What Should Be Understood by the Lord's 'Bearing of Iniquities or Sins'

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

It is well known in the Church that the Lord is said to have 'borne sins' on behalf of the human race, yet there is no knowledge of what to understand by 'bearing iniquities and sins.'  Some think it means that He took the sins of the human race onto Himself and allowed Himself to be condemned even to death on a cross, and that since, because of this, the condemnation for sins was cast onto Him, people in the world have been made free from condemnation.  It is also thought that condemnation was taken away by the Lord through His fulfilling the law, for the law would have condemned everyone who did not fulfill it.

But no such ideas should be understood by 'bearing iniquity', for every individual person's deeds await him after death, when he is judged according to the essential nature of those deeds either to life or to death.  The essential nature of them depends on his love and faith, for love and faith constitute the life of a deed.

No one's deeds therefore can be taken away by transference onto another who will bear them.

From these considerations it is evident that something other than those ideas should be understood by 'bearing iniquities'; but what should be understood may be recognized from the actual bearing of iniquities or sins by the Lord.

The Lord bears them when He fights on behalf of a person against the hells; for no one is able by himself to fight against them.

Rather the Lord alone does so, indeed constantly for every individual person, yet differently with each one according to their reception of Divine Good and Divine Truth.

When He was in the world the Lord fought against all the hells and completely subdued them, as a result of which also He became Righteousness. By doing that He has rescued from damnation those who receive Divine Good and Truth from Him.

If the Lord had not done so no person could have been saved, for the hells are unceasingly present with a person, exercising control over him to the extent that the Lord does not shift them away. And He shifts them away to the extent that the person refrains from evils.

He who is victorious once over the hells is victorious forever over them; and to achieve this the Lord made Divine His Human.

The One therefore who alone fights for a person against the hells - or what amounts to the same thing, against evils and falsities, since they arise from the hells - is said to 'bear sins'; for He bears that burden, alone.

The reason why 'bearing sins' also means moving evils and falsities away from those who are governed by good is that this is the consequence.  For the more remote the hells are from a person, the more remote evils and falsities are, since falsities and evils come, as has been stated, from the hells - evils and falsities being sins and iniquities....
...

The work of salvation consists primarily in rescuing and delivering a person from hell, and so in shifting evils and falsities away. The expression 'a shifting of evils and falsities away' is used because deliverance from sins or forgiveness of them is nothing other than a shifting away of them; for they still remain with the person.

But to the extent that the good of love and the truth of faith are implanted, evil and falsity are shifted away.

The situation in this is like that with heaven and hell.

Heaven does not annihilate hell or those who are there, but moves it away from itself; for the good and truth received from the Lord are what compose heaven, and they are what move hell back.

The situation is similar with a person.

In himself a person is an embodiment of hell, but when he is being regenerated he becomes an embodiment of heaven; and to the extent that he becomes an embodiment of heaven, hell is moved away from him.

It is commonly supposed that evils, that is, sins, are not shifted away in that manner, but that they are completely separated from a person.  But those who think this do not know that in himself the whole of a person is nothing but evil, and that to the extent that the person is maintained by the Lord in good, the evils that are his appear as though they have been obliterated. For when a person is maintained in good he is withheld from evil. Yet nobody can be withheld from evil and maintained in good except one in whom the good of faith and charity received from the Lord is present, that is, one who allows himself to be regenerated by the Lord.

For through regeneration heaven is implanted with a person, and through this the hell residing with him is moved away, as stated above.

From all this it may again be recognized that 'bearing iniquities', when the Lord is the subject, means fighting constantly for a person against the hells, thus constantly moving them away, for that removal of them goes on unceasingly not only while a person is in the world but also forever in the next life. No mere human being is able to move evils away in that manner, for by himself no one is able to move even the smallest amount of evil away, less still to move the hells, and least of all to do so forever. .... ....

