The kingdom of Heaven is compared to a man, a king, who made a wedding feast for his son. And he sent his slaves to call those being invited to the wedding feast, but they did not desire to come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, Tell the ones invited, Behold, I have prepared my supper; my oxen, and the fatlings are killed, and all things ready; come to the wedding feast. But not caring they went away, one to his own field, and one to his trading. And the rest, seizing his slaves, insulted and killed them. And hearing, the king became angry. And sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, Indeed, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Then go onto the exits of the highways and call to the wedding feast as many as you may find. And going out into the highways, those slaves gathered all, as many as they found, both evil and good. And the wedding feast was filled with reclining guests. And the king coming in to look over those reclining, he saw a man there not having been dressed in a wedding garment. And he said to him, Friend, how did you come in here, not having a wedding garment? But he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, Binding his feet and hands, take him away and throw him out into the outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of the teeth. For many are called, but few chosen. (Matthew 22:2-14)

We continue with our look into what this parable has to say in regard to the operation of spiritual principles within our mind and how we experience them as the kingdom of heaven coming into our lives. As we have seen, a king in the symbolic language of Scripture, represents the Divine Truth and that this king seeks to make marriages for his son, speaks to the idea that everything from the Word that we take into our life is in the constant effort to bring about a marriage within our mind. The Divine Truth or the Word constantly seeks to make us whole through creating the conditions or states of mind and life within us into which the Lord can make himself more fully present. Truths attach themselves to goodness from the Lord and when these two spiritual elements come together within the human mind, so that mind then becomes a form which mirrors the kingdom of heaven.

There are three invitations that go out to those called to this spiritual marriage – the first and second are rejected. In the first instance the invitation is met with a point blank refusal to come. The second is interesting in that the king says to his servants to tell those who are called that all is prepared and that those preparations include oxen and fatted calves. The general response though to this added knowledge of what is available at the wedding feast, or marriages, is indifference, a state showing that the invitation carries little, if any, value even when it is known what has been prepared. Further to this, of those who receive the second invitation, we have three different responses; the first says one went to his own field, the second says one went to his merchandise or trading, and the third says that those remaining seized the servants and insulted and killed them.

Now spiritually, we remind ourselves that these things are illustrative of the operation of the principles of kingdom of heaven within us all. There are patterns of thinking and feeling which exist in the lower parts of our mind that respond exactly as described in this parable when faced with spiritual truth. But we can’t know or become aware of these states of life without the Word or a Divine revelation to instruct us. This is why we have been given the Text. The natural mind’s response to the invitation of this king is that this information applies to others but we need to be aware that all revelation is given to teach us about ourselves. Yes, we can generalise the principles in our work with others but we need to see first and foremost that all revelation is to be seen in the context of our own life and it is there that we need to look to apply its principles and teachings.

Anyone who takes the time to reflect from a spiritual perspective on their own inner processes can see these principles at work in their lives. You could, for example, in the space of the time you have right now, reflect on how you responded to what you heard and understood last time you looked at this parable. Perhaps there was a state that was indifferent to what was said, that refused to respond to the call that the truth was challenging within you. Or perhaps you heard something that you thought was interesting, that got a glimpse of the wedding feast that was prepared for you by the Word and consequently there was a sense that you should do something about some aspect of your life – but then got caught up in daily life again and forgot what it was. This is like going back to our own field and doing nothing in response to the invitation to come to the marriage. Or maybe you did remember at some point but went into trading mode and traded off the promptings of your conscience to carry through with a spiritual response by placing more importance on natural demands, needs, or desires; you ended up going back to our trading.

The third response is perhaps more difficult for us to face in ourselves, but it’s there. This response flows from what is lowest in us and and is a more severely felt spiritual temptation to reject the challenge or invitation that truth puts to us. This comes in areas of our lives where our attachment to the things of self and the world are strong. As truths are brought to bear upon these areas of our life, the natural mind’s response is to seize and bind these truths that are the servants of the king, to reduce their influence and power in the mind to enable us to respond to the call. When we begin to find excuses and reasons not to do what truth calls us to do, we insult the truth. The Greek word used here for insult carries connotations of pride and arrogance and a sense that we know what’s best for us. This supports an attitude that sets itself against the things of heaven which is the predominant characteristic of the natural man and its insistence that it is independent and autonomous of the Divine Life. These servant truths that gently call us to the marriage, are unable to stand in the face of the rationalisations of the natural man and so are said to be killed, that is, their ability to influence the mind is extinguished. We see the supreme example of this in the Lord’s own incarnation into the world. He came as a gentle servant to call all to a wedding and ended up being seized and bound, insulted and killed.

But for those who are seeking to live the life of heaven, this is not the end. Yes, these principles outwork themselves on the lowest level of the mind but we are much more than this. The king is within us, in the deepest reaches of our soul. His servants, who are also within us, are those genuine spiritual teachings which go forth from the king, the Word, working to bring all things of the mind into order. The Word as the Lord calls us to a marriage. His invitation goes out and loses its impact in the far reaches of His kingdom which are the most external or natural parts of the human mind. And yet, this very parable now gives us insight into these types of responses. From these insights, we can see what resists heaven within us, which opens the way for the spiritual work of self-examination and repentance. It is a realisation that enables us to enter into a new state of mind in which we can see what resists the Lord and it is our acknowledgement of their presence which allows for new truths to be received.  These new truths are able to combat and destroy those tendencies toward the indifference and the rejection of the challenges that the Word puts before us.

This is described in the statement found in verse seven…

And hearing, the king became angry. And sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 

The Greek word here for angry translates into impassioned which connects then to the Lord’s passion for the salvation of the human race, for His desire for what is human within us to be saved or liberated. Divine Love always looks to this end, for love can do nothing else. And so, with the sending of his armies’ we see that as we look to Him to identify and then resist our evils, we are provided with the means from the Word to deal with what stands opposed to the coming of the kingdom of heaven. This single verse captures the need for us to compel ourselves to use truths from the Word to examine the quality of our thought and feeling life and to respond to what we see there. As we do this, we are empowered to live the spiritual life so that all the arguments and rationalisations which promote the natural life over spiritual life cannot stand. This is what is meant by their city being burned.

To fight from the Lord’s Word is to use the teachings we find there to reflect on our own motives, thoughts and behaviours and to use it as the standard against which all things are assessed. As we do this freely by compelling ourselves, so we are strengthened in our ability to obey; as we have seen previously, we are in effect – response enabled. This means we are made open and receptive to the Lord’s call which is now heard. For having engaged in the battle with those things in us that are opposed to the kingdom of heaven and having these removed from the core of our thinking, the invitation goes out once more for the third and final time…

Then he said to his slaves, Indeed, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Then go onto the exits of the highways and call to the wedding feast as many as you may find. And going out into the highways, those slaves gathered all, as many as they found, both evil and good. And the wedding feast was filled with reclining guests. 

Here we have a similar principle to that captured in the parables of the wheat and tares and the dragnet, in that there is an ingathering of all things in the mind both evil and good and as we shall see in a moment, a sorting out takes place. The place where this gathering occurs is interesting. We see in verse nine that the servants are to go onto the exits of the highways – or literally the exits of the way. This refers to where two or more roads meet and divide out, it is best described as a crossroad, and this point of where the roads meet is where the gathering can take place.

Spiritually, there are a number of aspects to this that provide us with important insights. Firstly, those elements that are responsive in our mind are those that are said to be in the way. They are those elements within that are on the road or path. To be on a road, or in the way is to be in the effort to live from the spiritual teachings that we have. Secondly, if we interpret this point of gathering as the exits of the ways, we see that this path involves the exercise of freedom, as to take an exit from the road where many roads cross is to be in the process of choosing one path over another. Thirdly, if we interpret this point of gathering as the crossing of the ways, we are given further insight into a spiritual principle; that even when the ideas of spiritual life appear at crossroads and may have elements of falsity in them, as desribed by the servants being both evil and good, as long as we are in the effort to live sincerely from them we will be able to respond to the invitation to the wedding. There is a wonderful passage in the work the Arcana Coelestia 172 that speaks of this…

…before truths and forms of good can be seen, thus before the person can enter into association with those in heaven, it is necessary for those evils and falsities to be revealed, in order that he may see them and know them for what they are, and thereby learn what truth is and what good is. This cannot possibly be accomplished without conflict with the evils and falsities present in him. An actual conflict takes place in which evil spirits stir up falsities and evils, but angels excuse them, if the person’s end in view has been good, and instil truths. It feels to him as though this were going on within himself, as with a person’s experience of temptation.

The final phase of the process of entering into the the wedding feast, that is, the marriages of good and truth within ourselves, is described as the king coming in to see his guests. This is clearly a process of examination to determine the appropriateness of those present to be reclining at the feast. There we find one described as not having a wedding garment or the proper attire and so is bound and cast out into darkness.

And the king coming in to look over those reclining, he saw a man there not having been dressed in a wedding garment. And he said to him, Friend, how did you come in here, not having a wedding garment? But he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, Binding his feet and hands, take him away and throw him out into the outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of the teeth. For many are called, but few chosen.

Clothing, spiritually corresponds to the ideas we cloth our affections with. In this particular case to be in the wedding, a wedding garment is required. This is not some arbitrary rule, it’s a spiritual principle. To have a wedding garment spiritually speaking is to have truths organised in a way that looks to their application to the life of the mind and so to the marriage of what is true to our affection to use it. This teaches us that there is a point in our spiritual growth and development when those ideas that we are in which have no bearing on the inner life are to be separated out from those that look to life or are being married to life. Again, as we saw in an earlier parable this reorganisation of the mind will come with its emotional and spiritual struggles for we see that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So to have knowledge of spiritual things without applying it to spiritually focused work is to not have a wedding garment. This one is said to be speechless because the state represented is one which fails to speak of the marriage of good and truth.

We are told that many are called by few chosen. All are invited but those states of life that are chosen are with those in which we have exercised our freedom in the light of our understanding of spiritual truths. They have chosen life in response to the challenges that the Lord makes by means of the truths found in His Word.

The meaning of ‘the way’ as truth has its origin in things that appear in the spiritual world. There also ways and paths appear, and in the cities streets and lanes; and spirits do not take any except the ones leading to those whom love draws them into association with. This explains why spirits’ characters as regards truth may be recognised from the way or road they go along; for all truth leads to its own love, that being called truth which lends support to what is loved. It also explains why in the everyday language people use ‘the way to go’ denotes that which is true; for human language derives this usage, as it does very many others, from the spiritual world. (Arcana Coelestia 10422 {2})

A Reading On Marriages In Heaven

As heaven is from the human race, and angels therefore are of both sexes, and from creation woman is for man and man is for woman, thus the one belongs to the other, and this love is innate in both, it follows that there are marriages in heaven as well as on the earth. But marriages in heaven differ widely from marriages on the earth. Therefore what marriages in heaven are, and how they differ from marriages on the earth and wherein they are like them, shall now be told.

Marriage in heaven is a conjunction of two into one mind. It must first be explained what this conjunction is. The mind consists of two parts, one called the understanding and the other the will. When these two parts act as one they are called one mind. In heaven the husband acts the part called the understanding and the wife acts the part called the will. When this conjunction, which belongs to man’s interiors, descends into the lower parts pertaining to the body, it is perceived and felt as love, and this love is marriage love. This shows that marriage love has its origin in the conjunction of two into one mind. This in heaven is called cohabitation; and the two are not called two but one. So in heaven a married pair is spoken of, not as two, but as one angel.

Moreover, such a conjunction of husband and wife in the inmosts of their minds comes from their very creation; for man is born to be intellectual, that is, to think from the understanding, while woman is born to be affectional, that is, to think from her will; and this is evident from the inclination or natural disposition of each, also from their form; from the disposition, in that man acts from reason and woman from affection; from the form in that man has a rougher and less beautiful face, a deeper voice and a harder body; while woman has a smoother and more beautiful face, a softer voice, and a more tender body. There is a like difference between understanding and will, or between thought and affection; so, too, between truth and good and between faith and love; for truth and faith belong to the understanding, and good and love to the will. From this it is that in the Word “youth” or “man” means in the spiritual sense the understanding of truth, and “virgin” or “woman” affection for good; also that the church, on account of its affection for good and truth, is called a “woman” and a “virgin;” also that all those that are in affection for good are called “virgins” (as in Revelation 14:4). 

Everyone, whether man or woman, possesses understanding and will; but with the man the understanding predominates, and with the woman the will predominates, and the character is determined by that which predominates. Yet in heavenly marriages there is no predominance; for the will of the wife is also the husband’s will, and the understanding of the husband is also the wife’s understanding, since each loves to will and to think like the other, that is mutually and reciprocally. Thus are they conjoined into one. This conjunction is actual conjunction, for the will of the wife enters into the understanding of the husband, and the understanding of the husband into the will of the wife, and this especially when they look into one another’s faces; for, as has been repeatedly said above, there is in the heavens a sharing of thoughts and affections, more especially with husband and wife, because they reciprocally love each other. This makes clear what the conjunction of minds is that makes marriage and produces marriage love in the heavens, namely, that one wishes what is his own to be the others, and this reciprocally.

I have been told by angels that so far as a married pair are so conjoined they are in marriage love, and also to the same extent in intelligence, wisdom and happiness, because Divine truth and Divine good which are the source of all intelligence, wisdom, and happiness, flow chiefly into marriage love; consequently marriage love, since it is also the marriage of good and truth, is the very plane of Divine influx. For that love, as it is a conjunction of the understanding and will, is also a conjunction of truth and good, since the understanding receives Divine truth and is formed out of truths, and the will receives Divine good and is formed out of goods. For what a man wills is good to him, and what he understands is truth to him; therefore it is the same whether you say conjunction of understanding and will or conjunction of truth and good.

