Profaning What Is Holy

Excerpt from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

... it is the inner level from which the outer level arises and that the outer level therefore derives its essence from the inner level ...

When our inner nature is essentially hellish ... and our outer nature seems spiritual in its form, though ... the outer derives its essence from the inner, you may ask where that essence is hiding in the outer. It is not in our gestures, our tone of voice, our language, or our expression. However, it is still hidden in all four of these. What is hidden shows through them very clearly in the spiritual world, because when we move from this physical world into the spiritual world, which happens when we die, then we leave behind those outward appearances along with our bodies, but keep the inner qualities that were hidden away in our spirits. Then if that inner nature was hellish, we look like demons just as we were in spirit while we were living in this world. Surely everyone realizes that we all leave those outward things behind along with our bodies and become engaged with deeper things when we become spirits.

... in the spiritual world there is a sharing of feelings and consequent thoughts, which means that none of us can say anything except what we are actually thinking. Also, our faces change there and become images of our feelings, so others can see from our faces what we are really like. Hypocrites are sometimes allowed to say what they are not thinking, but their tone of voice sounds discordant because of their deeper thoughts, and they can be recognized by this discord. So we can tell that the inner nature is hidden within the tone, the language, the expression, and the gestures of the outer, and that while people in the physical world are not sensitive to this, it is obvious to angels in the spiritual world.

We can see from this that as long as we are living in this physical world, we can be let into wisdom about spiritual matters and even into a love for them, and that this does and can happen both to people who are completely earthly-minded as well as to people who are spiritual. The difference is, though, that the latter are reformed when this happens, while the former are not. It may seem as though they love wisdom, but they love it only the way an adulterer loves a fine woman--like a prostitute. He talks soothingly to her and gives her beautiful clothes, but privately he is thinking, "She is nothing but a worthless whore. I will get her to believe that I love her, because she takes my fancy, but if she does not take to me, then I will discard her." The inner self is the adulterer, and the outer self is the woman.

If we then backslide from wisdom and love and go against them, we profane what is holy. There are many kinds of profanation of what is holy ... This is the worst of all, though, because people who commit this kind of profanation are no longer human after death. They are alive, but they are trapped in their wild hallucinations. ....

In this world, people do not know that this is what happens after death to individuals who commit profanation; and they do not know this because they do not understand the reason for it. The real reason is that if we acknowledge divine things and believe them at first and then backslide and deny them, we mix what is holy with what is profane; and once they have been mixed together, the only way they can be separated results in complete destruction.

(a) Everything we willingly think and say and do becomes part of us and remains so, whether it is good or evil.

(b) The Lord is constantly using his divine providence to make provisions and arrangements so that what is evil will be by itself and what is good by itself, and so that they can be kept separate.

(c) However, this cannot be accomplished if we first acknowledge the truths that faith discloses and live by them and afterwards backslide and deny them.

(d) Then we mingle what is good and what is evil so completely that they cannot be separated.

(e) Since what is good and what is evil need to be separated in each one of us, and since they cannot be separated in people like this, everything truly human about them is destroyed.

(Divine Providence 224 - 226)

A Holy Emanation From The Lord's Divine Human

From Arcana Coelestia  ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

... the Lord's Divine Spiritual, or the Divine truth, which in the supreme sense is represented by Joseph, it is not in the Lord, but is from the Lord; for the Lord is nothing but Divine good; but the Divine truth proceeds from the Divine good.

To speak comparatively, this is like the sun and its light; the light is not in the sun, but proceeds from it; or it is like a fire, the light of which is not in the fire, but proceeds from the fire. The Divine good itself is also compared in the Word to the "sun," and to "fire," and is likewise called the "sun" and "fire." The Lord's celestial kingdom lives from the good which proceeds from the Lord; but His spiritual kingdom from the truth thence derived; and therefore in the other life the Lord appears to the celestial as a sun; but to the spiritual as a moon. Both heat and light proceed from the sun, the heat being - to speak comparatively - the good of love, which is also called celestial and spiritual heat; and the light, the truth thence derived, which is also called spiritual light. But within the celestial heat and spiritual light that in the other life proceed from the Lord as a sun, there are the good of love and the truth of faith, thus wisdom and intelligence; for all that which proceeds from the Lord is living.