From all this, once it is understood, people may then know what all those things mean that are stated regarding the Lord in [Isaiah] Chapter 53 — a chapter dealing from beginning to end with the state of temptations He underwent, thus with the state He was passing through when He was engaged in conflict with the hells. For temptations are nothing other than conflicts with them. This state is described in [verses 4-6, 9-12, of] that chapter in the following way,

He bore our griefs* and carried our sorrows.
He was pierced because of our transgressions
and bruised because of our iniquities.
Jehovah has laid on** Him the iniquity of us all.
So He consigned the wicked to [their] grave.
The will of Jehovah will prosper by means of His hand.
Out of the distress*** of His soul He will see and be
satisfied, and through His wisdom He will justify many,
because He has carried their iniquities.
So He has borne the sin of many.

The Lord is also called there [in Isa. 53:1] the arm of Jehovah, by which Divine Power is meant.  'Carrying griefs, sorrows, and iniquities', and 'being pierced and bruised because of them' self-evidently means the state of temptations; for at that time there are experiences involving distress of mind, anguish, and despair, which cause the pain described in those verses. The hells bring such feelings about; for in temptations they assault the actual love of the one against whom they fight.

Everyone's love is the inmost core of his life.

The Lord's love was that of saving the human race; and this love was the Essential Being (Esse) of His life, since the Divine within Him was that love. This too is so described in Isaiah, where the Lord's conflicts are the subject, in the following words,

He said, Surely they are My people. Therefore He became their Saviour. In all their affliction He suffered affliction; because of His love and His compassion He redeemed them, and took them and carried them all the days of eternity. Isa. 63:8, 9.

The description of the Lord's suffering of such temptations when He was in the world is brief in the Gospels, but in the Prophets, and especially in the Psalms of David, it is extensive. The Gospels merely state that He was led into the wilderness, where He was then tempted by the devil, and that He was there forty days, and was with the beasts, Mark 1:12, 13; Matt. 4:1. But the fact that He had been undergoing temptations from earliest childhood through to the end of His life in the world, that is, had been engaged in conflicts with the hells, was not revealed by Him, as accords with the following words in Isaiah,

He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He is led like a lamb to the slaughter, and like a sheep before its shearers is dumb, He did not open His mouth. Isa. 53:7.

His final temptation was in Gethsemane, Matt. 26; Mark 14, followed by the passion of the Cross. Through this temptation He completely subdued the hells, as He Himself teaches in John,

Father, rescue Me from this hour. But on account of this I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name. [Then] a voice came from heaven, [saying,] I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Then Jesus said, Now is the judgement of this world, now will the prince of this world be cast outdoors. John 12:27, 28, 31.

'The prince of [this] world' is the devil, thus all hell. 'Glorifying' means making Divine the Human. The reason why only the temptation after the forty days in the wilderness is mentioned is that 'forty days' means and implies temptations to completeness, thus over a number of years.... 'The wilderness' means hell, 'the beasts' He fought with there being the devil's crew.

The removal of sins with those who are governed by good or who have repented was represented in the Jewish Church by the he-goat called Azazel.  Aaron was to lay his hands on its head and to confess the iniquities of the children of Israel and all transgressions in respect of all their sins, after which he was to send it into the wilderness; thus the he-goat was to bear on itself all their iniquities into a land of separation, Lev. 16:21, 22.  'Aaron' here represents the Lord, 'the he-goat' means faith, 'the wilderness' and 'a land of separation' hell, and 'bearing the iniquities of the children of Israel to that place' removing and casting them into hell.

Nobody can know that such things were represented except from the internal sense.

For anyone can see that the iniquities of the entire assembly could not have been carried off into the wilderness by any he-goat; for what did a he-goat have in common with iniquities?  But since everything representative at that time was a sign of such things as belong to the Lord, heaven, and the Church, so were these things that were done with the he-goat.

The internal sense therefore teaches what those things imply, namely that the truth of faith is the means by which a person is regenerated, consequently by which sins are removed.

