Spiritual background for GENESIS 18
previous - next - text - Genesis - BM Home - Full PageNo one hath seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath set Him forth (John 1:18).
[2] And by the various kinds of food here mentioned, the angels perceive nothing but celestial and spiritual goods, concerning which see the explication. Moreover by what is afterwards said concerning the son that Sarah should bear at the set time of another year, they perceive nothing else than that the Lord‘s human rational should be made Divine. Lastly, by the things which Abraham spake with Jehovah concerning the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, the angels perceive nothing else than the Lord’s intercession for the human race; and by five, forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, and ten, they perceive His intercession for those with whom truths should be adjoined to goods, and who should have goods by means of temptations and combats, or by means of other states. So it is with all other things in the Word, as may be more clearly seen from the explication word by word, where it is shown that in each word similar things are involved in the Word, both Historic and Prophetic.
[3] That there is such an internal sense everywhere in the Word, which treats solely of the Lord, of His kingdom in the heavens, of His church on earth and in particular with every man, thus treating of the goods of love and truths of faith, may also be seen by every one from the passages cited by the Evangelists from the Old Testament. As in Matthew:--
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on My right hand, until I made thine enemies thy footstool (Matthew 22:44; Ps. 110:1).
That these words treat of the Lord, cannot be apparent in the literal sense of the passage cited, as found in David; but yet that no other than the Lord is meant, He Himself here teaches in Matthew.
[4] Again:--
Thou Bethlehem, the land of Judah, art in no wise least among the leaders of Judah; for out of thee shall come forth a Leader, who shall feed My people Israel (Matthew 2:6; Micah 5:2).
They who abide in the literal sense, as do the Jews, know indeed from this passage that the Lord should be born there; but as they are expecting a leader and a king who will bring them back into the land of Canaan, they therefore explain the words found here according to the letter; that is, by the "land of Judah" they understand the land of Canaan; by "Israel" they understand Israel, although they know not where Israel now is; and by a "Leader" they still understand their Messiah; when yet other things are meant by "Judah" and "Israel;" namely, by "Judah" those who are celestial, by "Israel," those who are spiritual, in heaven and on earth; and by the "Leader" the Lord.
[5] Again in the same:--
A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, a cry, and great wailing; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because they are not (Matthew 2:18; Jer. 31:15).
They who abide in the literal sense of these words cannot possibly gather from it what is the internal sense; and yet that there is an internal sense is evident in the Evangelist. Again:--
Out of Egypt have I called My Son (Matt. 2:15; Hos. 11:1).
In Hosea it is said:--
When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt. They called them, so they went from their faces, and I made Ephraim to go (Hosea 11:1-3).
They who know not that there is an internal sense, cannot know otherwise than that Jacob is here meant when he entered into Egypt, and his posterity when they went out from it, and that by Ephraim is meant the tribe of Ephraim, thus the same things that are in the historicals of the Word nevertheless it is evident from the Word of the Evangelist that they signify the Lord. But what the several particulars signify could not possibly be known unless it were disclosed by means of the internal sense.
CONCERNING THE STATE OF LITTLE CHILDREN IN THE OTHER LIFE
[2] I have not only been informed by the angels that such is the case, but I have also spoken with a certain one who had died when an infant, and yet then appeared as an adult. The same also spoke with his brother who had died in adult age, and this from so much mutual brotherly love that his brother could not refrain from tears, saying that he perceived no otherwise than that it was love itself that was speaking. Besides other examples not necessary to mention.
