Apocalypse Revealed (Whitehead) n. 481

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481. And he said unto me, Take it and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey, signifies that reception from acknowledgment that the Lord is the Saviour and Redeemer, is agreeable and pleasant, but that the acknowledgment that He alone is the God of heaven and earth, and that His Human is Divine, is disagreeable and difficult to receive by reason of falsifications. By "taking the little book," is signified to receive the doctrine concerning the Lord; by "eating it up," is signified to acknowledge it; by "making the belly bitter," is signified that it will be disagreeable and difficult from falsifications, for "bitter" signifies truth falsified (n. 411); by "being in the mouth sweet as honey," is signified that the beginning of its reception is agreeable and pleasant. These things that are now applied to that doctrine, which is meant by "the little book open in the hand of the angel" (n. 469, 472), signify that reception from acknowledgment that the Lord is the Saviour and Redeemer, is agreeable and pleasant; but that the acknowledgment that He alone is the God of heaven and earth, and that His Human is Divine, is disagreeable and difficult from falsifications. The falsifications, by which that doctrine is perceived as disagreeable and difficult are especially that the Lord is not acknowledged to be one with the Father, although He Himself so taught; they have not acknowledged the Lord's Human to be Divine, which, nevertheless, is the Son of God (Luke 1:35); and thus it may be said, that they have made God three, and the Lord two; besides the falsities continued from them: from these falsities flows faith alone, and faith alone afterwards confirms those falsities. That from these falsities, so great a bitterness and internal repugnance exists, that they cannot, after death, even name the Divine Human from acknowledgment in thought, may be seen above (n. 294).


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