940. Just and true are Thy ways, signifies that all the truths of heaven and the church are from Him. This is evident from the signification of "ways," as being truths (see n. 97); so in reference to the Lord they signify all the truths of heaven and the church. It is said that the ways are "just and true," because truths that are the Lord's and are from the Lord are from good, and thus are good; for "just," in the Word, is predicated of good. "Ways" signify truths because truths like ways lead man; therefore "ways" signify truths leading. This signification of "ways" is derived from the spiritual world, where all walk in ways according to their truths. Ways in that world are not prepared and directed from one place to another, as the ways in our world are; but they are opened to each one according to his truths, and these ways are such that he alone, and no one who is in other truths can see them. These ways lead them to the places whither they are to go, as towards the societies with which they are to be conjoined, or from which they are to be separated, and finally to the society where they are to remain.
(Continuation)
[2] When man's interior is purified from evils by his refraining from them and shunning them because they are sins, the internal which is above it, and which is called the spiritual internal, is opened. This communicates with heaven; consequently man is then admitted into heaven and is conjoined to the Lord. There are two internals with man, one beneath and the other above. While man lives in the world he is in the internal which is beneath and from which he thinks, for it is natural. This may be called for the sake of distinction the interior. But the internal that is above is that into which man comes after death when he enters heaven. All angels of heaven are in this internal, for it is spiritual. This internal is opened to the man who shuns evils as sins; but it is kept closed to the man who does not shun evils as sins. [3] This internal is kept closed to the man who does not shun evils as sins, because the interior, that is, the natural internal, until man has been purified from sins, is a hell; and so long as there is a hell there heaven cannot be opened; but as soon as hell has been removed it is opened. But let it be known that in the measure in which the spiritual internal and heaven are opened to man, the natural internal is purified from the hell that is there. This is not done at once, but successively by degrees. All this makes clear that man from himself is hell, and that man is made a heaven by the Lord, consequently that he is snatched out of hell by the Lord, and raised up into heaven to the Lord, not immediately, but mediately. The means are the commandments just mentioned, by which the Lord leads him who wishes to be led.
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