Conjunction of truth and good is what makes an angel; it makes his intelligence, wisdom, and happiness; for an angel is an angel accordingly as good in him is conjoined with truth and truth with good; or what is the same, accordingly as love in him is conjoined with faith and faith with love.(Heaven and Hell 366-370)

For Zion’s sake, I will not be silent; and for Jerusalem’s sake, I will not rest; until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning lamp. And nations shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory. And you shall be called by a new name which the mouth of Jehovah shall specify. You also shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of Jehovah, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You no longer shall be called Forsaken; nor shall your land any longer be called Desolate. But you shall be called, My Delight is in Her; and your land, Married. For Jehovah delights in you, and your land is married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you. And as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God shall rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62:1-5)

The kingdom of Heaven is compared to a man, a king, who made a wedding feast for his son. And he sent his slaves to call those being invited to the wedding feast, but they did not desire to come. Again, he sent other slaves, saying, Tell the ones invited, Behold, I have prepared my supper; my oxen, and the fatlings are killed, and all things ready; come to the wedding feast. But not caring they went away, one to his own field, and one to his trading. And the rest, seizing his slaves, insulted and killed them. And hearing, the king became angry. And sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, Indeed, the wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Then go onto the exits of the highways and call to the wedding feast as many as you may find. And going out into the highways, those slaves gathered all, as many as they found, both evil and good. And the wedding feast was filled with reclining guests. And the king coming in to look over those reclining, he saw a man there not having been dressed in a wedding garment. And he said to him, Friend, how did you come in here, not having a wedding garment? But he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, Binding his feet and hands, take him away and throw him out into the outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of the teeth. For many are called, but few chosen. (Matthew 22:2-14)

We come now to the final of the eight parables of the kingdom of heaven that are found in Matthew’s Gospel. These parables have moved us through a series of ever deepening truths about the nature of the self and the nature of the Lord and enlightened us to the principles that need to be active within our mind if heaven is to become present for us. We started with the idea of the separation of the wheat the tares where the truths that belong to spiritual life must be allowed to grow alongside those ideas that cannot serve until they are ready to be seen as such. We saw that a trust in the Word as the Lord grows slowly from small beginnings, like the simple mustard seed and that the new ideas that we are being introduced to need to be given time to ferment and percolate, like the leaven in the meal. The next two in the series of these parables taught us that the great price which must be paid is that our sense of ownership over our lives must be given up and in its place, an acknowledgment that all that we have is from the Lord must live instead. And that if we do this then the one and only true pearl will unveil itself, like a treasure that has been hidden in the field until now. Once the awakening to this reality unfolds then we find that there a growing sense of responsibility to live according to the truths from the Word that we are beginning to have insight into. We realise that we are being asked to take account to what the Word says, to respond to the direction from the king of the heavenly kingdom. Which brings us now to this parable which speaks of the king who makes a wedding feast for his son.

In the Greek, the word translated wedding feast is a word which embraces the idea of marriage in its entirety so that it might read,

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who made marriages for his son.

The plural is used because by marriages the meaning is inclusive of all the elements that make up the marriage as an event. Spiritually, this is useful because it teaches us that the spiritual marriage in principle is not a one off occurrence, but is the culmination of a series of marriages and that the process is ongoing. We can reflect on the natural representative image of marriage between two people to connect to these ideas. Depending on the traditions used, the marriage ceremony is composed of a number of smaller events, which we taken together make up the whole wedding experience. Also, the marriage ceremony is not the end but the beginning of being married or if you like, of becoming married.  The marriage ceremony offers the promise of a life-long commitment of a continuous process of the two lives becoming more and more intertwined through their shared home, their shared experiences, in their care for one another, and in the expansion of this combined life through the birth and care of children and grandchildren.

From this representative image we can see then that the spiritual idea of marriage has to do our commitment and growing connection to the Lord, the process by which this is brought about and the fruits that are produced from this. The first aspect of this process is found in this parable where we read that it begins with a king who makes a wedding feast (marriages) to his son. Who is this king and who is this son? And what are these marriages?  Well, they must have something to do with what we experience as we seek to live the spiritual life for the term marriage, spiritually speaking, describes our actual regeneration. To be regenerated means that things are becoming married within us.  As we work with the Word and apply what it teaches to the life of our thoughts and feelings it brings about a new will and understanding or a new internal and external man, and as these grow and develop together in us – they come to act as one. For this is the result of building up truths in our understanding that are able to govern how we act in response to how we feel and think, because they provide us with the ability to reflect on our motivations. These truths form the new understanding, in fact they are our new understanding.  And when we compel ourselves to act from them, our affection for what is heavenly is strengthened and so this affection conjoins itself with the truths that we have been seeking to live our lives from. So both work as complements to one another – our understanding of the Word’s truth as the presence of the Lord in our life forms a complementary relationship with our affection for it. And so the harmonious joining together of these two can be referred to as a spiritual marriage for it is a marriage occurring in the life of the spirit, of what pertains to our mental life. And it reflects the image and likeness of the Lord Himself who is the perfect marriage of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom.

This marriage can be found within the Word because the Lord IS the Word and so we need the Word as Divine Truth in our life, to bring about a spiritual marriage within each of us. For in its operations within the human spirit, Divine Truth is in a constant effort to bring about the wholeness and unification of the heavenly marriage. When we integrate the truths into our life we are conjoined with heaven and so with the Lord, because the Lord is these truths. This is the reason why it is said that the kingdom of heaven is like a king who makes marriages to his son for as we saw last time, a king symbolises the Divine Truth or the Word. 

However, we can’t be joined to the Lord as He is in Himself for the Divine Truth is beyond the comprehension of any finite mind but we can certainly have an increasing sense of being united to Him if we are willing to live from the understanding of the truths that we have. For as the Word enters our minds it produces a response in our spirit that comes into our consciousness as our image of God. But no two people can have the same view of God. None of us are able to see the infinity or eternity of the Divine Truth; we only see the things that we can grasp with our limited understanding in accordance with our own unique state of spiritual life. And because the Word as Divine Truth will always remain infinitely beyond the understanding of anyone, even the highest angels, we should never presume to have a monopoly on the truth because all we can ever be in are appearances of truth. It’s important that we constantly remind ourselves of this in our dealings with others who may hold different views to our own … no one ever sees the whole picture.

So for every person who is able to come to the Word and draw their ideas of God from it, there arises a different or personal view of God and spiritual things.  The truths one person sees are viewed differently by another, yet all are from the Divine Truth or the Word.  These differences don’t exist in the Lord, for He is the same forever and in Him no change is possible, but they exist instead in the different states of mind into which He flows. In this sense, the Word is like a father from whom comes as many different understandings or views of the Lord as there are human minds that come into contact with it.  All these different views of the Lord are still from the Word and so are the Lord with each person – this is what is meant here by the son of the king.  For if the king is the Word, then the son of the king can be thought of as the image that we carry of the Lord in our minds which arises from our limited understanding of the Word.

The limitations of a finite understanding of the Word is how the Lord is seen to take on human frailty and weakness. Again, these human weaknesses are not in the Lord Himself, nor have they ever been but arise from our limited capacity to grasp the Divine as He is in Himself. Divine Truth flows into whatever vessels or mental thought structures in our mind that are able to receive it and so in this way the Lord accommodates Himself to our state of life. The ideas which we hold about Him are the means by which He seeks to integrate each person’s life into a whole, or to bring us into the spiritual marriage which is the marriage of truth and good within our minds, that is, of our understanding of truth and are affections for it. This is why the marriage is centred on the son in this story because our idea or understanding of the Lord and spiritual things is intimately related to the level of motivation we have for working with the Word as the basis for examining our life.

Our response to our understanding of truth is so important here. The Lord’s desire for our salvation means that all that is from Him in His Word looks to draw us into being united with Him. This is captured in this parable in that we see that the command from the king to His slaves, or servants which is the word used in as other translations, is to invite all who are called into the wedding feast. 

And he sent his slaves(servants) to call those being invited to the wedding feast, but they did not desire to come.

or

And he sent his servants to call those being invited to the marriages, but they did not desire to come.

The general message that flows from every aspect of the Word is a call to wholeness. Divine Truth works to bring healing and wholeness to every level of our being; this is what it is to be invited into the wedding, into the heavenly marriage.  It is a call found in the challenges which truths make upon us when we consider their implication for our life. These truths that invite us to live our lives in accordance with the principles we know are the servants who go out under the command of the Divine Truth to draw us closer to the Lord.

We then see various responses that can occur within us in to what the Word invites and offers us…

And he sent his servants to call those being invited to the marriages, but they did not desire to come.

The Word is read or heard, its truths are presented, but there is nothing in the heart that desires the spiritual life and so there is no will to live from the Word.

Then there is a second call…

Again, he sent other servants, saying, Tell the ones invited, Behold, I have prepared my supper; my oxen, and the fatlings are killed, and all things ready; come to the marriages.  But not caring they went away, one to his own field, and one to his trading.

In this second call a greater understanding of the preparations that the king has made is communicated.  This represents a deeper understanding of truths but again, without a desire to actually live from them, there is no response to do what is required to enter into the spiritual life.  All is ready, the oxen and grain-fed calves have been sacrificed or prepared for the marriage celebrations.  But the things of the world hold more allure. This is a powerful warning to those who are in possession of truths, who know what they must do yet refuse to act from them. Knowing that the Word is Divine and that it contains everything necessary for the spiritual life is of little benefit if the invitation It makes to us isn’t taken up. What the Lord has prepared as food, as super, in His Word can have little effect if it is not eaten and so taken into our spirits.

And so this state of life that is described here makes light of the invitation, literally doesn’t care for these things and so prefers to go to its own field and trading business.  It speaks of placing a higher priority on natural life and so caring little for the spiritual life. To go to one’s own field is to prefer a life centered on the field of selfish interests and to go to one’s trading is to believe the false ideas and perspectives that self-interest generates to support living for self and so rejecting the Lord.

Having heard truths and having at least sensed something of the challenge they make, if these are then not acted upon, the mind works to dismiss the challenge to reduce the discomfort they produce upon the conscience, and to dismiss and deny what was initially seen. This process of trying to weaken the impact that truth has on us and to take away the responsibility it places upon us is described in the treatment of the servants by what remains. 

And the rest, seizing his servants, insulted and killed them. 

And so it is that the servants or truths that call us to account, that call us to the marriages and to the work of self examination and repentance that this commitment involves, are seized, insulted and then killed.  This speaks of doing violence to truths so that their life or spirit can no longer influence the mind. Of becoming dead to the power of the Word to transform our lives through having given ourselves over to the loves of self and the world. To insult truth is to discredit it or falsify it and and to kill it is to allow lower things reign in its place. Both of these words are also used in Gospel of Luke when Jesus predicts his own death.

For He will be delivered up to the nations, and will be mocked, and will be insulted, and will be spat upon.  And flogging Him, they will kill Him. And on the third day He will rise again. (Luke 18:32-33)

In this Scripture we find captured, the meaning of the parable; it is the same story in a slightly different form. If we hear the truth but will not act on it because we prefer to live disconnected from the Lord in favour of our own self-interest, then we mock it. All this goes on in the natural man, or natural mind, who is opposed to the things of the spirit – but this is not the last word. For on the third day, Jesus declares He will rise again as indeed the third invitation in this parable in Matthew is to those elements within us that can and will respond. This is the subject of the second part of the story which we shall explore next time.

The reason why no one can come into the kingdom of God unless he has been born again is, that man by inheritance from his parents is born into evils of every kind, with the faculty of becoming spiritual by the removal of these evils; and unless he becomes spiritual he cannot come into heaven. From being natural to become spiritual is to be born again or regenerated. But in order that it may be known how man is regenerated these three things must be considered: the nature of his first state, which is a state of condemnation; the nature of his second state, which is a state of reformation; and the nature of his third state, which is a state of regeneration… Man’s third state, which is a state of regeneration, follows upon and is a continuation of the former state. It begins when man desists from evils as sins, and it progresses as he shuns them, and it is perfected as he fights against them; and then, as he from the Lord conquers them, he is regenerated. With one who is regenerated the order of life is changed. From being natural he becomes spiritual; for when the natural is separated from the spiritual it is contrary to order, and the spiritual is according to order. Therefore the regenerate man acts from charity, and makes what belongs to his charity belong also to his faith. Yet he becomes spiritual only so far as he is in truths, for every man is regenerated by means of truths and a life according to them; because by means of truths he knows the life, and by means of the life he performs the truths. He thus unites good and truth, and this is the spiritual marriage in which is heaven. (Divine Providence 83{1&6})

Therefore is the kingdom of the heavens likened to a man, a king, who willed to take account with his servants. And when he had begun to take it, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But he not having anything to pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and it be paid. Then the servant, falling down, worshiped him saying, Lord, bear with me, and I will pay thee all. And the lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. But that servant, going out, found one of his fellow servants, who owed him a hundred denarii, and taking hold of him choked him, saying, Pay me what thou owest. Then his fellow servant, falling at his feet, implored him, saying, Bear with me, and I will pay thee all. And he was not willing; but going away, cast him into prison, until he should pay what was owed. But his fellow servants, seeing what was done, sorrowed greatly; and coming, they gave their lord to understand all things that were done. Then his lord, calling him, says to him, Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, since thou didst implore me. Shouldest thou not also have had mercy on thy fellow servant, even as I had mercy on thee And his lord, being angry, delivered him up to the tormentors until he should pay all that was owed to him. So also shall My heavenly Father do unto you, unless every one of you forgive his brother from your hearts their trespasses.

(Matthew 18:23-35)

We come now to the second part of our look at this parable which describes the kingdom of heaven being like a king wanting to settle accounts. Now whenever we read of a king in the Word we are dealing with a representation for truths, or ruling principles, and as this king and his actions are likened to the kingdom of heaven, we can see that the principles being illustrated here must be those that govern how we experience the kingdom of heaven operating in our lives. The nature of truth is such that it probes our being, looking to uncover our motives and attitudes and to bring them to our attention.  So this king that calls his servants to account is the Word or Divine Truth and we see this in the actual word translated as account for interestingly, this word is a translation of the Greek word logos which is the term in John’s Gospel attributed to the Lord in the statement;

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God.

