Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Sun in Heaven





Heart of Gold by h.koppdelaney
(Flickr: Creative Commons; Some Rights Reserved)

Swedenborg reveals another mystery of the Inner Worlds when he teaches us: 117. …The sun of heaven is the Lord; the light there is the Divine truth and the heat the Divine good that go forth from the Lord as a sun. From this origin are all things that spring forth and are seen in the heavens. In heaven the Lord is seen as a sun, for the reason that He is Divine love, from which all spiritual things, and by means of the sun of the world all natural things, have their existence. That love is what shines as a sun. 118. That the Lord is actually seen in heaven as a sun I have not only been told by angels, but it has occasionally been granted me to see it. …The Lord is seen as a sun, …not directly overhead, …but before the faces of the angels at a middle height. …Those that receive Him with the good of love see Him as a sun, fiery and flaming, in accordance with their reception of Him; these are in His celestial kingdom; while those that receive Him with the good of faith see Him as a moon, white and brilliant in accordance with their reception of Him, and these are in His spiritual kingdom. This is so because good of love corresponds to fire; therefore in the spiritual sense fire is love. 121. When, however, the Lord appears in heaven, which often occurs, He does not appear encompassed with a sun, but in the form of an angel, yet distinguished from angels by the Divine shining through from His face. 123. …All in the heavens are turned constantly to Him those in the celestial kingdom to Him as a sun and those in the spiritual kingdom to Him as a moon. …All in the hells are in love of self and the world. …All in the other life look towards what rules in their interiors, thus to their loves… [Footnotes to Chapter 14: “Fire” in the Word signifies love, both in a good sense and in a bad sense. Holy or heavenly fire signifies the Divine Love. Infernal [hell] fire signifies love of self and of the world and every lust of those loves. Love is the fire of life and life itself is really from it. …The hells are at a distance from the heavens because they cannot bear the presence of Divine love from the Lord. For this reason the hells are very far away from the heavens, and this is the “great gulf.” The Lord is the common center to which all things of heaven turn.] (Chapter 14, Heaven and its Wonders and Hell From Things Heard and Seen by Emanuel Swedenborg)

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