hells, restructuring the heavens, and then establishing a church. Divine
goodness does not have the power to do these things, but divine truth that
comes from divine goodness does. In and of itself, divine goodness is like
the round butt of a sword, like a blunted piece of wood, or like a bow by
itself. Divine truth that comes from divine goodness is like a sharp sword,
like a sharpened wooden spear, and like a bow with arrows, all three of
which are effective weapons against enemies. In fact, swords, spears, and
bows in the spiritual sense of the Word mean truths for battle (see Revela-
tion Unveiled 52 , 299 , 436 ).
Nothing but divine truth from the Word could attack, conquer, and
bring under control the falsities and evils that the entirety of hell possessed
then and still possesses now. Nothing else could found, build, and organ-
ize a new heaven—another thing God did at the time. Nothing else could
establish a new church on earth. Besides, all God’s strength, force, and
power belong to the divine truth that comes from divine goodness. This
was why Jehovah God came down as divine truth, which is the Word.
This is why it says in David, “Gird your sword upon your thigh, O
Mighty One,and in your honor arise, ride on the word of truth.Your right
hand will teach you amazing things. Your arrows are sharp. Your enemies
will fall beneath you” (Psalms 45 : 3 – 5 ). These statements concern the Lord,
his battles with the hells, and his conquests of them.
Human beings provide an obvious example of the nature of goodness 87
without truth as opposed to the nature of truth that is connected with
goodness. All our goodness resides in our will; all our truth resides in our
intellect. For all its goodness, our will cannot accomplish anything what-
ever without our intellect. It cannot function; it cannot talk; it cannot
sense. All its force and power comes through our intellect, that is, through
our truth, since the intellect is truth’s vessel and its dwelling place.
The situation with our will and our intellect is similar to the func-
tioning of the heart and the lungs in our bodies. When the lungs are not
breathing, the heart is incapable of producing any bodily movement or
sensation. What produces movement and sensation is the breathing of
the lungs in connection with the heart. A proof of this is the loss of con-
sciousness experienced by people who suffocate or fall in the water, when
their breathing stops but the systolic activity of their heart continues. As
we know, they lose sensation and the ability to move. Their condition is
similar to embryos in mothers’ wombs. The reason for it is that the heart
corresponds to the will and its goodness, while the lungs correspond to
the intellect and its truths.
§87 the lord the redeemer & redemption 123