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Arcana Coelestia

6138. And we shall live, and our ground, servants to Pharaoh. That this signifies total submission, is evident from the signification of “we and our ground,” as being the receptacles of good and of truth (as just above, see n. 6135-6137); and from the signification of “servants,” as being to be without freedom from man’s own (see n. 5760, 5763), thus total submission.

By receptacles are meant the very forms of men;  for men are nothing else than forms receptive of life from the Lord, and these forms are such by inheritance and by actual life that they refuse to admit the spiritual life which is from the Lord. But when these receptacles have been so far renounced that they no longer have any freedom from the man’s own, there is total submission. A man who is being regenerated is at last so far reduced by repeated alternations of desolation and sustenance that he no longer wills to be his own, but the Lord’s; and when he has become the Lord’s he comes into a state of such a nature that when he is left to self he grieves and is seized with anxiety; and when he is delivered from this state of self he returns into his happiness and bliss. In such a state are all the angels.

[2] In order that He may make a man blessed and happy, the Lord wills a total submission, that is, that he be not partly his own and partly the Lord’s, for then there are two lords, which no one can serve at the same time …

[3] That submission must be total is very evident from the first commandment of the church:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God from all thy heart, and from all thy soul, and from all thy mind, and from all thy forces; this is the first commandment (Mark 12:30).

Thus because love to the Lord does not come from man, but from the Lord Himself, therefore all the heart, all the soul, all the mind, and all the forces, which are recipients, must be the Lord’s, consequently submission must be total. Such is the submission which is here signified by the words “we shall live, and our ground, servants to Pharaoh,” for by Pharaoh is represented the natural in general which is under the auspices of the internal celestial, in the supreme sense under the auspices of the Lord, who in this sense is “Joseph.”
 
 

Heaven and Hell

270 [2] Because the interiors of the angels of the third or inmost heaven have been opened to the third degree, Divine Truths are, as it were, inscribed on them. For the interiors of the third degree are more fully in the form of heaven than the interiors of the second and first degrees, and the form of heaven is from the Divine Truth, thus in accord with the Divine Wisdom. This is why the Divine Truth is, as it were, inscribed on those angels, or as if implanted by nature or innate. Therefore as soon as these angels hear genuine Divine Truths they instantly acknowledge and perceive them, and afterwards see them, as it were, inwardly in themselves.

As the angels of that heaven are such they never reason about Divine Truths, still less do they dispute about any truth whether it is so or not so; nor do they know what it is to believe or to have faith. For they say, “What is faith? I perceive and see that a thing is so.” This they illustrate by comparisons. For example, it would be like someone with a companion, seeing a house and the various things in and around it, saying to his companion that he ought to believe that these things exist, and that they are such as he sees them to be; or like someone seeing a garden and trees and fruit in it, and saying to his companion that he ought to have faith that there is a garden with trees and fruits, when he is seeing them clearly with his eyes.

For this reason, these angels never mention faith, nor have any idea of it. Neither do they reason about Divine Truths, still less do they dispute about any truth whether it is so or not. 
 
 

Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments offered in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to keep the focus on understanding the Text in terms of its application to the inner life along with reinforcing any key LP principles that have been highlighted in the exchanges.