And since faith or belief in what is true is derived from the Lord, the Lord Himself is the One who accomplishes that removal of them.... Aaron represents the Lord; and 'a he-goat of the she-goats' is the truth of faith.  The reason why 'the wilderness' is hell, is that the camp where the children of Israel were meant heaven,; and for the same reason also the wilderness is called 'a land of separation' or a land that is cut off.  'Bearing iniquities into that land' or into the wilderness accordingly means casting evils and falsities into hell from where they come; and they are cast into that place when they become so remote that they cannot be seen, which is what happens when a person is withheld from them because he is maintained in good by the Lord, as accords with what has been stated above.

The same thing as is meant by casting out sins into the wilderness is also meant by casting them into the depths of the sea, as in Micah,

He will be merciful to us, He will sink our iniquities, and He will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Micah 7:19.

'Depth of the sea' too means hell.

From all this it is now evident that the words saying that Aaron was to bear the iniquity of the holy things means 'a removal or shifting away of sins' from those who are governed by good derived from the Lord, and that this removal of them is done constantly by the Lord.  This is what 'bearing iniquities' means, as also in another place in Moses,

Jehovah said to Aaron, You and your sons with you shall bear the iniquity of the sanctuary. Also you and your sons with you shall bear the iniquity of your priesthood. The children of Israel shall no longer come near the tent of meeting, or else they will bear sin and die.**** But Levites shall perform the work of the tent, and these shall bear their iniquity. Num. 18:1, 22, 23.

'Bearing' or 'carrying' is used with a similar meaning in Isaiah,

Hearken to Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel who have been carried from the womb. Even to [your] old age I am the Same, and even to grey hair I will carry [you]; I have made, and I will carry, and I will bear, and I will deliver. Isa. 46:3, 4.

'Bearing iniquity' means making expiation, thus removing sins, in Moses,

Moses was annoyed with Eleazar and Ithamar, because the he-goat of the sin-sacrifice had been burnt, saying, Why have you not eaten it in a holy place, since Jehovah has given it to you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make expiation for them before Jehovah? Lev. 10:16, 17.

...
* lit. sicknesses
** lit. has caused to run to
*** lit. labour
**** lit. no longer come near the tent of meeting to bear sin, dying

(Arcana Cœlestia 9937)

The Word Should Be Searched with Devout Prayer to the Lord for Enlightenment (AC 5432)

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

How greatly they are deluded who remain in the sense of the letter alone, and do not search out the internal sense from other passages in the Word in which it is explained, is very evident from the many heresies, every one of which proves its dogmas from the literal sense of the Word; especially is this manifest from that great heresy which the insane and infernal love of self and the world has drawn from the Lord's words to Peter:

I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound in the heavens, and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth shall be loosed in the heavens (Matt. 16:15-19).

They who press the sense of the letter think that these things were said of Peter, and that power so great was given him; although they are fully aware that Peter was a very simple man, and that he by no means exercised such power; and that to exercise it is contrary to the Divine. Nevertheless, as owing to the insane and infernal love of self and the world they desire to arrogate to themselves the highest power on earth and in heaven, and to make themselves gods, they explain this according to the letter, and vehemently defend it; whereas the internal sense of these words is, that Faith itself in the Lord, which exists solely with those who are in love to the Lord and in charity toward the neighbor, has that power; and yet not faith, but the Lord from whom faith is. By "Peter" there is meant that faith, as everywhere else in the Word.

Upon this is the Church built, and against it the gates of hell do not prevail.

This faith has the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and it shuts heaven lest evils and falsities should enter in, and opens heaven for goods and truths. This is the internal sense of these words.

The twelve apostles, like the twelve tribes of Israel, represented nothing else than all the things of such faith. Peter represented faith itself, James charity, and John the goods of charity; in like manner as did Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, the firstborn sons of Jacob, in the representative Jewish and Israelitish Church, which is plain from a thousand passages in the Word. And as Peter represented faith, the words in question were said to him. From this it is manifest into what darkness those cast themselves, and others with them, who explain all things according to the letter; as those who so explain these words to Peter, by which they derogate from the Lord and arrogate to themselves the power of saving the human race.

