The Third Round: The Lord works from primes through ultimates as illustrated in our experience with the literal text as it unfolds to reveal Him within to us

Arcana Coelestia

5876. Verses 3-5. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were in consternation before him. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come ye near to me I pray. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved, neither let there be anger in your eyes, that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to make to live. “And Joseph said unto his brethren,” signifies that the internal celestial gave the faculty of perception to truths in the natural; “I am Joseph,” signifies manifestation; “doth my father yet live,” signifies the presence of spiritual good from the natural; “and his brethren could not answer him,” signifies that truths in the natural were not yet in a state to speak; “for they were in consternation before him,” signifies commotion among them; “and Joseph said unto his brethren,” signifies the perception of the new natural; “Come ye near to me I pray,” signifies interior communication; “and they came near,” signifies the effect; “and he said, I am Joseph your brother,” signifies manifestation by means of influx; “whom ye sold into Egypt,” signifies the internal which they had alienated; “and now be not grieved,” signifies anxiety of the heart or of the will; “neither let there be anger in your eyes,” signifies sadness of the spirit or of the understanding; “that ye sold me hither,” signifies that they had alienated to the lowest things; “for God did send me before you to make to live,” signifies spiritual life thence imparted to them of Providence.

5874…That memory-knowledges are the ultimates with man, namely, in his memory and thought, is not apparent, for it seems to him as if they make the whole of intelligence and of wisdom. But it is not so. They are only vessels containing the things of intelligence and of wisdom, and indeed the ultimate vessels, for they conjoin themselves with the sensuous things of the body. That they are ultimates is plain to him who reflects upon his thought, when he inquires into any truth, in that memory-knowledges are then present, but are not apparent; for the thought then extracts what they contain (and this from very many scattered here and there and even deeply hidden), and thus forms conclusions; and the more interiorly the thought penetrates, so much the farther does it remove itself from them. This may be manifest from the fact that when man comes into the other life and becomes a spirit, he indeed has with him memory-knowledges, but he is not allowed to use them, for several reasons (n. 2476, 2477, 2479); and yet he thinks and speaks concerning truth and good much more distinctly and perfectly than in the world. Hence it may be seen that memory-knowledges are serviceable to man for forming the understanding, but when the understanding has been formed, they then constitute an ultimate plane in which the man no longer thinks, but above it.

Apocalypse Explained 

1086 [5] And as all higher things place themselves in what is lowest in simultaneous order, it follows that in the ultimates of the Word, which constitute the sense of its letter, are all things of the Divine truth and of the Divine good, even from their firsts. And as all things of the Divine truth and the Divine good are together in their ultimate, which is the sense of the letter of the Word, there evidently is the power of Divine truth, yea, the omnipotence of the Lord in saving man. For when the Lord operates He operates not from first things through mediates into ultimates, but from first things through ultimates and thus into mediates. This is why the Lord is called in the Word the First and the Last; and this is why the Lord assumed the Human, which in the world was the Divine truth or the Word, and glorified it even to the ultimates, which are the bones and the flesh, in order that He might operate from first things through ultimates, and not as before from man, but from Himself.

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.

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