The Word’s Literal Meaning Provides a Connection to the Lord and Association with Angels (Continued)

Examples will illustrate how spiritual angels receive their meaning and heavenly angels receive theirs from the earthly meaning when we read the Word. Four of the Ten Commandments will provide examples.

Take the fifth commandment, “You will not murder.” We take this to mean not only murdering but also hating and longing for revenge even to the point of death. Spiritual angels take “murdering ” to mean acting like a devil and killing someone’s soul. Heavenly angels take “murdering” to mean hating the Lord and the Word.

The sixth commandment, “You will not commit adultery.” We take “committing adultery” to mean whoring, doing obscene things, saying lustful things, and having filthy thoughts. A spiritual angels takes “committing adultery” to mean contaminating the good things taught by the Word and falsifying its truths. A heavenly angel takes “committing adultery” to mean denying the Lord’s divinity and desecrating the Word.

The seventh commandment, “You will not steal.” We take”stealing” to mean stealing, cheating, and using any excuse to take our neighbor’s possessions. A spiritual angel takes “stealing” to mean using things that are false and evil to deprive others of the true and good things in their faith. A heavenly angel takes “stealing” to mean attributing to ourselves what belongs to the Lord and claiming his justice and merit for ourselves.

The eighth commandment, “You will not testify falsely.” We take “testifying falsely” to include lying and libeling. A [spiritual] angel takes “testifying falsely” to mean saying and convincing people that falsity is truth and evil is good, and the reverse. A heavenly angel takes “testifying falsely” to mean slandering and blaspheming the Lord and the Word.

This shows how spiritual and heavenly meanings are unfolded from and drawn out of the Word’s earthly meaning, which contains them. An astounding thing is that the angels receive their meanings independently of their knowing what we are thinking. Yet the angels’ thoughts and ours are united through correspondences like a purpose, its means, and its result. In fact, purposes actually exist in the heavenly kingdom, means, actually exist in the spiritual kingdom, and results actually exist in the earthly kingdom. That is how we now associate with angels through the Word.

from True Christianity, Volume 1, Section 236