“Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not forswear thyself; but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths. But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by the heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, for thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your speech be, Yea, yea; nay, nay; whatsoever is more than these is from evil” (Matt. 5:33-37).
These kind of verses are very difficult to understand, but when we look at them through Swedenborg’s correspondential writing on the internal meaning much comes to light. The reason why it was allowable for the Jewish nation to swear by Jehovah, was that they were at one and the same time the representative people, and, they had become extremely external men. The ‘representative people’ means that the Jewish people and their religion were used for correspondences with heaven and the Lord’s kingdom. This is what is meant by being ‘chosen’; it does not mean they were above others at all but it was a very special situation for the Lord’s purpose. This is a huge subject, but let us say there must always be a church on earth that is the heart of how the Lord is received, or humanity will fal in abysmal darkness. The Jewish nation served this purpose for centuries but as the Bible shows rebelled and declined, and rejected prophet after prophet and became completely external. This was not waht the Lord wanted but had to make do as they became completely external without charity in the church. He had to make a very unique arrangement to use them as the representative people even though internally they rejected God, and used religion for power, which is utterly backwards. So he had to accomadate to all this
while they were in Divine worship, they were in the external apart from the internal. When the confirmation of truth descends into the external man separated from the internal, it is effected by an oath. It is otherwise when it descends into the external through the internal; for in the internal man truth appears in its own light, but in the external apart from the internal man, truth appears in darkness. From this it is that the celestial angels, who are in the inmost or third heaven, being in the highest light, do not even confirm truths by reasons, still less do they debate or reason about them, but merely say Yea, or Nay. This is because they perceive and see truths from the Lord.
[3] Therefore the Lord said concerning oaths:
These words involve that truths Divine are to be confirmed from the Lord, and not from man, which is effected when men are internal, and not external; for external men confirm truths by oaths, but internal men by reasons. They who are still more internal do not confirm them; but only say that it is so, or that it is not so. External men are they who are called natural men; internal men are they who are called spiritual men; and still more internal men are they who are called celestial men. From all this it is evident what is involved in the Lord’s saying, “Swear not at all,” and “Let your speech be, Yea, yea; nay, nay.”
From what is shown here about the nature of external men and internal men we can see that evangelicals and fundamentalist who insist that we are not supposed to use our own reason – they are simply telling us that they are external religious people. They want everyone to take what the Words says literally. But the mistake they make and that gives religion a bad name is that they say it in such a way that it applies to everyone. This kind of imposing is a wrong done to others for it tries to intimidate others into being in their image, and not that there is an internal sense and there are many who are capable of seeing it.
The left does a similar sin but for other reasons. What they do that is similar in that they perniciously seek to impose what they are on everyone, and this is wrong. The left does if from a rejection of the God, the divine and the Word. This is much worse for the literal sense is the foundation of the internal sense and the two always come together and function in union. The left uses a phony idea of the internal which is false compassion.
The left is more pernicsious because in the right there is still contained a respect for the authority of the Word, but the left rejects this.
The philosophy of he left, which is the roots of the liberal movement and everything ‘woke’ that we now see, started at least in modern times with liberation theology. Liberation theology was started by Catholic nuns in south America who were on a mission to help the poor and oppressed. They used the Bible to claim that ‘God favors the poor’, and found that this gave them profound political leverage. Any leader or group that uses the Bible for personal political power is in line with the Babylon. They create a political and philosophical ‘tower of power’ for all the wrong reasons. They do not want to enlighten and empower the people; they want to control and rule over the people from a lust for power.
That God favors the poor is falsity. The left uses it as an half truth of apparent truth to persuade the minds of the people, but in truth it leads to a chain of falsities. God does not favor the poor. God favors no one and God favors all. One can see that this is the root of ‘black lives matter’. Anyone with common sense can see that all lives matter, but this idea was used to create political favor which quickly becomes political corruption.
That God favors no one is said in the Bible as “I am not a respecter of persons’. God sees the inner will, the love from which people act, and judges accordingly, not just according to what they say or appear as. In order for its persuasions to work the left has to constantly try to separate compassion and reason, or love and wisdom. For these two in union is the constant striving of God in man, compassion and intelligence in union bring a person into their wholeness. To the degree there is harmony between a person become more genuinely themself and willing to submit to God from who all good comes. This is said every in the Bible if one knows how to look, but no more socinctley than, ‘Be harmless as a dove and wise as a serpant’.