What we have here is, In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was God. The Logos is the Divine Truth that became flesh and dwelt among us; so John draws our attention to Jesus as the Logos or the full account of Divinity in Human form.

So logos means Word, but it also means account and in this, we can see the intimate relationship which we looked at last time of truth and responsibility. It is no coincidence that the Word presents us with these two ideas linked to this one word, for from a spiritual perspective they are inseparable. But this is only part of the story. We can ask, What is the king doing with this account? The Scripture says he willed to take account with his servants. Now a servant carries out the will of the king through the administration of various offices and uses on which the health of the kingdom depends. So servants can represent those things within our mind which sit beneath the level of Divine Truth but are designed to carry out its plans and purposes. For Divine Truth finds it place within us as a king when we freely place ourselves under its authority. What this parable teaches us is that once we do this, then we undergo a process whereby those ideas and affections within us that claim to serve the Word, are called into account.

In the inner world of the kingdom of heaven, which is the world of our will and understanding, it is our thoughts and affections that are supposed to serve the Lord’s kingdom within us. And in the processes of our spiritual growth and development, of our regeneration, it is these kinds of things that are constantly being called into account. Isn’t this the case? Isn’t this our experience? When we begin to respond to the truths that we learn from the Word, don’t we experience this spiritual principle operating by having the things of our inner world being called to account? Ways of thinking and feeling and behaving that we wouldn’t have given a second thought to before … we now find ourselves reflecting upon. The Word gives us the ability to examine the quality of our thoughts and affections, an ability to look at our attitudes and motives. And what the light of its truths show us, make us response-able and with that, we are also made account-able.

The actual phrase, willed to take account, taken as a whole is interesting in that when we examine the phrase in its original Greek we find hidden within it the purpose for which this taking or settling of accounts is performed. To see this we need to consider the word translated take as in, to take account. In the Greek the word is soon-aheero which literally means to-together-lift from soon meaning together and aheero meaning to lift. The idea is one of assessing things by bringing them into connection with higher principles through lifting them from a lower to a higher level of mind or thinking. This is done as if of ourselves but really it is an ability from the Lord through the truths He furnishes us with. It is done by our being willing to reflect on our thoughts, motives, and behaviours from the light of what the Word teaches. When we do this, we lift what is lower into the light of what is higher. This is what is meant by a king taking account of his servants when the kingdom of heaven is operating in our lives.

What is being illustrated for us in this parable is the power of the Word to bring what is serviceable to the spiritual life into connection with the king. The first thing that we see in this accounting for what is in our minds, is the state of things on the lower plane of the thoughts and affections which we dwell in. Before coming into a knowledge of spiritual truths, we live as if our life is our own, to do with as we desire. The natural man, or mind, is imprisoned in this fallacy of the senses. It believes that it is the source of its life, that it somehow has life in itself because this is how it feels. This natural man, this natural mind, cannot of itself see its way out of its own deception. Because this is the case, the Lord has revealed truths through Divine revelation concerning the state of the human condition – so that we can come to see things as they really are. That only the Divine has life in Itself and that all others are merely recipients of this life. That the sense of having life within ourselves is an appearance necessary for our exercise of freedom in spiritual things. That without this feeling of life as our own, we would have no sense of being autonomous, independent beings and so have no possibility of having an experience of reciprocity with Divine Love and its wisdom. For the nature of what is Infinite Love gives all that it has to what is other, and the nature of what is finite mirrors this in its relationship to It.

However, the appearance that we are the source of our life is a powerful deception for the natural man, for this level of mind. There isn’t a day that goes by where we don’t act from this belief. It is so powerful a deception that we must constantly remind ourselves that our life is not our own and that as receivers of life from the Lord we have a responsibility to work to have our thoughts and affections brought into what can serve of the kingdom of heaven. This being the order of creation for all human beings. The realisation that our life flows into us and only appears as ours, can be a real shock once its implications are seen for it requires a total shift in our thinking and a reorganisation of our beliefs. The power of this shock is illustrated in the parable by the servant coming into a realisation that nothing he has is his own, but that it all was given to him by the king and that now king wants it back. The debt is ten thousand talents and just to give you some idea of the numbers involved here, one talent was the equivalent of seventeen years wages.

The use of this imagery is to drive the point home that all that we have is the Lord’s, and because it is His, we actually have nothing in ourselves to give to settle the account. In spiritual terms, we can’t acquire anything for ourselves because what is available to us to make such a payment must come from the Lord in the first place. It’s like having no income but managing to get a one hundred percent finance to purchase a house and then because we don’t have an income, then having to borrow everything we need each month to make the repayments. For a while we live in the house and even come to believe that it’s ours, but at some point we are called on to settle the account and it is then that the reality of our predicament is realised. While we lived in the house we were comfortable in the illusion that we possessed a home we could call our own. And by all appearances this is exactly how it looked. Now, however, things are beginning to present very differently.

While we live with a belief that our life is our own and that we are accountable to no one but ourselves, we live for ourselves. Everything in our minds, our thoughts, affections, attitudes and desires are organised around the love of self which perpetuates the illusion that all is well. We are blinded by our egos and see ourselves as much more important than we really are in the scheme of things. It is like those we find described in the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity as living in hell, who see themselves as living in wealth and splendour, only to find that when heaven’s light shines on their situation, that they live in caves amidst excrement and are clothed in rags.

Heaven’s light shines in on our state of life when we allow truths from the Word to shine on the attitudes, beliefs, and motives which are active in our minds. This is what is meant by a king taking account of his servants. The things the natural mind regards as precious, the spiritual mind sees must be sold, which means that the attachment we have to our sense of life being our own must be given up. All the beliefs and attitudes in which we have immersed ourselves must be relinquished and submitted to the authority of the Lord so that the things of our understanding and affections might be reordered to serve the purposes of the kingdom of heaven.

But knowing this and doing it are two very different things, and in the moment of realisation we feel that it is too much – the king, or this ruling principle of the kingdom of heaven, requires all that we have or feel ownership over to be sold or given up in order to pay the debt. But the teaching of the Word is clear – if we are to find our life, we must lose it. To the rich young ruler of the Gospels, Jesus said that if he was to inherit eternal life he had to sell all that he had and give the proceeds to the poor and then follow Him. This idea of selling to gain the things of heaven which we also saw in the parables of the treasure hidden in a field and the pearl of great price, has to do with giving up our sense ownership over our lives through acknowledging that all that we have is from the Lord. To commit ourselves in this way is not an easy thing for us to do and the sense of loss involved feels to be too much. We want to hold on to some things but we also want to do the ‘right thing’ and acknowledge the Lord. And so we see initially that the servant in this parable falls down and worships the king acknowledging his debt saying he will repay.

And when he had begun to take it, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But he not having anything to pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and it be paid. Then the servant, falling down, worshiped him saying, Lord, bear with me, and I will pay thee all.

This submission shows us an important aspect to how the kingdom of heaven works. Until we are able to acknowledge our state of dependency on the Lord, we can’t experience the healing that comes from being released from the burdens that weigh us down when we try to live our lives independently from Him.

And the lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.

Now the Lord does not withhold anything from anyone, including His forgiveness. Wherever the Lord is, and He is everywhere, forgiveness is there because in a very real sense the Lord is forgiveness itself. But if we shut the Lord out of our lives we will feel burdened by the disorder that arises when we live from the belief that we are the source of all that we think and feel, that we are the source of our life. So the appearance of being forgiven arises from a change within us for when we being to work from our understanding of what the Word teaches, then there is a sense of being released from the burden that self-love places upon us.

But when we open ourselves up to working with the Word and receiving truth, we will also see what we are attached to in what resists this. And we can become obsessed with seeking the Lord’s forgiveness due to a misplaced sense of guilt and shame. When this happens we can experience negative and difficult states which make it seem as if the Lord is distant from us. We find this dynamic illustrated in the second part of this parable which shows us that we are slow learners when it comes to actually living from spiritual principles. For it is one thing to acknowledge God as the sole source of all that we have and it is quite another to see how this should play out for us in terms of our responsibilities and relationships with others. We may acknowledge that all that we have is from the Lord, in fact we can extend this to everything that anyone has is from the Lord’s. Thus, from a spiritual perspective there is only one true creditor and that is the Lord, for He supplies all to all. All others are His debtors and His alone. Once this truth is grasped, we will see that we have no authority to hold anything against anybody. This is a radical idea. The world would have us believe that life owes us, but from a spiritual perspective it is not life which owes us but we, who are indebted to life. The world says that all exists to serve us; the Word says that the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the one who serves. It says that he who exalts himself will be laid low but he who abases himself will be exalted.

So to continue to live from a belief that our life is our own leads to situations where we end up holding not just ourselves to account in our guilt and shame but also holding others to account. We don’t see this when we are caught up in it but it brings with it all kinds of negative influences into our life.

But that servant, going out, found one of his fellow servants, who owed him a hundred denarii, and taking hold of him choked him, saying, Pay me what thou owest. Then his fellow servant, falling at his feet, implored him, saying, Bear with me, and I will pay thee all. And he was not willing; but going away, cast him into prison, until he should pay what was owed.

It’s not enough to just acknowledge the truth that the Lord is the source of our life in our heads, we have to allow this truth to impact on our attitudes towards ourselves and others and be in the effort to find out what it means to live from this principle. Knowing these things and not doing them results in an inner battle with our conscience, and this is what it is to be handed over, to be bound and tormented until the debt is paid.

But his fellow servants, seeing what was done, sorrowed greatly; and coming, they gave their lord to understand all things that were done. Then his lord, calling him, says to him, Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, since thou didst implore me. Shouldest thou not also have had mercy on thy fellow servant, even as I had mercy on thee And his lord, being angry, delivered him up to the tormentors until he should pay all that was owed to him.

And this debt can only be paid by taking the truths that we understand and living from them, because truth makes us response-able, to be able to respond as we must. Perhaps we can see this principle better from the following example. We often hold people to account when they behave in some way that offends us. Our expectations are that they should have behaved in a different way and so when they don’t meet our expectations we hold them to account – they need to pay by acting as we want or as we believe they should act and behave towards us.

We may feel that we deserve an apology and so we freeze them out to make our annoyance with them known or we may harbour ill feelings which simmer beneath the surface each time we interact with them. This is holding others to account – and the world tells us that we are justified in doing this. But if we are to live under the principles of the kingdom of heaven such behaviour is never justified and if we choose to act in this way, we will certainly suffer the tormentors until the debt is paid in full. What is this suffering? It’s simply the resentment, the anger, the indignation, the annoyance, and the hurt that we keep alive in us. And it eats away at the positive potential that the Lord’s life offers for our spiritual growth and development. So, consider what you might be holding onto – and what could be let go? What could be released from the debt you feel you are owed? This is the principle – forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. We can only be released from the tormentors when we release those we are holding an account against.

So also shall My heavenly Father do unto you, unless every one of you forgive his brother from your hearts their trespasses. (Matthew 18:35)

Those who are engrossed in falsities, more so those steeped in evils, are called ‘the bound” and ‘in prison’, not because they are held in any physical bonds but because they are not in freedom; for people who are not in freedom are inwardly in bonds. Indeed once they subscribe to falsity they no longer have any freedom to choose or receive what is true; and those who subscribe heavily to it do not have any freedom even to see it, let alone acknowledge it and believe it, because they are quite convinced that what is false is true and what is true is false. That conviction is so powerful in them that it removes all freedom to think anything different, and is so strong that it holds their actual thought in bonds, in prison so to speak. This has been made clear to me from considerable experience among those in the next life who have become quite convinced of falsity by harbouring ideas that serve to prove to it. They are the kind of people who do not entertain any truths at all but turn or drive these away, doing so with a degree of ruthlessness which matches the intensity of their conviction. This is primarily so when such falsity is the product of evil, that is, when evil causes them to be convinced of it. People like these are not even aware that they are in bonds or in prison, for they are full of affection for their falsity, loving it because of the evil which produces it. This leads them to think that they are in freedom, since everything they have an affection for or love seems to make them feel free. But those who have not really subscribed to falsity, that is, who have not become convinced of it, entertain truths easily. They see them, choose them, and are full of affection for them, after which they look down on falsities so to speak, and then see how those convinced of falsity have come to be in bonds. Having such freedom they are able in their contemplation and thought to roam so to speak through the whole of heaven in search of countless truths. But nobody can have this freedom except one who is governed by good; for it is by virtue of good that he is in heaven and by virtue of good that truths are seen there. (Arcana Coelestia 5096{1-2})

…the kingdom of Heaven has been compared to a man, a king, who desired to take account with his slaves. And he having begun to reckon, one debtor of ten thousand talents was brought near to him. But he not having any to repay, the lord commanded him to be sold, also his wife and children, and all things, as much as he had, even to pay back. Then having fallen down, the slave bowed the knee to him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay all to you. And being filled with pity, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the loan. But having gone out, that slave found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii. And seizing him, he choked him, saying, Pay me whatever you owe. Then having fallen down at his feet, his fellow slave begged him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay all to you. But he would not, but having gone away he threw him into prison until he should pay back the amount owing. But his fellow slaves, seeing the things happening, they were greatly grieved. And having come they reported to their lord all the things happening. Then having called him near, his lord said to him, Wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt, since you begged me. Ought you not also to have mercy on your fellow slave, as I also had mercy? And being angry, his lord delivered him up to the tormentors until he pay back all that debt to him. So also My heavenly Father will do to you unless each of you from your hearts forgive his brother their deviations. (Matthew 18:23-35)

Until we begin to seek to live from the Word we won’t be aware of what it is within us, or rather in within our lower nature, that stands opposed to having the life of heaven more fully present. For it is only when we begin to make spiritual things a priority for our lives, that we become aware of those desires and attitudes, those fixed and habitual ways of thinking, and beliefs that we are so attached to – which seek to keep us from moving into higher things.