(Arcana Cœlestia 2759b)

The Inexhaustibleness of Changes of States from the Infinite and Eternal

Selection from Conjugial Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The state of a man's life is its quality. And as there are two faculties in every one, which make life, called understanding and will -

a man's state of life is its quality as to understanding and will.

It is plain, then, that by changes in the state of life are meant changes of quality in what is of the understanding and of the will.
...
One's state of life continually changes from infancy to the very close of life and afterwards to eternity. The states of one's life in general are called infancy, boyhood, adolescence, manhood, and old age. Every one who continues to live in the world passes in turn from one state to the next, so from the first to the last. The transitions are not apparent until an interval of time has elapsed, but reason sees that there is development from moment to moment and so continually. For in this respect the human being is like a tree, which grows and develops in every least fraction of time from the moment the seed is cast into the earth. This unintermitted progress also involves change of state — for what ensues contributes something to what precedes — perfecting the state.

Changes, moreover, which take place in man's internals also have a more perfect continuity than those which take place in his externals. For man's internals (by which are meant the things of his mind or spirit) are a degree higher, elevated above the externals; and in what is of the higher degree a thousand things take place in the same instant in which only one takes place in externals. The changes which occur in internals, are changes of state in the will as to affections, and changes of state in the understanding as to thoughts....

Changes of state in these two lives or faculties continue with man from infancy to the close of life and afterward to eternity, for the reason that there is no end to knowledge, still less to intelligence, and least of all to wisdom. In the inexhaustibleness of these there is infinity and eternity from the Infinite and Eternal, from whom all things are. Hence that ancient piece of philosophy that everything is divisible to infinity, to which is to be added that it may be multiplied similarly. The angels declare that they are perfected in wisdom by the Lord to eternity, which is also to infinity, eternity being an infinity of time.

(Conjugial Love 184, 185)

Receiving the Celestial Seeds of Charity

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

When a man is being reformed, which is effected by combats and temptations, such evil spirits are associated with him as excite nothing but his things of knowledge and reason [scientifica ejus et rationalia]; and spirits that excite cupidities are kept entirely away from him. For there are two kinds of evil spirits, those who act upon man's reasonings, and those who act upon his cupidities. The evil spirits who excite a man's reasonings bring forth all his falsities, and endeavor to persuade him that they are true, and even turn truths into falsities. A man must fight against these when he is in temptation; but it is really the Lord who fights, through the angels who are adjoined to the man. As soon as the falsities are separated, and as it were dispersed, by these combats, the man is prepared to receive the truths of faith.

For so long as falsities prevail, a man never can receive the truths of faith, because the principles of falsity stand in the way.

When he has thus been prepared to receive the truths of faith, then for the first time can celestial seeds be implanted in him, which are the seeds of charity. The seeds of charity can never be implanted in ground where falsities reign, but only where truths reign. Thus is it with the reformation or regeneration of the spiritual man....

This agrees with what is at this day known in the churches: that faith comes by hearing. But faith is by no means the knowledge [cognitio] of the things that are of faith, or that are to be believed. This is only memory-knowledge [scientia]; whereas faith is acknowledgment.

There can however be no acknowledgment with anyone unless the principal of faith is in him, which is charity, that is, love toward the neighbor and mercy.

When there is charity, then there is acknowledgment, or faith. He who apprehends otherwise is as far away from a knowledge of faith as earth is from heaven. When charity is present, which is the goodness of faith, then acknowledgment is present, which is the truth of faith. When therefore a man is being regenerated according to the things of knowledge, of reason, and of understanding, it is to the end that the ground may be prepared-that is, his mind-for receiving charity; from which, or from the life of which, he thereafter thinks and acts. Then he is reformed or regenerated, and not before.

