THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

Swedenborg's chapter on the Ten. Commandments sheds new light on the divine laws of human life. First of al he directs our attention to the universal character of these laws. “There is not,” he says, “a nation in the whole world which does not know that it is wicked to murder, to commit adultery, to steal and to bear false witness, and that kingdoms, republics, and every form of organized society, unless these evils were guarded against by the laws,, would be at an end” These laws are the fundamental basis of civilized life.

They have always been so. Civilizations existed long before the days of Moses. At least in part, if not in their entirety, the Ten Commandments were known and obeyed. Thus we may wonder why laws so universally known should have been given anew to Moses on Mount Sinai. Swedenborg's explanation is as follows: “They were promulgated in so miraculous a way to make known that these laws are not only civil and moral laws, but are also Divine laws...

Acting contrary to them is not only doing evil to the neighbor, but is also sinning against God.” Therefore these laws uttered by Jehovah on were also made the laws of religion. They were to be recognized not only as the laws of the land but as the laws of salvation for the human soul. Because obedience to these ten precepts is the means of union between God and man, and because they contain a brief summary of all things of religion, they are holy. Swedenborg believed and taught that Jehovah himself, accompanied by angels, manifested himself on Mt. Sinai, spoke with a living voice, and actually wrote the Ten Commandments on the two tables of stone.

Hence the holiness ascribed to them. Briefly he describes for us the history of the tables: how they were deposited in the Ark of the Covenant and placed in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle. He speaks of the miracles wrought by the presence of the Ark, all due to the holiness that resided- in those tables of stone on which were written the Ten Commandments.

One of the most impressive of Swedenborg's statements is that these Ten Commandments have a heavenly as well as earthly aspect. They have an internal meaning. They are applicable not only to people on earth but to all those who inhabit the spiritual realms of life. And we, who for the present time are tabernacled in the flesh, may get some limited understanding of the inner meaning of the Decalogue. Let us see if we can follow Swedenborg in his exposition of the inner meaning of the Commandments. The natural meaning of the first of these ten Words is plain for all to see. “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.”

By these words all idolatrous worship is forbidden. There must be no idols, no personifications of nature or her attributes, no per-son dead or living that shall be worshiped. “In the natural sense this commandment means also that no one except God, and nothing but what proceeds from God, is to be loved above all things. For any person or thing that is loved above all things is God and is Divine to the one who so loves.” To break this commandment it is not necessary that we set up an idol, or bow before the sun, moon or stars.

As soon as we elevate anything to the highest place in the mind, and bestow upon it our deepest affection, we have made for ourselves a new god. This does not mean that we are to put any limitation on our natural affections. What it means is that the Lord must have first place in the heart, and obedience to him must be preferred before any of our affections. It shuts out the worship of all things or persons other than God. 'The spiritual sense of this commandment is, that no other God than the Lord Jesus Christ is to be worshiped, because he is Jehovah, who came into the world and wrought the redemption without which neither any man or any angel could have been saved.''

Swedenborg then quotes a long list of passages from the Divine Word to prove that the Lord God Jehovah is the only true God and the only Savior of mankind; from these passages, he says, “it is very evident that the Lord our Savior is Jehovah himself, who is at once Creator, Redeemer; and Regenerator. This is the spiritual sense of this commandment.” There is still a deeper meaning involved in this commandment. The celestial sense is... “that Jehovah the Lord is infinite, illimitable and eternal; that he is Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent; that he is the First and the last, the Beginning and End, who was, is and is to be.''

The inner meanings which are concealed within the letter are read and understood by the angels of heaven. We come now to the second commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” You will notice that Swedenborg uses the Old Lutheran way of numbering the Ten Commandments. “Taking the name of God in vain,” says our author, means the name itself, and its abuse in various kinds of conversation, especially in false speaking or lying, and in useless oaths, or in cursing.

But to swear by God and his holiness, by the Word or the Gospel, at coronations, inaugurations into the priesthood and inductions into offices of trust, is not to take the name of God in vain, No one has any difficulty in deciding when the use of the name of God is permissible and when it is mere blasphemy. Not only is the divine name of names used in the Old Testament holy, but also that used in the New. So Swedenborg says, “That the name of Jesus is in like manner holy is known from the saying of the Apostle that at this name every knee is bowed or should be bowed in heaven and on earth, and furthermore from this, that no devil in hell can utter that name.

There are many names of God that must not be taken in vain, as Jehovah, Jehovah God, and Jehovah of Hosts, the Holy One of Israel, Jesus and Christ, and the Holy Spirit.” It is perhaps fortunate for Swedenborg's peace of mind that he died in ignorance of the widespread profanity that would be indulged in by the people of the United States of America. “In the spiritual sense, the name of God means everything which the Church teaches from the Word, and by which the Lord is invoked and worshiped.

All such things in the complex are the name of God. lb take the name of God in vain means therefore to introduce any of these things into frivolous conversation, into false speaking, lying, or cursing; for this, too, is reviling and blaspheming God thus his name.” In the celestial or inmost meaning of this commandment, taking the name of God in vain means blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Swedenborg tells us that the name of everyone signifies one's personal quality. In the spiritual world, he says, no one retains the name received in baptism or that of the father or ancestry; but every one is there named on the basis of character, and angels are named according to their moral and spiritual life.

Thus the name of God is expressive of all divine qualities. The person who flouts and sneers at the Divine is breaking the second commandment. The third commandment “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy” takes on a new meaning for us when explained by Swedenborg. To the Israelites it meant a cessation of almost all bodily activity. Listen to what Swedenborg says of it, “With the children of Israel the Sabbath, because it represented the Lord, was the sanctity of sanctities, the six days representing his labors and conflicts with the hells, and the seventh his victory over them, and consequent rest; and as that day was a representative of the close of the whole of the Lord's work of redemption, it was holiness itself.”

Swedenborg tells us further that when the Lord came into the world representation ceased, and that the Sabbath became a day of instruction in divine things, also a day of rest from labors, a day of meditation, and also a day of love towards the neighbor. Swedenborg is not an advocate of a rigid formalism in Sabbath Day observance. He sees the Sabbath as a day for worship, for instruction and meditation, and a day for the exercise of love toward the neighbor. Were he living today he would have no sympathy with the godless day of pleasure and idleness into which many people turn the Sabbath.

Neither would he be the advocate of a Puritanical custom that robbed the Sabbath of all joy and forbade all neighborly relationships. “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. In the spiritual sense this commandment represents our reformation and regeneration by the Lord. The six days of labor denote our warfare against inherited tendencies to evil; the seventh day means victory and union with the Lord. In the highest, or celestial sense, the Sabbath means a state of peace that comes from perfect harmony with the Divine Will.

One short chapter will not afford space for following Swedenborg through all ten of the commandments. Many expositors have written on this subject, but no one has ever given such a comprehensive and lucid explanation of their significance and meaning. This is due to the fact that no one but Swedenborg has been able to grasp the fact that the Ten Commandments are the rules of life in heaven as well as upon earth.

For people on earth these commandments are prohibitions from evil. For angels in heaven they are affirmations to good. But even where they are prohibitions against evil for us here on earth, the commandments have an affirmative aspect. For when a person “shuns evils as sins, so far does he will the goods that pertain to love and charity.” Those who honestly and devoutly deep the Ten Commandments are treading the pathway to heaven, for, to quote Swedenborg once again, “The Ten Commandments of the Decalogue contain all things that belong to love to God, and all things that belong to love toward the neighbor.”

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