The parables of the kingdom of heaven are a wonderful guide for us in coming to understand what the experience of making an effort as if of ourselves in spiritual things, will be like, and is like. And so today we come to the question of debt, what is owed by whom to whom and of how this concept of indebtedness impacts on they way we live and regard others. So we read that the kingdom of heaven is like a man, a king in fact, who desired to take account with his slaves. This statement immediately places before us the idea that the kingdom of heaven is like the kind of relationship that a king has with his subjects. It’s a relationship of accountability, one that is filled with responsibilities. The subjects are accountable to the king for the benefits they receive from the him, and the king also has a responsibility which is that of calling his subjects to account for what they have received.

Again, like other parables, this seems, at least on the surface, to tell us that we a liable for some fairly harsh penalties if we can’t deliver what the kingdom requires of us. We could ask, What is it to risk all that we have if we are unable to settle our accounts? What is it we must settle? Will a loving God who cares for us really see to it that we lose everything if we don’t pay what we owe? How are we to understand this? Such difficulties in the literal sense of the Word can be something of a shock to our established view of things. And they are meant to shock us and so we have two choices in how we might respond. For there will be some states that find that the shock will be too much and will turn away from the Text, but for others these shocks serve to create questions in the mind which need reconciling. And so driven by this need for the Text to make sense to us, we look again to see how these difficulties can be connected with the spiritual concepts and realities that it offers. This requires that we put aside our own ideas, prejudices, and preconceptions in our contact with the Word. We always need to take care when engaging with it that we don’t reject something because it doesn’t fit with the ideas or beliefs that we are attached to. The Word contains the living truth, and if we are not careful, any preconceptions that we bring to the Text can so easily shut us off from the deep work that the Lord is looking to perform in our lives. It’s important that we understand that we are not in a position to judge the Word, but that it, in a real sense, judges what is in us. And in the seeing of what it offers and shows us about the nature self and the nature the Lord, we are called on to act – to respond to the truths that we understand…

For truths once heard, seen and understood make us responsible. Our past, our upbringing, our friends, our education or lack of it, our family, our government, the influences of society, our church, or religion, all these are factors in our lives, but none of them take away or diminish the personal responsibility we each have from the Lord to act in freedom from our understanding of truth.

But we don’t naturally warm to the idea of responsibility – in fact, the very word itself can elicit feelings of resistance, and this resistance is of a spiritual origin. In spiritual matters, the last thing the native sense of self desires is to take up responsibilities in regards to growth and development. It offers every excuse and impulse to put off and deny, or it suggest that this responsibly can be shifted onto others, or onto external factors or situations that we have no control over. But the fascinating thing about this tendency of the proprium to minimise or deny personal responsibility for our inner lives is that while it may look to diminish our own responsibilities, it is far less forgiving when it comes to what it claims is the responsibilities of others. And of course, this dynamic is clearly illustrated in the parable we are looking at today.

And being filled with pity, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the loan. But having gone out, that slave found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii. And seizing him, he choked him, saying, Pay me whatever you owe.

But let’s come back to this idea of truths making us responsible and look at the word responsible in slightly different way. Truths, once understood, carry with them a sense of needing to then apply them to our life, and it is in this way that we can think of truth as making us response-able, – they enable us to be able-to-respond. In other words, if the truths that we have are genuinely spiritual then they are able to empower us to respond in a way which promotes what is good, that is, which promotes the application of the Word as the Lord into our life. This can be so liberating once seen; as soon as truth strikes us in a way that impacts on our consciousness, it empowers us – we become response enabled. For in the moment that we really see a truth we are given options, we see what our native habitual sense of self might choose and what the Word would have us choose instead.

This is the basis for cultivating a deeper sense of spiritual freedom. Spiritual freedom has nothing to do with being free to do whatever we want. It has to do with our ability to freely choose what is good. Often we think that exercising spiritual freedom is like having good on the one side and evil on the other, with us sort of in the middle with the freedom to choose one of them. But this is not quite how it is. What the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity actually say is that in and of ourselves we are totally self-centred and have no ability to choose what is good. That the inclination of our natural man or proprium is always towards the appearances of the senses which tells it that is the source of its life and so makes God secondary or subservient to it. Our natural mind is immersed in this love and therefore good it is not presented as something it might choose any more than a dog chooses to be a dog. Rather the choice or exercise of spiritual freedom is a choice to act on our understanding of truth to resist this native sense of self and what it loves. It is this resistance that is the doing of what is good, for it is the doing of what the Word offers us and the Word is the Lord, and the Lord is goodness Itself.

If we choose to exercise our spiritual freedom, then evils, that is, the loves of this native self, are progressively dealt with and held at bay. If we don’t exercise this freedom then we remain immersed in our natural state of life which carries us on the path to becoming more enslaved in the blindness of the native self and the suffering that ensues when it looks to external forces as the source for its happiness. So, the picture is not of good on one side and evil on the other; rather it’s a case of our sense of self being immersed in evil influences and false ideas but always having before us a ladder, which, if we were to look up to the truths we have available to us at any given time, we would be able to begin to ascend.

The exercise of spiritual freedom always, without exception, leads upwards to what is heavenly and whilst this power and freedom to act is from the Lord, we experience it very much as something that we do. The choice always feels as if it is our own. This is what spiritual freedom is. It is the freedom to act from truth as if of ourselves. So our ability to choose good is intricately tied to our understanding of the truths that we engage with from the Word and are response enabled by what their light shows us.

All truths, that are genuine, are how the Lord makes His presence as good with us. We are conjoined with Him when we exercise the freedom they provide to go against the natural mind’s habitual patterns of thinking and feeling. This conjunction is how we are given a new sense of self, a new heavenly proprium from the Lord. This is how we are set free, Jesus said;

“You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32)

Spiritual freedom is from the love of eternal life. Into this love and its delight no one comes but the man who thinks that evils are sins, and consequently does not will them, and at the same time looks to the Lord. As soon as a man does so, he is in this freedom; for no one has the power not to will evils because they are sins and so to refrain from doing them, unless from a more interior or higher freedom which is from a more interior or higher love. At first this freedom does not appear to be freedom, and yet it is; and later it does so appear, when the man acts from freedom itself according to reason itself, in thinking, willing, speaking and doing what is good and true. This freedom increases as natural freedom decreases and becomes subservient; and it conjoins itself with rational freedom which it purifies. Everyone may come into this freedom provided he is willing to think that there is an eternal life, and that the temporary delight and bliss of a life in time are but as a fleeting shadow compared with the never-ending delight and bliss of a life in eternity. This a man can think if he wishes, because he has rationality and liberty, and because the Lord, from whom these two faculties are derived, continually gives him the ability to do so. (Divine Providence 73{6&7})

Again, the kingdom of Heaven is compared to a drag net thrown into the sea, and gathering together of every kind; which, when it was filled, drawing it up on the shore, and sitting down, they gathered the good into containers, and they threw out the rotten. So it will be in the completion of the age: the angels will go out and will separate the evil from the midst of the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; there will be weeping and gnashing of the teeth. (Matthew 13:47-50)

We come now to the sixth parable in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel that begins with the phrase the kingdom of heaven is like… or compared to. When we look at the way these parables are set out in the text of the Gospel, we can see that they fall into two groups of three parables each and that each grouping is separated by Jesus giving the interpretation of one of the parables of the series. So, in the first group we have the parable of the wheat and the tares, followed by the parable of the mustard seed, followed by the parable of a woman taking leaven and mixing it into three measures of meal. Then we have Jesus giving an explanation of the parable of the wheat and the tares before delivering the next group of three parables, the treasure hidden in a field, the pearl of great price, and finally the parable of the dragnet. This last one is followed by a short explanation, that interestingly is very similar to what is said concerning the parable of the wheat and the tares.

Each of the parables illustrates a series of principles that govern a person’s experience of spiritual regeneration as they seek to live their lives from the Lord’s Word. All that is described as relating to the kingdom of heaven relates to the Lord as the Word operating within our psychological or spiritual world. This is the world that we experience as our mental life. It’s important that we remind ourselves of this when we read the Scriptures so that we avoid deflecting the responsibility of examining our own life, and not anyone else’s, in the light of the truths that the Word offers.

Let’s look at an example of this tendency to view others rather than ourselves using part of the reading from today.

So it will be in the completion of the age: the angels will go out and will separate the evil from the midst of the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; there will be weeping and gnashing of the teeth.

If this is read from what is lower, we will not understand its meaning or the outworking of the principle of the kingdom of heaven that is being illustrated. For the things of the spirit are spiritually discerned, the natural man or mind cannot grasp spiritual things; it is in a deep darkness to them. But the spiritual man, or mind, is in spiritual light and spiritual light is the light of love or charity. And when the Scriptures are read from that light, the Lord’s love shines through. Now the natural mind will be limited to one of two responses when reading this passage. It will either accept that the passage is literally true, believing that, at some point in the future, angels will be involved in separating out the evil from the righteous and that the evil will be thrown into the furnace of fire. Or it will find difficulty with this idea not seeing how a loving God could allow people to be thrown into a furnace of fire, even if this is fire is regarded as a symbolic metaphor for suffering. This latter view could lead to a rejection of the Scriptures as the Word of the Lord.

Both views present difficulties because both stem from thinking literally about what the Word has to say regarding spiritual realities. The difference between them is seen in the view which each holds of the Scriptures. The first holds onto the Scriptures as the Word of God but ends up with a false, harsh view of the nature of God and spiritual life. The second view ends up rejecting the Scriptures because of their apparent harshness, or if they aren’t rejected outright, then there is a process of picking and choosing what can and can’t be accepted. This closes off the possibility of a fuller understanding of the principles that are being offered to support the living of a spiritual life. But when a spiritual perspective is brought to the reading, these difficulties are removed and we can see the truth of what’s here, not in an abstract sense but within the very experience of our lives.

To read these verses naturally is to think from or in time and space and so the natural mind will understand the phrase end of the age as referring to a future time. Angels will be understood in terms of entities or beings who serve to carry out the will of God and the righteous and the evil will be understood in terms of two groups of people one of which, classed as evil, will find themselves subject to terrible punishments. The problem with thinking naturally or from the literal sense about these things is that they immediately become understood in terms of us and them, the righteous and the evil for – ‘If we are those kind of people who are going to heaven, then it must be those others who will suffer torment’. This kind of thinking deflects our attention away from applying what we are reading to our own states of life and directs it towards the states of others instead.

Now there is a clear connection between this parable and the parable of the wheat and the tares, so in a sense we have come a full circle. Both deal with a gathering up of what is useful and what is not, and then a process of sorting and separation occurs. You might recall that in the first parable, the key principle involved allowing the wheat and the tares to grow together until the harvest after which the tares could be separated from the wheat. This teaches us that some of the things which we see in our lives that we may want removed, can’t be taken away until there is a state of readiness for this.  It shows us that we need to be gentle with ourselves and trust the process of where the Lord as the Word takes us in our work rather than forcing our own agendas on what we think needs to be worked on or sorted out. For to attack evils from the proprium, from our own intelligence in what we think needs removing, rather than from the Word, stems from an unhealthy preoccupation on our short comings which is characterised by being caught up in guilt and self-condemnation. Through parables like this, the Lord gives us what we need to understand the process so that we can work with Him lest in our self righteous zeal to be purified we consequently also uproot the capacity for expressing goodness. For guilt and self condemnation are forms of ownership of the life that flows in, of what belongs to the Lord.

We see this same principle re-emphasised in the parable of the dragnet, only this time rather than the future harvest of wheat, we are given the imagery of being in the act of harvesting fish. In actual fact there is no mention of fish specifically in the Greek text, it’s assumed from the context, but we get the picture. There are important principles here concerning our experience of the operation of the principles of the kingdom of heaven in our living of the spiritual life. The first thing is that the net is all encompassing and doesn’t discriminate as to what is accepted into it. The net itself represents what can draw together all of the affections for natural ideas which we have swimming around in our minds, like a great sea of knowledge.

So, we are taught here that the principles of the kingdom of heaven work like a net cast into the sea as they become established in our life. As we learn spiritual principles we gain the means by which our thinking can be gathered together and reorganised into a new framework. For as spiritual things begin to take a higher priority in our lives then everything that we have taken into our minds begins to be understood and assessed in a new way. The things in our mind are drawn into the net of the spiritual doctrine that we making one with our life.

So the first state is one of building up our understanding. In this period we cast our net, our mind, far and wide and draw in all kinds of information. For example, if one of the strands of our net is the idea that God is love then we will gather from the Scriptures the stories and facts that support this idea. Another strand might hold that God is a stern judge who condemns the wicked to hell, this strand will be sensitive to everything in the literal sense of the Word that supports that idea. Maybe another strand believes in a literal coming of Christ and a final battle of good against evil in the world called Armageddon and so that strand organises pieces of information in the Word and knowledge about world events in support of it.

When this process of ingathering reaches a certain point we come into a new spiritual state of life. This point of change in our state is described by the words when it was filled, or if you like, when a point of fulfilment or completion had been reached.  We are then told that it is being drawn up onto the shore and then sitting down, the sorting process begins. For if any of these knowledges are to have a useful application to our spiritual life, they have to be understood from a spiritual perspective. This means that our thinking with them needs to be elevated from what is natural, that is, from what is based in person, place, time and space – into what is spiritual, to what these knowledges mean regarding the life of our thoughts and affections. This is captured in the statement of the net being drawn up, that is, it is drawn up higher toward things more internal onto the shore, after which there is a sitting down to examine what is present. And this is a state of spiritual practice, of self examination, of using spiritual principles to examine the quality of what is present in our mind. These spiritual principles or truths give us the ability to look into our minds and evaluate what things are useful and what are not; what is worth holding onto and what is irrelevant or even resistive in the service of a supporting the spiritual life.

The end of verse 48 says that at this point the good is gathered into its containers or vessels. This teaches us that the end of this process is to have what is genuinely good and useful from a spiritual perspective placed within its proper vessels. It’s a process in which goodness is adjoined to its own truths as containers, these being ideas and concepts in our minds that can give good, the Lord, an expression or presence in our life. What this means is that as we look to the Lord as the Word with a desire to apply what we understand, we start to gain insights into truths as they relates directly to our life and so see what concepts are worth placing in containers and what ideas we have been carrying that we see now are actually falsities. The latter of course can not serve the spiritual life because they are rotten at the core and so must be thrown out.