From this we can see what the Divine Spiritual is; and whence comes the spiritual kingdom, and the celestial kingdom; and that the spiritual kingdom is the good of faith, that is, charity, which flows in from the Lord immediately, and also mediately through the celestial kingdom.

The Divine Spiritual that proceeds from the Lord is called in the Word the "spirit of truth," and is holy truth; not being of any spirit, but of the Lord through a spirit sent by Him; as may be seen from the words of the Lord Himself in John:

When He, the Spirit of Truth shall come, He will guide you into all the truth; for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak; and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you (John 16:13-14).
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... the truths which become the truths of faith with a person have their origin in good, and also because what emanates from the Lord's Divine Human is Divine Truth originating in Divine Good. That being so, the Holy Spirit is a holy influence emanating from the Lord; the actual Spirit does not emanate from Him but the holy utterances made by the Spirit, as anyone may see who gives thought to the matter. The fact that the Holy Spirit, also referred to as the Paraclete, is Divine Truth emanating from the Lord's Divine Human, and the fact that the word 'holy' is used in reference to Divine Truth, is clear from the Lord's words in John,

I will ask the Father to give you another Paraclete, to remain with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and remind you of all that I said to you. John 14:16, 17, 26.

In the same gospel,

When the Paraclete comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes forth from the Father, He will bear witness to Me. John 15:26.

And in the same gospel,

When He the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak from Himself, but whatever He hears He will speak. He will glorify Me, for He will receive from what is Mine and declare It to you; all things whatever that the Father has are Mine, therefore I said that He will receive from what is Mine and declare it to you. John 16:13-15.

If one compares these places with very many others one may understand that the Holy Spirit is a holy emanation from the Lord's Divine Human, for the Lord says, 'Whom the Father will send in My name', also 'Whom I shall send to you from the Father', as well as 'He will receive from what is Mine and declare it to you; all things whatever that the Father has are Mine, therefore I said that He will receive from what is Mine and declare it to you'. It is also evident that the word 'holy' is used in reference to truth because the Paraclete is called 'the Spirit of truth'.

(Arcana Coelestia 3969:16,17: 6788)

Temptation as to Truth vs Natural Anxieties

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Temptation itself is nothing else than a wrestling or combat; for truth is assaulted by evil spirits and is defended by the angels who are with the man. The perception of this combat by the man is the temptation.

But no temptation can take place unless the man is in the good of truth, that is, in the love or affection of it.

For he who does not love his truth, or is not affected by it, cares nothing for it; but he who loves it is in anxiety lest it should suffer injury.

Nothing else produces the understanding life of man except that which he believes to be true, nor his will life except that which he has impressed upon himself as being good; and therefore when that is assaulted which he believes to be true, the life of his understanding is assaulted; and when that which he has impressed upon himself as being good is assaulted, the life of his will is assaulted; so that when a man is being tempted, his life is at stake.

That the first of combat is as to truth, or concerning truth, is because this is what he principally loves, and that which is of anyone's love is that which is assaulted by evil spirits; but after the man loves good more than truth, which takes place when the order is being inverted, he is tempted as to good.

But what temptation is few know, because at this day few undergo any temptation, for no others can be tempted than those who are in the good of faith, that is, in charity toward the neighbor. If they who are not in this charity were to be tempted, they would succumb at once; and they who succumb come into the confirmation of evil and the persuasion of falsity; for the evil spirits with whom they are thus associated then conquer within them. This is the reason why at this day few are admitted into any spiritual temptation, but only into some natural anxieties, in order that they may thereby be withdrawn from the loves of self and of the world, into which they would otherwise rush without restraint.

(Arcana Coelestia 4274)