. There are some who suppose that innocence is the same as infancy, for the reason that the Lord said of little children that of such is heaven; and that they who do not become as little children cannot enter into the kingdom of the heavens. But they who so imagine do not know the internal sense of the Word, nor therefore what is meant by "infancy." By "infancy" is meant the innocence of intelligence and wisdom, which is such that they acknowledge that they have life from the Lord alone, and that the Lord is their only Father; for that man is man is from the intelligence of truth and the wisdom of good, which he has solely from the Lord. Innocence itself, which in the Word is called "infancy," has no existence or abode except in wisdom; so much so that the wiser one is, the more innocent he is; on which account the Lord is innocence itself, because wisdom itself. . As regards the innocence of little children, being as yet devoid of intelligence and wisdom it is only a kind of plane for receiving genuine innocence, which they receive by degrees as they become wise. The quality of the innocence of little children has been represented to me by a wooden something almost void of life, which is vivified in proportion as they are perfected by means of knowledges of truth and affections of good. The quality of genuine innocence was afterwards represented by a most beautiful little child, full of life, and naked; for the innocent themselves, who are in the inmost heaven, and thereby are nearest the Lord, appear before the eyes of other angels no otherwise than as little children, and indeed naked; for innocence is represented by the nakedness of which they are not ashamed, as we read of the first man and his wife in paradise. In a word, the wiser the angels are, the more innocent they are; and the more innocent they are, the more do they appear to themselves as little children. Hence it is that in the Word innocence is signified by "infancy." But concerning the state of innocence, of the Lord‘s Divine mercy hereafter. . Concerning little children I have inquired of the angels whether they are pure from evils, seeing that they have no actual evil, as adults have. But I was told that they are equally in evil; nay, that they too are nothing but evil; but that they, like all the angels, are withheld from evil and are kept in good by the Lord, insomuch that it appears to them as if they were in good from themselves. And therefore also the little children, after they have become adults in heaven, in order to prevent them from being of the false opinion regarding themselves that the good in them is from themselves, and not from the Lord, are sometimes remitted into their evils which they have received by inheritance, and are left in them until they know, acknowledge and believe, that the truth is as has been said. A certain one also who had died when an infant, but had grown up in heaven, was of a similar opinion; and therefore he was remitted into the life of the evils inborn in him, and it was then given me to perceive from his sphere that he had a disposition to domineer over others, and that he esteemed lascivious things as of no account which were evils that he had inherited from his parents. But after he had acknowledged that such was his nature, he was again received among the angels with whom he had been before. . No one ever suffers punishment in the other life on account of hereditary evil, because it is not his, and therefore he is not to blame for being of such a nature; but every one suffers on account of the actual evil which is his own, and consequently for so much of the hereditary evil as he has appropriated to himself by actual life (n. 966). It is not therefore for the sake of punishment that the little children on becoming adult are remitted into the state of their hereditary evil; but that they may know that of themselves they are nothing but evil, and that it is of the Lord’s mercy that they are taken away from the hell that is with them into heaven; and that they are not in heaven by their own merit, but of the Lord; and thereby to prevent them from boasting before others of the good that is in them; for this is contrary to the good of mutual love, as it is contrary to the truth of faith. . From what has been adduced we can see what is the nature of the education of little children in heaven, namely, that by means of the intelligence of truth and the wisdom of good they are introduced into the angelic life, which is love to the Lord, and mutual love, in which loves there is innocence. But how contrary is the education of little children on earth, with many, has been evidenced from this one example. I was in the street of a great city, and saw little boys fighting with one another. A crowd gathered and looked on with much pleasure; and I was informed that the parents themselves urge on their little boys to such fights. The good spirits and angels who saw these things through my eyes were so averse to them that I perceived their horror, especially at the fact that the parents incite them to such things saying that thus in their earliest age they extinguish all the mutual love and all the innocence which little children receive from the Lord, and initiate them into hatred and revenge; consequently that they deliberately shut out their children from heaven, where there is nothing but mutual love. Let parents therefore who wish well to their children beware of such things. At the end of the preceding seventeenth chapter of Genesis the Last Judgment is treated of, and at the end of this eighteenth chapter the state of little children in the other life--in both cases from experience of things which have been seen and heard in the world of spirits and in the heaven of angels. previous - next - text - Genesis - BM Home - Full Page