We can now see this very transformation in our own understanding of this parable. What is merely hypothetical or speculative falls away, and what is real, that is, what is good, shines forth in a new understanding of those passages of Scripture that before seemed so harsh and unforgiving.

Again, the kingdom of Heaven is compared to a drag net thrown into the sea, and gathering together of every kind; which, when it was filled, drawing it up on the shore, and sitting down, they gathered the good into containers, and they threw out the rotten. So it will be in the completion of the age: the angels will go out and will separate the evil from the midst of the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; there will be weeping and gnashing of the teeth.

The doctrines for Spiritual Christianity state that the first of charity is to resist evils as sins against the Lord.  At first glance this may seem a little strange, surely charity is doing good. But the teaching is that the life of the Lord is goodness itself and that this flows into every one of us. The problem is not the absence of goodness but the presence of evils, so that when life from the Lord enters into a human mind that is steeped in what is selfish and false, the inflowing life gets turned on its head and is expressed as its opposite in various forms of selfishness. Our minds, when unregenerate, are filled with inappropriate concepts and ideas that resist and therefore can’t give expression to the goodness flowing in from the Lord. The problem is not that the good isn’t present; it’s that our state of life gets in the way of it being expressed appropriately. Thus our job is to work with the Lord as the Word in order to have the obstacles to this goodness removed through self-examination and repentance so that genuine truths can be built up in our mind. So if we remove the ideas, that is, the fish, that hold importance on reading the Text literally and instead use those which state that to think spiritually is to think above person, space and time, then when we look at the phrase ..the evil in the midst of the righteous, we no longer think about two groups of people, but instead two aspects within ourselves.

Likewise, the natural mind immediately jumps to thinking of the end of the age as some point in time in the future but the spiritual mind recognises that the phrase end of the age refers not to some outcome in time but to a state of life right now. This phrase refers to the end state of mind towards which our spiritual life is being directed as we look to the Lord in His Word. The end the Divine Love has is for the salvation of what is human within each of us so that we might come into and know the kingdom of heaven. So the process by which this occurs is one of examining ourselves to discover what obstructs the Lord’s love. What the Lord gives us to support this process are the angels which are spoken of in this parable. Every time we gain an insight into some aspect within us that blocks the Lord’s love being expressed we are in the company of angels, which are truths from the Word. This is what angels are, they are affections for truth. When these are active in our minds we are given the ability to discern the evil and separate it out from …the midst of the righteous… or what is of the Lord in us.

Once we truly recognise those things within us that separate us from the Lord, their hold over us is weakened. That’s because we begin to see them in the light of truths from the Word, and so see them for what they really are. It is in this seeing that they are cast into the furnace of fire. The power of evil is stripped in the very act of our seeing that they are from hell and therefore have no place in us. It is then that we are given the power to reject them, and in the act of rejecting them they are cast back into the hell from which they came. People often mistakenly read the next part of the verse as applying to those in hell – that those thrown into the fire will be the ones weeping and gnashing their teeth. But this is not what it says here. When you look at the verse more closely you will see that it is a statement referring to the whole process. Let’s read it again…

…the angels will go out and will separate the evil from the midst of the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of the teeth.

This last part of the statement can be read as our own struggle to let go of what stands in the way of the kingdom of heaven coming more fully into our lives. Isn’t it the case that as we are confronted with selfish attitudes that need to be removed, or when we feel like we have not lived up to our own expectations that we feel like weeping? That in this struggle called the spiritual life we often feel frustrated and unable to move on, that we feel distant from the Lord?  But all of this is part of the process of having internal things sorted and placed in order. The sense of self that has spent its life understanding things from sensual appearances will resist and struggle, will weep and gnash its teeth. Again, the freeing of this is in the seeing and the seeing is the Word active within us showing us what we need to see. So our hope is forever in the Lord and to remember His end in view for us. To remind ourselves of this we can refer to an earlier verse in the chapter, very similar to this one, where the Lord comments on the parable of the wheat and the tares, but with an additional statement. In verses 41-43 we read this…

The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all the offences, and those who practice lawlessness. And they will throw them into the furnace of fire; there will be weeping and gnashing of the teeth. Then the righteous will shine out like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. The one having ears to hear, let him hear.

May we hear the Word of the Lord…

No man, spirit, or angel ever has any life from himself, thus neither can he think and will from himself; because in thinking and willing is the life of man, and speaking and acting is the life thence derived. For there is one only life, that of the Lord, which flows into all, but is variously received, and indeed according to the quality which a man has induced on his soul by his life. Hence with the evil, goods and truths are turned into evils and falsities, but with the good they are received-goods as goods, and truths as truths. This may be compared to the light of the sun flowing into objects, which is modified and varied in them diversely according to the form of the parts, and thus is turned into colors, some sad and some cheerful. While a man lives in the world he induces a form on the purest substances of his interiors, so that it may be said that he forms his soul, that is, its quality; and according to this form is received the life of the Lord, which is the life of His love toward the universal human race. (Arcana Coelestia 5847)

Again, the kingdom of Heaven is compared to a man, a merchant seeking excellent pearls; who finding one very precious pearl, going away has sold all things, as many as he had, and bought it. (Matthew 13:45-46)

Last time we looked at how the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. We saw that when we explore the Word to find truths and then use these to examine the quality of our thoughts and feelings, then the things that oppose the life of heaven are exposed for us to see. And so as the loves of being an independent and autonomous self are let go of, are sold, to be replaced with the heaven-sent loves that these truths embody, a new principle for life forms the kingdom of heaven within the mind. The parable that we are looking at here today has many similarities. Both have as their subject a man finding something precious and both carry the idea of having to sell all to acquire the one thing that we have found to be precious above everything else. These ideas of searching, of finding, of selling, and of acquiring, provide us with a basic pattern of the order and operation of the laws of spiritual life. First, of all, we must be in a search for higher things if we are to have any hope of finding real meaning for our lives based on what is eternal and lasting. Next, it is a spiritual law that the things which we find in this search will require something of us. It is not enough to know that there is treasure relating to spiritual life in the Word – we actually have to do something with this knowledge to make it our own. We have to sell what we have, that is, we have to give up our sense of ownership over our life through being willing to be led by the Lord through His Word. Then, and only then, can what is precious from an eternal perspective be given to us in the form of a new sense of self that founded on what is of the Word as the Lord.

There are also a few subtle differences between the two parables which are significant and which illustrate what’s involved in the shift from a state of finding treasure in a field to becoming a spiritual merchant.  In the parable of the treasure hidden in the field we are dealing with something a little less defined and purposeful than what we find in the parable of the pearl of great price. For in the former we get a sense of surprise, of a man stumbling onto or discovering something whereas, in the latter we see a man engaged in a specific type of work and of one who knows exactly what he is searching for in his trading of pearls. We too, in our search for spiritual things, begin almost without really knowing what it is we are looking for. We seemingly stumble onto ideas and concepts that carry some kind of spiritual focus for us and are able to meet the needs that arise out of the specific states of life we are in. But as we progress, we grow more and more sensitive to what it is that will actually fulfil our inner longing and, more importantly, what it is we must do if the object of this deep longing is to be realised.

So we firstly learn how to work with the spiritual knowledge in our life that has been discovered in the field of the Word and as we do, we find that we are able to operate from principles that are grounded in our understanding of charity. But we become a merchant when we see that all that makes up our life and understanding of spiritual things is not really ours at all but belongs to the Lord. And that the pearls which we have thus far gathered can be used to acquire pearls of a higher quality and so of a greater value.

The Greek word for merchant is a compound word that literally means to be in-transition which spiritually points to the continual transitions which occur in our inner states of thought and life as our understanding of truth changes and develops. For part of the process and work in spiritual life involves coming to recognise those states within us that have a tendency towards emphasising truth at the expense of goodness or love. This can lead to becoming fixed or inflexible in what we regard to be true and is often characterised by a defensive attitude when confronted with ideas that are different to our own. This is why it’s important to realise that we are only ever in appearances of truth. That what we hold to today can and will change as we repeatedly look to apply what we understand to be true to our life. To be a good merchant then is to hold things lightly and to be watchful for states of struggle, when we see that our engagement with the Text is meeting an inner resistance, either as we read it or as we look to apply its truths in our daily activities and relationships with others.

We need to be ever aware that a merchant who becomes so emotionally attached to his goods that he is unable or unwilling to trade them, won’t be a very successful merchant. So when the Word shines its light into our life and shows us where we need to work on ourselves, we need to be prepared to sell all that we have. We must give up the ideas and rationalisations that we have used to justify our selfish behaviours and that we have used to affirm that the sense of self is an autonomous and independent being, essentially that it is to be the guiding authority in our life rather than what the Word teaches . Each time that we are able to let go and sell all that we have then the insights that the Word is then able to offer in its place will form a new way of seeing truths. This is how we acquire a new pearl which then becomes something that can support us in our spiritual journey. It also means that if we keep returning to the Word and working with it in this way then we will always have something to use, to trade, as a means of gaining even better quality pearls, that is, truths of a higher quality.

Now pearls, whilst not being precious stones, do have similar qualities. They are highly valued and they are also hard like stones and all stones in the Word correspond to truths or falsities depending on the context in which they are mentioned. We can get a sense of what kind of truths pearls correspond to from their use in the New Jerusalem or Holy City in the book of Revelation.

In Revelation 21:21 we read;

And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; respectively each one of the gates was of one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, as transparent glass.

The Holy City seen by John in his vision, descending from God out of heaven, is not a material city like those we find on earth. For it is John’s spiritual sight that has been opened which means that this vision is of spiritual and not natural things. The city is a symbol for inner realities and because it is seen to descend it represents the development of heavenly principles within the deeper levels of our minds, making their way down into its lower levels as the basis for life. By the city descending we have illustration of the progressive influence that these principles are able to exert over the lower reaches of our minds as we open ourselves up to the Lord’s Word. We need to remember that everything that descends from out of heaven must be related to inner things, so from our perspective, this city represents the heavenly organisation of those things in our minds that constitute the kingdom of heaven within us. Such things are heavenly affections and their truths; these kinds of things are provided for us through the Word. When the mind is organised in the pattern of heaven it becomes a spiritual city in which the Lord can dwell.

This descent of the city then is the descent of the kingdom or rule of heaven into life and our interest is in the gates into this city for they are constructed of pearl. The gates of a city are what a person first passes through in order to gain access to it. So pearl being connected with the gates here must mean that this substance is connected with what introduces a person into the kingdom of heaven – which are truths. Truths provide us with an understanding of what the kingdom of heaven is, and what is required of us if a new mind is to be formed within us which can house the things of heaven.

Notice that the gates of this city are made from a single pearl, this is because this pearl is the pearl of great price. So it is indicating that there is one truth that binds all others into a single great pearl and forms the entrance into heaven, or the interior sense of the Word. When this truth is found, when its value is truly realised, it makes all our self derived precious ideas, concepts, opinions and views become as dust. If it is found, its value is such that we would find ourselves giving up our petty self importance to ensure that its value is realised in our life. What is this pearl? It is the one teaching that sits at the heart of the new Church or new heavenly mind, for this is what a Church is, and it is that the Lord’s Human or the Word is Divine – even down to the letter itself. For the literal sense of the Word, with its apparent imperfections, can be recognised as Divine when it is seen to be what supports and contains the interior meaning. It is the Lord’s flesh and bones, or His Human in ultimates, and because it is such, the Lord is within it in all His fulness and glory.

However, the living acknowledgement of this truth for us is a gradual and continual cyclic process as the shifting of where our sense of self lies cannot be done in a moment. So we move in and out of trading pearls, learning new things, giving up old ways of seeing and finding more pearls. We are like a merchant, ever searching for the one great pearl and then when we find it, it make all others pale in comparison. In those states of acknowledgment of the Word as the presence of the Lord in our life we are willing to sell all that we have so that we might pass through the gate into the kingdom of heaven.

“Again, the kingdom of Heaven is compared to a man, a merchant seeking excellent pearls; who finding one very precious pearl, going away has sold all things, as many as he had, and bought it.”

Reference

I have …been told that not only the palaces and the homes but all the little things within and outside them correspond to the deeper qualities that [angels] receive from the Lord. In general terms, their houses correspond to the good that occupies them and the items within their houses to the various things that constitute that good. The items that are outside the homes refer to true things that derive from the good, and also to experiences of perception and recognition. Since these correspond to the good and true things they receive from the Lord, they correspond to their love and therefore to their wisdom and intelligence, because love is a matter of what is good, wisdom of what is both good and true, and intelligence of truth that stems from the good. This, they tell me, is the sort of thing angels perceive when they look at their houses; and this is why these sights delight and move their minds more than their eyes. So I could see why the Lord calls himself the temple that is in Jerusalem ( John 2:19, 21). I could also see why the New Jerusalem appeared as a city of pure gold, with gates of pearl and foundations of precious gems (Revelation 21): it is because a temple offers an image of the Lord’s divine human; the New Jerusalem refers to the church that was going to be founded; and the twelve gates are the truths that lead to what is good, and the foundations are the truths on which it is based. (Heaven and Hell 187)

Again, the kingdom of Heaven is compared to treasure being hidden in the field, which finding, a man hid; and for the joy of it, he goes and sells all things, as many as he has, and buys that field. (Matthew 13:44)

Previously, we have looked at the idea of a field being likened to the human mind and today we are going to examine this concept a little more deeply. Now a mind without ideas or concepts can hardly be called a mind so when we speak of the mind, we mean the ideas and concepts that constitute it and give it its quality. So, the field is not some abstract faculty called the mind but rather it is the very ideas and concepts that make up the landscape from which, and in which, we think. And all ideas and concepts in the mind are organised into a mental structure that reflects their compatibility with each other. Ideas that are most complementary are bundled together and remain closely connected in the thought, whereas ideas that are not so close or may even be antagonistic, are set further apart.