In order to rob the people of this connection to God and wisdom the left puts all its marbles on compassion. To say God favors the poor or oppressed is to make compassion everything and to snuff reason.
But it shall be explained why He also said that they should not swear by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by Jerusalem, nor by the head, and that any speech more than yea, yea, and nay, nay, is from evil.
[4] “To swear by heaven” denotes by the Divine truth, and thus by the Lord in heaven; for heaven is not heaven from the angels regarded in themselves, but from the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord, and thus from the Lord in them; for it is the Divine in them that causes them to be, and to be called, angels of heaven. From this it is that they who are in heaven are said to be “in the Lord;” also that the Lord is everything in each and all things of heaven; and likewise that the angels are truths Divine, because they are recipients of truth Divine from the Lord. (That heaven is, and is called, heaven, from the Divine of the Lord therein, see n. 552, 3038, 3700; also that the angels are truths Divine, n. 4295, 4402, 7268, 7873, 8301; and that something of the Lord is meant in the Word by an “angel,” n. 1925, 2821, 3039, 4085, 4295, 6280.) Because heaven is the Lord as to Divine truth, it is said, “thou shalt not swear by heaven, for it is God’s throne,” for “God’s throne” denotes the Divine truth which proceeds from the Lord (see n. 5313, 6397, 9039).
[5] But “to swear by the earth” denotes by the church, and thus by the Divine truth therein; for as heaven is the Lord by virtue of the Divine truth which proceeds from Him, so also is the church, because the church is the Lord’s heaven, or His kingdom, on earth (“earth” in the Word being the church, n. 662, 1066, 1262, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118, 2928, 3355, 4535, 4447, 5577, 8011, 8732). And as “the earth” denotes the church, wherein is the Divine of the Lord beneath heaven, it is therefore said, “thou shalt not swear by the earth, for it is God’s footstool.” “The footstool” denotes truth Divine under heaven, such as is the Word in the literal sense, for upon this sense rests, and as it were stands, the truth Divine in heaven, which is the Word in the internal sense. This truth is signified by “footstool” in David (Ps. 99:5; 132:7); in Isaiah (60:13); and in the Lamentations of Jeremiah (2:1).
[6] “To swear by Jerusalem” denotes by the doctrine of truth from the Word, for “Jerusalem” in a wide sense denotes the church (n. 2117, 3654). But when mention is made of “the earth,” which denotes the church, and afterward of “Jerusalem,” then by “Jerusalem” is signified the doctrine of the church, consequently the doctrine of truth Divine from the Word. Hence it is that it is called “the city of the great King,” for by “a city” in the Word in its internal sense is signified the doctrine of truth (see n. 402, 2449, 2943, 3216, 4478, 4492, 4493).
[7] “To swear by one’s own head” denotes by the truth which the man himself believes to be truth, and which he makes of his faith, for this makes the head with the man, and is also signified by the “head” in Isa. 15:2; 29:10; Ezek. 7:18; 13:18; 16:12; 29:18; Matt. 6:17; and elsewhere. Wherefore it is also said, “for thou canst not make one hair white or black,” for “hair” denotes the truth of the external or natural man (n. 3301), such as those have who are in the faith of truth, not because they perceive it to be truth, but because the doctrine of the church so teaches. And because they do not know it from any other source, it is said that they “shall not swear by it, because they cannot make one hair white or black.” “To make a hair white” denotes to declare from one’s self that truth is truth; and “to make a hair black” denotes to declare from one’s self that falsity is falsity; for “white” is predicated of truth (n. 3301, 3993, 4007, 5319), and consequently “black” is predicated of falsity.
[8] From all this it is now evident what is meant by “not swearing at all, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by Jerusalem, nor by one’s own head,” namely, that truth Divine is not to be confirmed from man, but from the Lord in man. On this account it is lastly said, “let your speech be, Yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these is from evil.” For they who perceive and see truth from the Lord, do not otherwise confirm it; as is the case with the angels of the inmost or third heaven, who are called celestial angels, and are spoken of above. The reason why speech more than this is from evil, is that what is more than this is not from the Lord, but from man’s own, thus from evil, for man’s own is nothing but evil (n. 210, 215, 874-876, 987, 1023, 1044, 1047, 3812, 4328, 5660, 8941, 8944). From all this it is again evident in what manner the Lord spoke, namely, so that in each and all things there is an internal sense; because He spoke from the Divine, and thus for the angels at the same time as for men, for the angels perceive the Word according to its internal sense.
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