“He hath showed three, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” — Micah 6:8
from The Gist of Swedenborg: The Light of Love and Truth
Month: November 2021
Its Language
“And behold a ladder set on the earth, and its head reaching to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold Jehovah standing above it.”
The ladder set between earth and heaven, or between the lowest and highest, signifies communication. In the original tongue the term ladder is derived from an expression which signifies a path or way, and a path or way is predicated of truth. By a ladder, therefore, one extremity of which is set on the earth, while the other reaches to heaven, is signified the communication of truth which is in the lowest place with truth which is in the highest, indeed with inmost good and truth, such as are in heaven, and from which heaven itself is an ascent as it were from what is lowest, and afterward when the order is inverted, a descent, and is the order of man’s regeneration.
The arcanum which lies concealed in the internal sense of these words is, that all goods and truths descend from the Lord, and ascend to Him, for man is so created that the Divine things of the Lord may descend through him even to the ultimates of nature, and from the ultimates of nature may ascend to Him: so that man might be a medium uniting the Divine with the world of nature, and uniting the world of nature with the Divine, that thus, through man, as through the uniting medium, the very ultimate of nature might live from the Divine, which would bethe case had man lived according to Divine order. — Arcana Coelestia, Sections 3699-3702
from The Gist of Swedenborg: The Light of Love and Truth
Its Language
What is Divine presents itself in the world in what corresponds. The Word is therefore written wholly in correspondence. Therefore the Lord, too, speaking as He did from the Divine, spoke in correspondence. — True Christian Religion, Section 201
from The Gist of Swedenborg: The Light of Love and Truth
Its Language
The whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world; not only generally, but in detail. Whatever comes forth in the natural world from the spiritual, is therefore called correspondent. The world of nature comes forth and subsists from the spiritual world, just as an effect does from its efficient cause. — Heaven and Hell, Section 89
from The Gist of Swedenborg: The Light of Love and Truths
The Letter of the Word
The truths of the sense of the letter of the Word are in part appearances of truth, and are taken from things in Nature, and thus accomodated and adapred to the grasp of the simple and also of little children. But being correspondences, they are receptacles and abodes of genuine truth; and like enclosing and containing vessels. The naked truths themselves, which are enclosed and contained, are in the Word’s spiritual sense; and the naked goods in its celestial sense.
The doctrine of genuine truth can also be drawn in full from the literal sense of the Word; for the Word in this sense is like a man clothed, whose face and hands are bare. All that concerns man’s life, and so his salvation, is bare; the rest is clothed. –Doctrine Concerning the Sacred Scripture, Sections 40, 55
from The Gist of Swedenborg: The Light of Love and Truth
The Holy Supper
In the Holy Supper the Lord is fully present, both as to His glorified Humanity,and as to the Divine. And because He is fully present, therefore the whole of His redemption is; for where the Lord the Redeemer is, there redemption is. Therefore all who observe the Holy Communion worthily, become His redeemed, and receives the fruits of redemption, namely, liberation from hell, union with the Lord, and salvation. — True Christian Religion, Sections 716, 717
from The Gist of Swedenborg: The Light of Love and Wisdom
The Holy Supper
The Holy Supper was instituted that by means of it there might be conjunction of the Church with heaven, and thus with the Lord. When one takes the bread, which is the Body, one is conjoined with the Lord by the good of love to Him, from Him; and when one takes the wine, which is the Blood, one is conjoined to the Lord by the good of faith in Him, from Him. — Heavenly Doctrine, Sections 210, 213
from The Gist of Swedenborg: The Light of Love and Wisdom
Baptism
Baptism was instituted for a sign that a man is of the Church and for a memorial that he is to be regenerated. For the washing of baptism is no other than spiritual washing, which is regeneration. All regeneration is effected by the Lord through truths of faith and a life according to them. Baptism, therefore, testifies that a man is of the Church and that he can be regerated; for it is in the Church that the Lord is acknowledged, Who regenerates man, and there the Word is, where are truths of faith, by which is regeration. — Heavenly Doctrine, Sections 202-203
from The Gist of Swedenborg: The Light of Love and Wisdom
Baptism
The sign of the cross which a child receives on the forehead and breast at baptism is a sign of inaguration into the acknowledgement and worship of the Lord. — True Christian Religion, Section 682
from The Gist of Swedenborg: The Light of Love and Truth
Sacraments
Baptism and the Holy Supper are the holiest acts of worship. Baptism and the Holy Supper are as it were two gates, through which a man is introduced into eternal life.
After the first gate there is a plain, which he must traverse; and the second is the goal where the prize is, to which he directed his course; for the palm is not given until after the contest, nor the reward until the combat. — True Christian Religion, Sections 667, 721
from The Gist of Swedenborg: The Light of Love and Truth
Secrets of Heaven 