For example, if I were a baker then the ideas which I have that relate to my employment form a field of practical and theoretical knowledge that relates to producing bakery goods. This knowledge is organised and grouped into a specific mental structure as demonstrated when I draw on it in order to engage in the specific activities that are required to produce the baked goods. But let’s say that I own the bakery business, so then I also have to have knowledge that relates to the financial and marketing aspects. My knowledge of baking and my knowledge of bookkeeping and marketing are separate areas of knowledge brought together, in this case, due to my ownership of a bakery business. And whilst these knowledge areas are related in this way, each draws from a separate field of ideas and concepts and it’s important that I am able to keep the two apart and draw only on what’s relevant for the task at hand. For if I was filing a tax return and the only thing that came to mind while trying to do this was a new recipe for Danish pastry, I wouldn’t get very far! So the organisation of the ideas and concepts into various groupings in the mind forms mental boundaries which enable us to think clearly in the context of the tasks that we are involved in . Thus, symbolically we can say that knowledge is organised into fields. This idea of knowledge being a field can also be seen when people speak metaphorically and ask – What field of work are you in?

So the kingdom of heaven, we are told, is like a treasure hidden in a field and since this field is one that specifically relates to the kingdom of heaven, it must be a field of spiritual knowledge – of knowledge that relates to the principles and laws of spiritual life. Such knowledge, when in our mind, forms our doctrine or understanding of spiritual things. So this field in the mind that we are looking at here today is all the knowledge, ideas, concepts and truths which relate to some aspect of religious and spiritual life. For many of us, our experience is that a lot of this knowledge can lie dormant in our memories for many years. We might have received religious instruction in our childhood but then found that when we entered adulthood we had no real use or affection for applying it. Or we may have continued to attend religious activities or read and listen to various forms of teaching related to spiritual topics, but in terms of its actual application to our daily life it has remained fairly external without any real sense of a need to apply what we are learning to examine our feelings and thoughts.

There’s a passage in the work Heaven and Hell that talks about this in relation to those who, having died, enter the spiritual world fairly confident of going to heaven because their external behaviour on earth was reasonably moral and civil. But when they undergo a process of examination in preparation for their final state they then find that the true quality of their external behaviour in the world is determined by the quality of their inner life, of their inner motivations. In this way, they begin to awaken to the reality of spiritual laws, which show that it is the motives or intentions that lie behind our external actions that determine the quality of our spiritual life. So having arrived in the world of spirits, where every person who dies undergoes a process of preparation prior to entering heaven or hell, we read this from the work…

Almost all of them want to know whether they will make it into heaven. Many of them think they will because they led moral and civic lives in the world, not reflecting that both evil and good people lead similar outward lives, being similarly helpful to others, going to church, listening to sermons, and praying similarly, utterly unaware that outward behaviour and outward worship accomplish nothing whatever; only the inner realities that give rise to these outward ones are effective. Scarcely one in thousands even knows what the inner realities are or that they are the focal point of heaven and the church for us. Even fewer realize that the quality of our outward actions is determined by the quality of our intentions and thoughts and the love and faith within them, from which our actions arise. Even when they are told, they do not grasp the fact that thinking and intending actually make a difference. They attach importance only to speaking and acting. (Heaven and Hell 494)

With statements like this in the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity, we needn’t remain in ignorance concerning the spiritual laws of life. Nor do we have to wait until we have passed from this world to be enlightened. But instead we have the opportunity to find, in this incredibly fertile field of spiritual teachings, treasures that relate to our life right now in the present of our current experience and circumstances.

Previously, in the parable of the woman who took leaven and hid it in three measures of meal, we saw that a genuine affection for truth, the woman when active within us, stimulates a spiritual process of fermentation so that what is evil and false might be seen and separated from those things that are of the Lord and which promote the kingdom of heaven. So this spiritual fermentation illustrates a growing spiritual sensitivity to the things of the Word but with it also comes states of anxiety and pressure due to our increasing awareness of the conflict between natural and spiritual desires and the ideas that promote each of them. From the perspective of the natural man or mind, it looks as though our growing interest in spiritual things is the cause of the internal difficulties that we are experiencing. This is why it is said that the woman took the leaven and hid it in the meal for the literal Text, that is, the surface story, always appeals to the natural mind’s way of thinking. But we know from what the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity teach that nothing from heaven, and thus from the Lord, looks to create difficulties or unpleasantness in our lives. So, a genuine affection for truth, as represented by the woman, because it is from the Lord, doesn’t actually mix leaven or evil and falsity in with what is good. But its presence certainly stirs up what is evil and false within us and brings it into the light where it can be seen and felt, and eventually separated from.

The extent that we are able to separate from identifying with it as our ‘self’ is very much tied to what love is active in the state at the time – what is valued or treasured. This is seen in the words of Jesus in the Gospels who said…

Do not treasure up for you treasures on the earth, where moth and rust cause to perish, and where thieves dig through and steal. But treasure up for you treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust cause to perish, and where thieves do not dig through and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

These words encourage us to examine where our focus is, to what our heart is turned towards – is it on the things of the world or is it on the things of heaven? To value the Word for what it can accomplish in our lives in terms of offering us a heavenly perspective, is to find the things in it that have a direct bearing on our eternal state of life. So the Text is the field we must search. But we will only search it if we see that there is treasure in it, and we will only see that treasure if we are motivated by a genuine affection for what is good and true. For it is only a genuine affection for truth that values the things belonging to the kingdom of heaven. Without this affection, we will see nothing of value or treasure in the Word and we will not be motivated to act on its truths or principles as far as examining and dealing with our inner states of life.

The Greek word translated in our English Bibles for the word treasure is quite revealing. When this word is broken down into its elements, we have a literal meaning which is placed-into-morrow. The central idea here at a natural level is of something held over for the future, something placed in tomorrow but from a spiritual perspective, what lies ahead of us in the morrow has to do with a change in our state of life, in our feelings and thoughts. The treasure hidden in the field then are the truths in the Word that, when used for self examination, can change our thought and feeling life into one that forms the basis of heaven within us.

Let’s return for a moment to the teaching we read from Heaven and Hell 494. There is a real treasure in this field and it has to do with realising that it is inner realities…that are the focal point of heaven and the Church for us… and that how we think and intend actually makes a difference. A difference in regard to what? Our eternal state of life. If we value this teaching then that will be reflected in our responses to it, we will treasure it.

Again, the kingdom of Heaven is compared to treasure being hidden in the field, which finding, a man hid; and for the joy of it, he goes and sells all things, as many as he has, and buys that field.

Notice that the once the man found the treasure his response was to hide it. Under Jewish law if a person who found treasure in a field was to be assured of gaining permanent possession of it, they would need to purchase the field. The ownership of the field entitled the owner to all that the field contained. This natural law corresponds to a spiritual law and it is this; until we make spiritual principles our own, through taking them into our life and living from them, they are not really inscribed on the heart as something to be treasured, they are not truly part of our life. To have a permanent impact on our spiritual states of life we have to work with spiritual teachings so that they become something that is integrated into the very fabric of who we are. The hiding of the treasure is to protect it from being undermined by the rationalisations of the natural man or that part of us that doesn’t want things to change. This is because to hide something is to conceal it from the senses which is what the natural mind forms its conclusions from. So to hide this treasure is to actively resist all the excuses that we can come up with for not making spiritual things a priority in our lives.

But when the true value of what we have in the Word is realised, there is a burst of joy that springs from the spirit within of having found what every human heart seeks – the means by which we can be reconnected with the Lord, with heaven and with all that is genuinely good and true. While the spiritual life is not without its struggles, these are far outweighed by the joy that comes from having found the way into the kingdom of heaven through having it find its way into us. If these things are truly treasured, then the joy of this empowers us to be able to make the necessary shift in our priorities; to go and sell all that we have so that we might make these wonderful teachings a real and permanent part of our life.

To sell all that we own is to no longer allow the kinds of things that arise from the love of self and the senses of the world to govern our thinking and feeling states of life. It is to work to have instilled into us a new principle of life, a heavenly principle, the kingdom of heaven, which can only ever be found in loving the Lord which we do when we practise the truths of His Word. This love is the true field that the Lord offers to us to purchase in every moment of our lives. From this field of heaven-sent love springs the joy of eternal life. From this field springs every truly wise and loving idea, designed to fill every human mind with the light that they need to live full and useful lives. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, and those who find it are those who truly know its value in their heart.

To enable me to know what heaven and heavenly joy are and what their quality is, though, the Lord has allowed me to feel the pleasures of heavenly joy often and at length. Because this was living experience, I may indeed know about them, but there is no way to describe them. Still, something should be said in order to provide at least some notion about them. There is an effect of countless pleasures and joys that unite to present a single something, a unity or united affection that contains a harmony of countless affections that do not come through to consciousness individually, only vaguely, because the consciousness is so very general. It was still possible to perceive that there were countless elements within it, so beautifully arranged as to defy description. The qualities of those countless elements flow from the very design of heaven; and this kind of design is resident in the very least affections, affections that are manifest and perceived only as a very general unity, depending on the perceptive ability of the subject. In a word, there are infinite elements in a most intricate form in every general entity, and there is nothing that is not alive and does not affect everything even at the very center, since heavenly joys emanate from the very center. I have also noticed that heavenly joy and delight seemed to be coming from my heart, spreading very subtly through all my inner fibers and from there into the gatherings of fibers with such a profound sense of pleasure that my fibers seemed to be nothing but joy and delight, and everything I perceived and felt was alive with bliss. Next to these joys, the joy of physical pleasures is like crude and irritating dust compared to a pure and gentle breeze. I noticed that when I wanted to convey all my pleasure to someone else, a deeper and fuller pleasure flowed in ceaselessly in its place. The more I wanted to convey it, the more it flowed in; and I perceived that this was from the Lord. (Heaven and Hell 413)

He spoke another parable to them: The kingdom of Heaven is compared to leaven, which taking, a woman hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened. Jesus spoke all these things in parables to the crowds, and He did not speak to them without a parable, so that was fulfilled that spoken through the prophet, saying: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will speak out things hidden from the foundation of the world.” (Matthew 13:33-35)

Those who are in heaven are continually advancing towards the spring of life, with a greater advance towards a more joyful and happy spring the more thousands of years they live; and this to eternity, with increase according to the growth and degree of their love, charity, and faith. Women who have died old and worn out with age, if they have lived in faith in the Lord, in charity to the neighbour, and in happy conjugial love with a husband, advance with the succession of years more and more into the flower of youth and early womanhood, and into a beauty that transcends every conception of any such beauty as is seen on the earth. Goodness and charity is what gives this form and thus manifests its own likeness, causing the joy and beauty of charity to shine forth from every least particular of the face, and causing them to be the very forms of charity. Some who beheld this were struck with amazement. The form of charity that is seen in a living way in heaven, is such that it is charity itself that both forms and is formed; and this in such a manner that the whole angel is a charity, as it were, especially the face; and this is both clearly seen and felt. When this form is beheld it is beauty unspeakable, affecting with charity the very inmost life of the mind. In a word, to grow old in heaven is to grow young. Such forms or such beauties do those who have lived in love to the Lord and in charity towards the neighbour become in the other life. All angels are such forms in endless variety; and of these heaven is constituted. (Heaven and Hell 414)

Today we come to the third of the parables that Jesus introduces with the phrase; the kingdom of heaven is like…and in this parable it is said to be like leaven, leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of meal or flour until the whole was leavened. Up until this point the two parables of the kingdom we have looked at, the wheat and the tares and the mustard seed, have revolved around the idea of seeds or grain. But in the parable we are going to look at today we find something of a shift from the seeds and grains to what is produced from them, that being flour or meal. We also see another significant shift in that it is not a man who is the one engaged in the activity of the parable this time, but a woman.

When we first come to these parables there is a tendency to see them as stories that stand alone but if we look a little deeper we shall see that they are all connected in a wonderful way. For when taken together and seen as a whole, we can gain some precious insights into our own experience of the processes that occur in our inner world when we look to live a spiritual life. The series begins with seeds or grain in the first two parables and with a man as the principle character who is doing the work. Now the masculine form in the symbolic language of Scripture represents the things to do with our understanding faculties and so this is reflective of our first conscious experience of the workings of the kingdom of heaven because we start first with ideas, concepts, principles or truths about the spiritual life. We need these seeds of ideas so that we can actively think about God, life after death, heaven and hell and spiritual life and processes. Without being taught anything about these things we would have no conscious connection with them and so no capacity to develop and deepen in our understanding of them.

However, although it looks like intellectual things come first in the process – this is only an appearance because in and of ourselves we don’t have the slightest inclination or desire for learning spiritual truths. Yet here we are – seeking to know and to understand more, to have our lives improved from a spiritual perspective, being willing to examine ourselves and to undergo spiritual struggle and temptation, and working to keep returning to the Word as the Lord and acknowledging Him as the source of all that is good and true and as the giver of our life. All of these efforts are so against what the natural man or mind is, that we can only conclude that any genuine desire which we have to pursue such a life is something that comes from beyond and above ourselves.

For every genuine desire, motivation or affection that we have for spiritual things is from the Lord and in fact is the Lord. Without Him, the only desire that is left is what is able to gratify the natural man and its love of its self and the material world of the senses from which it thinks and draws its conclusions. So, if we are to be able to seek truths belonging to the kingdom of heaven we have to have a desire or motivation to do so and this is from the Lord. So, it appears as if our contact with ideas is where our spiritual life begins, but we can see that it is in fact the desire and the affection for truth which underlies this search, that is the true impetus. And this is represented by the woman in the story today because the feminine form in the symbolic language of Scripture, pertains to the things that relate to our affections.

So these parables are written from the perspective of what we experience in our work with the Lord’s Word. Just as our conscious sense of natural life began when we drew our first breath so then we become spiritually conscious when we begin to come into contact with spiritual ideas and to think about them in the context of our life. If these seeds, or ideas, or truths are to be sown in fertile ground then we must come to a place where we seek them from a desire for what is good. It’s unavoidable that our search will carry elements of self-interest but if we are willing to take the truths that the Word offers and use them to examine our life in the light of what they teach, then slowly but surely these elements which belong to the false good of the natural man, will fall away. And through this continual practice of the Word, our desires and affections will be incrementally purified and transformed into a genuine kind of spiritual goodness that is grounded in an acknowledgement of the Lord as the source our very life.

