Two Means Provided for Return

Selection from the Doctrine of Charity ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

In so far as anyone does not shun evils as sins, he remains in them.

Man was created into the image and likeness of God, and made so that he might be a recipient of the Lord's love and wisdom. But, because he did not want to be a recipient, but wanted to be actual love and wisdom, and thus like God, he consequently inverted his form, and so turned away his affections and thoughts from the Lord to himself, and so began to love, even to worship, himself more than the Lord. In this way he estranged himself from the Lord, and looked backwards away from Him, thereby perverting the image and likeness of God in himself, and making it into an image and likeness of hell. This is signified by his eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.  Genesis 3:6 KJV

By the serpent which he obeyed is signified the sensual, which is the ultimate of the natural man, and its lust. The sensual, because it exists in the world, and admits therefrom the objects it desires, loves the things of the world; and, if it is allowed to rule, it draws the mind [mens] away from the objects of heaven, which are goods of love and truths of wisdom, in themselves Divine. This is the origin of man being, in respect of his proprium, nothing but evil, and of his being born into it from parents.

But means have been provided by the Lord, so that he may not perish on account of this; and these are: to look to the Lord and acknowledge that every good of love and every truth of wisdom is from Him, and nothing from man himself. In this way man inverts his form, turning away from himself and turning round to the Lord; thus he returns to the state into which he was created, which was, as has been said, that he might be a recipient of good and truth from the Lord, not from himself at all. Man's proprium having, by this inversion, become evil only, there is the other means of recovering the image of God - shunning evils as sins. For if a man does not shun evils as sins, but only shuns them as hurtful, he is still not looking to the Lord, but to himself, and so continues in a perverted state. When, however, he shuns evils as sins, he is also shunning them because they are against the Lord and contrary to His Divine laws; and then he beseeches the Lord for help and for power to resist them; and this power, when besought, is never denied. It is by these two means that a man is purified from his innate evils.

Consequently, if he does not adopt these two means, he cannot but remain such as he was born. He cannot be purified from evils if he only looks to God and prays; for in that case he believes, after having prayed, either that he is entirely without sins, or that they have been remitted, by which he understands that they have been taken away. But in that case he still remains in them; and to remain in them is to increase them; for they are like a disease that eats away everything round about it and brings death. Nor are evils removed by only shunning them; for in that case the man is looking to himself, and he thereby strengthens the origin of evil, which was, that he turned himself backwards, away from the Lord, and round towards himself.

(Doctrine of the Lord 204)

The Spiritual Sense of the Word is at this Day Revealed

From Apocalypse Revealed ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, signifies the spiritual sense of the Word revealed by the Lord, and the interior understanding of the Word disclosed thereby; which is the coming of the Lord.

By "heaven was seen open" is signified a revelation from the Lord, and the manifestation, concerning which below. By "a horse" is signified the understanding of the Word, and by "a white horse" the interior understanding of the Word; and as this is signified by "a white horse," and as the spiritual sense is the interior understanding of the Word, therefore that sense is signified here by "the white horse." The reason that this is the coming of the Lord, is because it manifestly appears by that sense that the Lord is the Word, and that the Word treats of Him alone, and that He is the God of heaven and earth, and that from Him alone the New Church exists. The Lord said that:

They should see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with glory and power (Matt. 17:5; 24:30; 26:64; Mark 14:61, 62; Luke 9:34-35; 21:27; Rev. 1:7; Acts 1:9, 11).

And the Lord said this also where He spoke with the disciples concerning the consummation of the age, which is the last time of the church, when the judgment takes place.

Everyone who does not think beyond the sense of the letter, believes that when the Last Judgment shall come, the Lord will appear in the clouds of heaven with the angels and sounds of trumpets. But that this is not meant, but that He will appear in the Word.... And the Lord appears manifestly in the spiritual sense of the Word. It appears not only that He is the Word, that is, the Divine truth itself, and that He is the inmost of the Word, and thence the all of it; but also that He Himself is the one God, in whom is the Trinity, and thus the only God of heaven and earth; and moreover that He came into the world, that He might glorify His Human, that is, make it Divine.

The Human which He glorified, that is, made Divine, was the natural human, which He could not glorify or make Divine but by taking on the human in a virgin in the natural world; to which He then united His Divine, which He had from eternity. That unition was effected by temptations admitted into the human that He had taken, the last of which was the passion of the cross, and at the same time by the fulfilling of all things of the Word; not only by the fulfilling of all things of the Word in its natural sense, but also by the fulfilling of all things of the Word in its spiritual sense and in its celestial sense; in which, as was said above, He alone is treated of.

But on these things, see what are manifested in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Lord, and in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Sacred Scripture.

Now, because the Lord is the Word, and the Word became flesh (John 1:1-2, 14), and the Word became flesh that He might fulfill it, it is manifest that the Lord's coming in the Word is meant by His appearing "in the clouds of heaven." That "the clouds of heaven" signify the Word in the sense of the letter....

It is manifest that the Lord's appearing in the Word is meant, because the interior understanding of the Word is signified by "the white horse," and it is said that the name of Him that sat upon the horse is "The Word of God," and that His name is "King of kings and Lord of lords" (verses 13, 16).

It is now manifest from this, that by "I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse," is signified the spiritual sense of the Word revealed by the Lord, and thereby the interior understanding of it disclosed; which also is the coming of the Lord. That the spiritual sense of the Word is at this day revealed, concerning which no one in the Christian world has before known anything, may be seen in the Arcana Coelestia, where the two books of Moses, Genesis and Exodus are explained according to that sense; also in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Sacred Scripture (n. 5-26); in a little work Concerning the White Horse from beginning to end, and in the things collected there from the Arcana Coelestia concerning the Sacred Scripture; and besides in these explanations upon Revelation, where not a single verse can be understood without the spiritual sense.

(Apocalypse Revealed 820)

How in Succeeding Time Wisdom Retired

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The literal sense of the Word is threefold; namely, historical, prophetical, and doctrinal, each of which is such that it may be apprehended even by those who are in externals.

As regards the Word the case is this: In the most ancient time, when the celestial church existed, the Word was not, because the men of that church had the Word inscribed on their hearts; for the Lord taught them immediately through heaven what was good, and thence what was true, and gave them both to perceive from love and charity, and to know from revelation. To them the veriest Word was the Lord.

After this church another succeeded that was not celestial but spiritual, and at first this church had no other Word than that which had been gathered from the most ancient people; which Word was representative of the Lord, and significative of His kingdom; thus the internal sense was to them the very Word. (That they had also a written Word, both historic and prophetic, which is no longer extant; and that in this there was in like manner an internal sense, which had relation to the Lord, may be seen AC 2686.) Hence it was the wisdom of that time both to speak and to write by representatives and significatives; within the church concerning Divine things, and out of the church concerning other things; as is evident from the writings of those ancient people which remain with us.

But in process of time this wisdom perished, to such a degree that at last they did not know that there was any internal sense even in the books of the Word. The Jewish and Israelitish nation was of the character ... and accounted the prophetic Word holy from the fact that it sounded ancient, and they heard the name Jehovah in the sense of the letter; and they did not believe that anything Divine was deeply hidden within it; nor does the Christian world think any more reverently of the Word.

From this we can see how in succeeding time wisdom retired from inmost things to outermost; and that man had removed himself from heaven, and had at last descended even to the dust of the earth, wherein he now places wisdom. As it has fared thus with the Word, so that its internal sense has been successively obliterated, and at this day to such a degree that it is not known that there is such a sense, when yet this sense is the veriest Word in which the Divine proximately dwells...

(Arcana Coelestia 3432)