for the Divine entered into Him and, today, that Rational from Him can now enter man. The Word Itself is not doctrine as so many people today think. Yet, doctrine is from the Word; it is derived from the Word.
Let us see this explained. The truth of how one's enlightenment comes to a person. A person who collects the truths found in the Word needs to be enlightened from the Lord and he is enlightened when he love's the truth for the sake of the truth and not for the sake of self and the world. Such persons also communicate with Heaven, and thus, with the Lord. In this way they see the truths of the Word as they who are in Heaven do, and so, they see its spiritual sense. It is the man's interior understanding that is enlightened.
Finally, in furthering the explanation of this process it can be seen that while goods and truths of the Lord flow into the understanding of man though Heaven, the Lord also flows into the person with faith. However, it is only by co-operation in a new will, which is at such a time being effected with the truth for the sake of the truth. Thus, is the doctrine of truth and good given to man.
Nonetheless, we come to see that this doctrine supports the Word in its literal sense, for the truth is when a man thinks from doctrine, that he sees truths in the Word from his doctrine and are according to it. And, those things that do not coincide with his doctrine or that appear contradictory, he passes it by not seeing or understanding them. However, we point out here that even a heretic knows this.
Yet, there is a genuine doctrine of the truth from the Word and they who are in it are in enlightenment when they read the Word. This person does not dwell upon the things of the Word that are only appearances and are according to the common apprehension of men. They realize that when these appearances are unfolded, and 'as it were' unclothed, that truth appears in its nakedness. So, the falsities that come from fallacies of the external sense do not remain with him. Neither does self love and the love of the world, for they fall away. From this we understand that genuine doctrine of the Church is contained in the internal sense of the Word and not as one who only sees the literal sense, although the literal sense does support doctrine.
In review, the Word is not understood except by means of doctrine from the Word, because doctrine of the Church must first be from the Word. Then, we saw that the Word is not understood without doctrine. Next, true doctrine is as a lamp to those who read the Word and thus, we come to understand that genuine doctrine must be from those who are in enlightenment from the Word.
(This subject will continue in the next doctrinal paper where it will be taught that the Word can be understood by means of doctrine formed by one who is enlightened. We will show that they who are enlightened form doctrine from the Word for themselves. And we will speak of other things that pertain to how the Word is understood from doctrine.)
End.
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