(Arcana Cœlestia 653, 654)

Continually Being Perfected

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

There is no definite period of time within which man's regeneration is completed, so that he can say, "I am now perfect;" for there are illimitable states of evil and falsity with every man, not only simple states but also states in many ways compounded, which must be so far shaken off as no longer to appear.... In some states the man may be said to be more perfect, but in very many others not so. Those who have been regenerated in the life of the body and have lived in faith in the Lord and in charity toward the neighbor, are continually being perfected in the other life.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 894)

The Origin of All Things

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

In heaven all goods and truths — celestial and spiritual — are so distinct in their genera, and these in their species, that there is not the least of them which is not most distinct; and so innumerable are they, that the specific differences may be said to be unlimited.

From this it may be seen how poor and almost nonexistent is human wisdom, which scarcely knows that there is such a thing as spiritual good or spiritual truth, much less what it is.

From celestial and spiritual goods and their derivative truths, issue and descend natural goods and truths. For there is never any natural good and truth that does not spring from spiritual good, and this from celestial, and also subsist from the same. If the spiritual should withdraw from the natural, the natural would be nothing.

The origin of all things [rerum] is in this wise:-

All things, both in general and in particular, are from the Lord; from Him is the celestial; from Him through the celestial comes forth the spiritual; through the spiritual the natural; through the natural the corporeal and the sensuous. And as they all come forth from the Lord in this way, so also do they subsist from Him

for, as is well known:-

Subsistence is a perpetual coming into existence.

They who have a different conception of the coming into existence and rise of things — like those who worship nature and deduce from her the origins of things — are in principles so deadly that the phantasies of the wild beasts of the forest may be called far more sane. Such are very many who appear to themselves to excel others in wisdom.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 775)

Man is Governed by the Principles He Assumes

Selections from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

A desire to investigate the mysteries of faith by means of the things of sense and of the memory, was not only the cause of the fall of the posterity of the Most Ancient Church ... but it is also the cause of the fall of every church; for hence come not only falsities, but also evils of life.

The worldly and corporeal man says in his heart — If I am not instructed concerning the faith, and everything relating to it, by means of the things of sense, so that I may see, or by means of those of the memory [scientifica], so that I may understand, I will not believe — and he confirms himself in this by the consideration that natural things cannot be contrary to spiritual. Thus he is desirous of being instructed from things of sense in what is celestial and Divine, which is as impossible as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

The more he desires to grow wise [by such means], the more he blinds himself, till at length he believes nothing, not even that there is anything spiritual, or that there is eternal life.

This comes from the principle which he assumes. And this is to "eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" of which the more anyone eats, the more dead he becomes.

But he who would be wise from the Lord, and not from the world, says in his heart that the Lord must be believed, that is, the things which the Lord has spoken in the Word, because they are truths; and according to this principle he regulates his thoughts. He confirms himself by things of reason, of knowledge, of the senses, and of nature [per rationalia, scientifica, sensualia et naturalia], and those which are not confirmatory he casts aside.

Everyone may know that man is governed by the principles he assumes, be they ever so false, and that all his knowledge and reasoning favor his principles — for innumerable considerations tending to support them present themselves to his mind, and thus he is confirmed in what is false.

He therefore who assumes as a principle that nothing is to be believed until it is seen and understood, can never believe, because spiritual and celestial things cannot be seen with the eyes, or conceived by the imagination.

But the true order is for man to be wise from the Lord, that is, from His Word, and then all things follow, and he is enlightened even in matters of reason and of memory-knowledge [in rationalibus et scientificis]. For it is by no means forbidden to learn the sciences, since they are useful to his life and delightful; nor is he who is in faith prohibited from thinking and speaking as do the learned of the world; but it must be from this principle — to believe the Word of the Lord, and, so far as possible, confirm spiritual and celestial truths by natural truths, in terms familiar to the learned world. Thus his starting-point must be the Lord, and not himself; for the former is life, but the latter is death.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 127-129)