And as we saw in the parable of the wheat and the tares, as our understanding of what spiritual life involves deepens and as the concepts grow and develop within us, we come to see what is not compatible or able to support what is genuinely good. We find that amidst the crop of potential goodness are weeds or tares that represent our selfish tendencies, which when acted upon undermine our aim to live a life more in keeping with heavenly principles. This gives rise to anxiety that could so easily derail us, but the teaching is given through the Word that we are not to be anxious. That our work is to let the Lord show us what needs to be seen, for it is the seeing of these things that will eventually free us from our attachments to them. So the process is a gradual revealing and unfolding of things in His time, not ours. We can trust that if we continue to let Him lead us by returning to His Word and practicing what we understand, then He will do what needs to be done in our lives.

So the purpose for the planting of grain is to harvest it so that it can be transformed, yielding up its goodness in a form that can be used to support and nourish the body. The same kind of process occurs at a psychological or spiritual level within our mental world, the world of our thoughts and affections. Learning spiritual truths is akin to the sowing of the seeds of grain in the mind for these ideas and concepts nourish the spiritual body of our thoughts and affections and which, when applied for self examination, can bring enlightenment from the inflow of heaven. This is the incredible beauty that is spoken of in our reading about heaven today, a beauty that shines forth and is expressed through our heavenly or spiritual body when the mind has been prepared for the reception of a genuine desire for the Lord’s goodness.

In the parable of the grain of mustard there is the idea of that which is the least, the smallest of seeds, becoming great. While natural loves dominate spiritual loves, which they do when we first start out on the spiritual path, the kingdom of heaven or the rule of heavenly principles within us is the tiniest of grains in our mind – it is like a mere mustard seed. But when we look to live from these principles, this tiny seed grows into a tree that is able to support higher ideals, aspirations and goals as represented by the birds of the heaven that are able to nest in its branches. As this stage of development reaches maturity, we now have all the principles that we need to enter into a new phase of spiritual life.

This is the phase described by this woman taking leaven and concealing it in three measures of meal. With the meal or flour, we are now introduced to the product of grain once it has undergone the process of grinding. So this meal is the goodness that is able to be drawn from the grain or truths which we have taken into our minds from the Word and have processed in our efforts to live from these ideas and see what they mean for us in terms of our beliefs and in how we live our life. For if the truths and principles which we are learning are to be made available so that they can impact our lives in a positive way, then they have to be taken and processed in the grind of our daily life so that the goodness contained within them can be extracted for further use. So this process of grain into meal represents how truths become refined for us into something that is more useful in serving the spiritual life. So this whole cycle is a complete process which is reinforced by the fact that there are three measures of meal as three spiritually speaking, indicates the completion or fullness of a state.

However, whilst we shouldn’t become discouraged when we appear to fail at trying to live from spiritual principles, it’s inevitable that we will. This is because when we start to make genuine efforts to live from such principles, things begin to ferment within us and heat up. But such times need not be seen as a failing but rather should be taken as a sign that the Lord is truly at work in our lives. The meal spoken of here, to which the leaven is to be added, would be a mixture of water and flour. We know now that the flour is a form of goodness and water, as we have seen previously, corresponds to truth. So the bringing together of these two ingredients represents our efforts to marry what we know with how we live our lives. And the desire to unite the flour and the of spiritual life into something that makes the goodness of heaven available, is represented by the woman who is the leading principle of activity in this whole process. The woman is the active love that rules in the process of spiritual transformation that is described here. She represents the spiritual affection that sits behind our motivation and willingness to make an ongoing commitment to living a spiritual life.

So the operation of this affection from the Lord within our minds draws together what is good and true and sets it alongside those things within us that are evil and false. We saw a similar idea captured in the parable of the wheat and the tares where what was evil and false was left to grow alongside what was good and true. This contrast in what is of heaven and what is of hell is represented by the application of leaven to the meal in this story, as the main use of leaven is to encourage fermentation which leads to the separation of what is useful from that which is damaging to the product it’s found in. In this parable the Greek word used for leaven is zyme which literally means to ferment. So the emphasis here is as much on the process that the woman activates within us as it is on the particular substance she mixes into the meal. In the light of this, the parable teaches us that a genuine affection for truth, the woman when active within us, stimulates a spiritual process of fermentation so that what is evil and false might be seen and separated from those things that are of the Lord and which promote the kingdom of heaven. This process of fermentation involves the struggles of spiritual temptation which is the only way that the self-centred elements that are attached to our thoughts and affections can be removed. Our states of discouragement in the spiritual life should be regarded as part of this purifying process and the better we understand this, the better supported we will feel when we have to pass through these necessary states of spiritual struggle. Resilience in the spiritual life comes from understanding the processes involved and these are presented to us in the Word when it is spiritually understood. This is why it’s so important to remain in the Word, to meditate upon it and to draw upon the doctrines that it offers in our efforts to understand ourselves and the Lord’s activity in our our lives.

This final reading from the work the Arcana Coelestia 7906 comments on this parable…

To go further with what ‘made with yeast’ and ‘not made with yeast’ refer to, it should be recognized that the purification of truth from falsity cannot ever come about in a person without so called fermentation, that is, without the conflict of falsity with truth and of truth with falsity. But after the conflict has taken place and truth has triumphed, the falsity falls away like dregs and the truth emerges purified. It is like wine that becomes clear after fermentation as the dregs sink to the bottom. That fermentation or conflict takes place especially when a person’s state undergoes a change, that is to say, when his actions begin to spring from the good of charity, and not as previously from the truth of faith. For a person’s state is not yet made pure while his actions spring from the truth of faith, but they have been made pure when they spring from the good of charity, since they now spring from his will. Previously they sprang merely from his understanding. Spiritual conflicts or temptations are fermentations in the spiritual sense, for during them falsities wish to link themselves to truths, but the truths reject them, eventually sending them to the bottom so to speak and in that way becoming refined. This is the sense in which to understand what the Lord teaches about ‘yeast’ in Matthew,

The kingdom of heaven is like yeast, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole was fermented by it. Matthew13:33. (Arcana Coelestia 7906{2-33})

Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, and has not stood in the way of sinners, and has not sat in the seat of scorners. But his delight is only in the Law of Jehovah, and he meditates in His Law day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivulets of waters, which will give its fruit in its seasons, and its leaf will not wither, and all which he does will prosper. Not so are the wicked, but they are only as chaff which the wind drives about. On account of this the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For Jehovah is knowing the way of the righteous, and the way of the wicked shall perish. (Psalm 1:1-6)

He put another parable before them, saying: The kingdom of Heaven is compared to a grain of mustard, which taking, a man sowed in his field; which indeed is less than all the seeds, but when it is grown it is greater than the plants, and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the heaven come and roost in its branches. (Matthew 13:31-35)

We saw last time in our look into the parable of the wheat and the tares, that we must come to a level of acceptance and trust in the Lord in this thing called the spiritual life. That while we are called to make our life one of self-examination and repentance, we must also come to realise that all that we see within us which stands opposed to the spiritual life, the tares if you like, cannot always be removed from us when we would like them to be removed. That some things must remain and will be attended to in the Lord’s own time for He alone has the wisdom that can look to our eternal welfare and so knows what must be done at every point of our spiritual progress. In this we saw that we are to avoid being too hard on ourselves – that the Lord doesn’t ask from us an impossible level of perfection, nor will He seek to have us burdened under guilt that arises from a false conscience. All that is required of us is to remain in the effort to examine our motives, looking to the Lord to strengthen us in what is good. If we do this, we will be brought into those states that He desires for us, step by step. Our job is simply to acknowledge Him and do our best to obey Him – if we are doing this, then we give Him leave to do whatever He will with our life.

And so today we come to another the parables of the kingdom, and it is the parable of the grain of mustard. This one begins with the idea of something small growing to fill a much larger capacity than it did in its original form. And the mustard seed is like the wheat of the first parable in that it too is taken up by a man to be sowed in his field. The man is the Lord as the Word, the seed is our grasp of truth, and the field is the human mind into which the Lord sows the seed.

This man who sowed the seed in Greek is called anthropos and is better translated as human or, if we look to a very literal translation, we have the term ‘human-faced‘. This term, in the context of this and the last parable, is wonderfully apt in its association with Jesus for He presents to us a human face of God. That face is one of love, mercy and compassion; it is God in a form that we can connect with. And it is likewise the face of God that the Word as Divine truth can reveal to us in even more detail and depth. For the Word as the Lord is the face of the kingdom of heaven itself and it says, Come, come to me you who are burdened and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).

But when and where has this man gone forth to sow this smallest of seeds in the depths of the human heart? Well, the Lord is forever taking care to see that the seeds of the kingdom are implanted in every person. Every contact we have ever had that has been an expression of care, concern, love, friendship, loyalty, every prompting to act on what is just and true and fair, all the millions of impressions that flow from people and the world which give us a sense of being looked after regardless of who or where they come from… these are all the Great Man going forth taking the smallest and seemingly most insignificant things of life to sow in His field, in our minds, a mustard seed.

And there these seeds sit within the soil in the field waiting for the right conditions to mature and grow. Because Jesus, in saying that He takes the smallest of seeds, teaches us that when we allow Him, as the truth, as the Word, to attend to the thoughts within our mind, then from this – big things can happen. Changes can occur, transformations can unfold. What seem to be the big obstacles, can be overcome. Nothing is impossible Jesus tells us, for with God to all things are possible (Matthew 19:26).

So to live in the kingdom of heaven is to be living in a world of great possibilities, in an atmosphere of unlimited potential. We look and at first we just see a small insignificant mustard seed, a grain of truth, an idea about the Lord or spiritual life. It is seemingly of little worth, such a tiny statement or thought or memory- but in the Lord’s eyes it is so much more than a just one grain. For Him, this is in potential the greatest of the plants. For when it matures, we see that it takes the form of a tree in which the birds of the heaven can come and roost and find a place of rest.

The growing tree is a symbol for the maturation of ideas in the mind which are symbolised by the seeds. In fact, we use this analogy in our language often when we talk of planting ideas into someone’s mind; a common phrase is that of ‘sowing seeds of doubt’. We also say that someone has a fertile imagination when they allow their minds to run with an idea. The kingdom of heaven is often linked to seeds in the Word because it begins with ideas that can grow into spiritual principles which, when applied to our life, empower us to become conscious of the laws that govern a practice of genuine charity.

Ideas that have their origin in the kingdom of heaven are small from the natural man’s perspective because the natural mind places more importance on the things of the senses and the world, and the affections that are tied to these. We only need to look at where the focus of our attention is constantly drawn to see that this is true and so there is a struggle when we seek to give spiritual things a priority. Yet the wonderful teaching here is that even the smallest amount of effort in making what is spiritual a priority in our lives, can become something great. The Lord can take the smallest intention that we make to bring the truth which we know into an act of love and see that it grows into something able to give support to the birds of the heaven.

This growth of the least of seeds into the greatest of the plants is a correspondence that illustrates for us our own spiritual growth and development. Every person is born into the world a natural man. This is the part of us that we call ourselves, the I or me, and it is like the outer skin of the seed which eventually will fall away as the new sense of self, which is based on an acknowledgment of the Lord as our life, grows from within. The internal of every man is the Lord’s for He is the giver of all life but this sits dormant within us in potential until the seed is given what it needs to germinate. The essential elements required for the growth of this seed into a plant can only happen as we apply truths from the Word, which are its water and light, and work with them so that our loves can be reformed, and so applying just the right amount of heat. The specific nutrients which the plant needs are given as the Word reforms our natural world memories and experiences that are unique to our daily life conditions. And so through the practice of self examination in the light of spiritual principles, our minds can become organised into a form that is better able to express something of the kingdom of heaven – so the seed grows into the fullness of its life as a plant.

People are often compared to trees in the Word, which are also plants. From the Psalm reading today we see that when we act from our understanding of truth from the Word, we are like a tree planted by the rivulets of waters that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf does not whither so that whatever is done will prosper. For to delight in the law of Jehovah is to live from the Word because when we do this, we grow and develop in the order of the kingdom of heaven; it is such a life that brings forth fruit in its season. The fruit being the product of spiritual work which is in its season when we find that what the Word has worked into our life offers fresh ways to meet our life in the world and interactions with others.

To live from the law of the Word then brings the delight of being carried in the stream of the Lord’s providential care which ensures that all things are right for whatever state of life we are in, in any given moment of our lives. More often than not we are unconscious of this activity of the Lord’s ever present provision but we can trust that if we we take the time to cultivate a love for His Word and a desire to live from it, then He will ensure that we, as the seed, are given all that we need to grow and mature into a tree. The hellish states of course, will seek to undermine our quality of life by getting us to focus on where think we are failing to thrive. They will look to use our perceived short comings to throw our perspective out, so that we fall into a pit of self-loathing, self-pity and guilt. This again is what happens when the natural mind takes control, when we live from the appearance of what things look like from the senses. We need to be reminded that what the hellish states turn into a big thing is small in the face of the good that flows in from heaven which is gently and quietly influencing and drawing all whose hearts are open towards the Lord.

If we are the seed that grows into a plant as we commit our lives to the search for spiritual truths, that further matures into a tree which produces fruit as we look to the Lord to live in the good that truth teaches – then the birds that are supported by such a life must also correspond to something internal. In fact, this is more clearly seen in a very literal translation of the phrase birds of the heaven which literally reads the flying things (wings) of the heavens. The things that fly represent those spiritual principles which, when applied to our life, can lift our sense of self out of the thoughts and affections belonging to the natural world and into things of a much higher spiritual quality. To have the birds of the heaven in our branches then is to provide support for such truths in our minds, through our desire for living a useful life in keeping with the principles of the Word. These truths offer concepts that can lift our life into a sense of the Lord’s presence in the small and simple states of goodness that envelop us every day.

We can also apply the idea of the mustard seed to the parable itself. For in these words is a simple story, on the surface the smallest of seeds, but as we have looked at this story and seen something of what it contains spiritually, so our understanding of it has grown to become a tree in our mind. And in its branches, we see nested there a principle of the kingdom of heaven. This principle is like one of the birds of the heaven that can form the wings of the heavens for us.

So, if you find yourself being drawn into a sense of failure, or self-condemnation, or states that separate you from a sense of the Lord’s presence in your life, then you can remind yourself that if there is a conscious looking to the Word as the source for wisdom by applying its truths in your life, then the Lord will do wonderful things with even the smallest of seeds that He has implanted.

The cognitions of truth and good which precede faith appear to some persons as though they were related to faith; but yet they are not. Their thinking and saying that they believe is no proof that they do believe, nor that these cognitions are related to faith; for they consist only in the thought that it is so, but not in an internal acknowledgment that they are truths; and the belief that they are truths, while it is not known that they are, is a kind of persuasion far removed from internal acknowledgment. But as soon as charity is implanted then those cognitions become principles of faith, but only so far as charity is in the faith.

In the first state, before charity is perceived, faith appears to such persons as in the first place, and charity in the second; but in the next state, when charity is perceived, faith ranks in the second place and charity in the first. The first state is called reformation, and the second regeneration. When a man is in this latter state, wisdom grows in him daily, and good daily multiplies truths and makes them fruitful. The man is then like a tree which bears fruit, and in its fruit lays up seeds from which new trees are produced, and at length a garden is formed. He then becomes truly a man, and after death an angel, in whom charity constitutes the life and faith the form, which is beautiful according to the quality of the charity; but his faith is then no longer called faith, but intelligence.

From these considerations it may be evident that the all of faith is from charity, and nothing of it from itself; and also that charity produces faith, and not faith charity. The cognitions of truth which precede are precisely like provisions stored in a barn, which do not nourish a man unless, in his desire for food, he takes out the grain.

Further, it will now be explained how faith is formed from charity. Every man has a natural mind and a spiritual mind, a natural mind for the world and a spiritual mind for heaven. Man as to understanding is in both; but not as to his will before he shuns and turns himself away from evils as sins. When he does this, his spiritual mind is then opened with respect to the will also; and when it has been opened, there flows from it into the natural mind spiritual heat from heaven. This heat in its essence is charity and it gives life to the cognitions of truth and good which are in the natural mind, and out of them it forms faith.

This is similar to what takes place in a tree. It does not receive vegetative life before heat from the sun flows in and unites with light, as happens in the spring time. There is, moreover, a full parallel between the quickening of man with life and the vegetation of a tree in this respect, that the latter is effected by the heat of this world, and the former by the heat of heaven: for this reason also man is so often likened to a tree by the Lord. (Doctrine of Faith 31,32)

Another parable He places before them, saying “Likened was the kingdom of the heavens to a man sowing ideal seed in his own field. Yet, while the men are drowsing, his enemy came and sows darnel over amidst the grain, and came away. Now, when the blade germinates and produces fruit, then appeared also the darnel. “Now, approaching, the slaves of the householder said to him, ‘Lord, do you not sow ideal seed in your field? Whence, then, has it darnel?’ Now he averred to them, ‘A man, an enemy, does this.’ Now the slaves are saying to him, ‘Do you, then, want us to come away that we should be culling them?’ Yet he is averring, ‘By no means, lest at some time, while culling the darnel, you should be rooting up the grain at the same time with it. Leave both to grow up together until the harvest, and in the season of the harvest I shall be declaring to the reapers, ‘Cull first the darnel, and bind them into bundles to burn them up. Yet the grain gather into my barn.'” (Matthew 13:24-30)

Today we begin a series in which we look into what Jesus had to say about the Kingdom of Heaven – specifically we are going to be looking at what are commonly referred to as the parables of the kingdom found in Matthews Gospel. It’s an important study because these parables are filled with insights into the nature of heaven, and most importantly the principles that govern it. This means that we can build our understanding as to the nature of heavenly life and so begin to examine our own life in the light of this, which should give us what we need to help us to bring our life, as best we can, in line with our understanding of what heaven is, and its principles of operation.

The very first thing we need to have clearly fixed in our minds is that heaven is not a place, but a state of mind. When Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven was within – He meant just that. In other words, He was showing us that we should not look for a heaven external to our own states of life. To say that heaven is within, might at first appear to be somewhat vague and lacking substance, but that’s due to the difficulty we have of extracting our thought from the idea of a place being more real than that of a state of mind.

But is that really the case? Let’s take an example from the business world. Advertisers work in the intangible world of mental states, creating desires, exciting our passions, and building our expectations in an effort to get us to act in a way that benefits their clients, and these clients spend exorbitant amounts of money to get them to do this. In the world of marketing, the creation of a state of mind in those being targeted is more important and more real than the actual product or service because it is the creation of a state of mind (a state of expectation tied to a product or service) in the consumer, and that ultimately gets them to act in a way that translates into material returns for a company. To be able to get a person to buy something they don’t need and then feel great about having done so is a testament to the reality and power of states of mind.

Take for example the motor vehicle market. All motor vehicles are modes of transport and if obtaining a motor vehicle was simply a case of getting from A to B then as long as it was reliable, suited our needs in terms of size and utility, then something very basic would do – no need for the frills. But from the marketing and advertising perspective no motor vehicle is ever just a mode of transport. In fact, when you look at a lot of the ads you would have to say that a motor vehicle is almost everything but a mode of transport. If the advertisers are to be believed then it’s a vehicle that can transport us into states of happiness, joy, fulfilment, peace, satisfaction and endless pleasure first – and a vehicle for transporting us from A to B second. You see from a marketing perspective, they are not selling you a thing, they are selling the promise of a state of life. It’s not about whether the car will get you from A to B, that’s a given. But it’s about how you will feel while driving it – the illusion is that because you have a particular car, that that will translate into a certain feeling about yourself. So, you are being sold an experience and what the marketing does is create the illusion that the product or service is the means to fulfilling the promise of that experience. Looking at the ads, one could be forgiven for thinking that the ability of a car to actually get us somewhere is an added extra.

The promise of happiness, joy, fulfilment, peace, satisfaction, pleasure, all appeal to something deep with in the human psyche. The promise of these things, which aren’t things at all but states of life, are what really motivate us. These are the things every person seeks. And deep down we know that love or the quality of our relationships is the key to achieving these states of life.

Life on a daily basis is always experienced in terms of our affections, or how we feel. It is the state of our feelings that define what kind of day we have had. So while we live in a material world that seems to be real, the reality of our experience of life is more about where we have been living in our interior world and this is true whether we have much or little in terms of material wealth. If we live our day in feelings of anxiety, suspicion, jealousy, envy, then we live in a world separated from others. A world where we think that no one can be trusted and all our energy goes into protecting ourselves or our affections from being hurt. Negative states of life always have self at the centre. The irony is, is that when we are in such states of mind, despite our efforts to protect ourselves, any little thing seems to so easily derail us, being blown out of all proportion. Our moods can so easily swing through extremes and we find we are okay one minute and then a comment or change in situation throws us into turmoil the next.

We know that heaven, defined as a state of abiding happiness, joy and fulfilment, is not found in things in the world. We know that the comfort and pleasure things bring, can only ever be temporary. But this is not just true of things; it’s also true of our relationships with others if the other persons are looked to as the means of our happiness. The kind of relationship that looks to another person to fulfil our life is not really that far removed from looking to material things to satisfy our deeper longings. This is because in every case where a person looks to another person for their happiness, they make the other person a thing, an object for the fulfilment of their own need. The person to whom we are looking to fulfil us becomes reduced to a possession. This is not love, but self-love, where the person is loved for what they can give me. This kind of love is the opposite of heavenly love which is other and not self-centred. Heavenly love is always looking towards the Lord’s purposes, for the salvation of all, for the regeneration of what is human or the human mind. Is it any wonder then that so many relationships reflect the chaos and turmoil of a kind of hell at times?

You see, the problem with the human condition is where we tend to focus inwardly – if the focus is on self, then whatever the outer circumstances of our life, materially or otherwise, we will struggle to experience heavenly states of life. This is because when we are focussed on ourselves we are actually centred on what shuts heaven out of us. When things or people outside of us are looked to as a means of satisfying our deeper needs, we are looking in the wrong direction, for heaven is actually within us and must be sought there. This simple truth can have a profound impact on how we function as people. Because if heaven is within, then a search for it in what is external to myself is a wasted effort. It also means that the responsibility for our inner states of life, how we feel, doesn’t rest with others or with things or how a particular situation happens to unfold – it rests squarely with us. We can only be responsible for our own inner states of life – no one else can change this for us. Nor can we change the inner lives of others and any thought that we can change or control another person is a road to unhappiness.

The kingdom of heaven is within you…now … in this moment. Even as the Lord is within you in all His fullness and power. Everything we need, everything that the Lord is able to give, He makes available for our happiness in each and every moment of our lives. He withholds nothing from anyone – He is fully present. But, He can only give to us the measure of heavenly life we are capable of receiving.

So, what happens then if I don’t feel very heavenly – where does this leave me? I understand that the kingdom of heaven is supposed to be within me – but it sure doesn’t feel like it at times.

Well, despite how things appear it’s important that we understand the first principle that heaven is a state of life – a state of mind. Because if we understand this, then we will begin to focus on our inner world as the place where changes have to occur if heaven is to be in us. We will see that to get into heaven we have to have our minds organised into a heavenly form. A mind in a heavenly form is one that is structured around heavenly affections and truths. This restructuring cannot occur in a moment and so we need to understand how the principles of heaven work for the natural man, for the natural mind.

What is wonderful about the parables of the kingdom is that they are written from our experience of the kingdom of heaven while trying to live a spiritual life in the natural world. We can see this in the one we have read today. It has to be because it’s difficult to see how an enemy could ever find his way into heaven as experienced by a person after the death of the body. But we know that our seeking to be more heavenly minded in our approach to life leads to the experience of having truths implanted in our minds, these truths being the good seed that is planted by a man in his own field. This field is the mind of those who are receptive of spiritual truths through a willingness to live from them, for truths only develop and grow into goodness or a crop as they are applied to life. But as this crop begins to grow, the process involves states of mind in which we are spiritually asleep. In these states of life, an enemy sows what is counterfeit to the true crop in our midst. This enemy is the love of self and the world, which in times of a lack of spiritual awareness shifts our focus onto seeking heaven in our own strength through the allurements of the appearances of the senses the world. The tares or darnel look very much like the wheat until they mature. Then the seeds in the head can be seen for they are black.

The parable teaches us that the false crop is exposed through the growth of the true crop for when what is good and true is known so we have a growing ability to discern what is its opposite, what is evil and false or opposed to the heavenly life. In this, we have the experience of the false and true crops growing side by side. When this becomes apparent, that is when we begin to wake up to spiritual life and it causes a level of distress or anxiety for people so that the mind is thrown into confusion. We need to understand this parable if we are to find our way through such times. The servants are those lower thought faculties of the mind that are obedient to the higher spiritual principles of the Word, here described as the householder. We see in their statements the kinds of questions that arise in the mind when what is opposed to the kingdom of heaven in our life is exposed. The questions are an attempt to understand how it can be – Lord, didn’t you sow good seed, Aren’t you in control, then how can this be, Where has these things come from, Why do I feel this way toward this or that person, Shouldn’t I be more loving, more understanding, Where does this anger come from, Where is this self loathing coming from, Why aren’t I more compassionate, Where is your promise of an abundant life, What’s going on…?

In directing these questions to the householder the servants speak to us of going to the Word to understand ourselves and the Lord’s operation in our life better. The first response is to seek the Lord’s will in how such things are to be dealt with. At first it seems that the right thing to do is to root these things out as quickly as possible but such a course of action can cause more harm than good. In the spiritual life there is a danger of becoming so focussed on our evils and short comings that we lose sight of the overall process, of what the Lord is seeking to achieve in the bigger picture. The servants initial response represents this tendency in us all to be hard on ourselves and we all know that when a person is hard on themselves they become racked with guilt and often experience anxiety and depression. They become self-absorbed and struggle to connect with the Lord and with others and in extreme cases, the potential for good is uprooted with their desire to rid themselves of what they perceive to be their evils.

The parable teaches us that we are in a process, that there are higher principles that govern how we deal with our lower nature. Here we are taught that while we must continually work to examine ourselves, we are going to uncover things that exist within us that are opposed to the kingdom of heaven and that can only be removed when the conditions are right. In dealing with our evils, we need to come into a level of acceptance that despite the appearance, the Lord remains in complete control. That while we must be aware of their existence within us, we must continue to look to the Lord in our resistance of them and that with some things the proper course of action is to “Let them grow together until the time of harvest”, after which all things will be put into order.

So the principles we need to take with us today is that heaven is a state of mind not a place. So it’s tied to how our minds are organised in terms of what we love most. To be in heaven we need to have heaven built up within us. And that as long as we remain in the Word and are looking to do the Lord’s will for our life, He will safely guide us through a process where all things will be set in order in their proper season.

All my experience in heaven bears witness to the fact that the divine nature that comes from the Lord, affects angels, and constitutes heaven, is love. In fact, all the people there are forms of love and thoughtfulness. They look indescribably beautiful. Love radiates from their faces, from their speech, from every detail of their behaviour…The auras that emamate from angels are so full of love that they touch the deepest reaches of life of the people they meet. I have been aware of them a number of times, and they have moved me deeply…Even people who were simple folk in this world have arrived at angelic wisdom and heavenly happiness in the company of angels. This was because they loved what is good and true for the sake of what is good and true. They had grafted these qualities into their lives [while in the world] and had thereby become capable of accepting heaven and all its indescribable riches. People caught up in love for themselves and for the world, however, have no such receptive ability. They turn away from such things, discard them, and at their first touch or inflow try to escape them. They ally themselves with people in hell who are caught up in loves like their own. (Heaven and Hell 17-18)