“Call no man your father on earth; for one is your Father who is in the heavens” (xxiii. 9).

That “Father” signifies the Lord in relation to Divine good may be seen in the Apocalypse Explained (n. 32, 200, 254, 297).  That “mother” signifies the Lord’s kingdom, the church, and Divine truth, may be seen in the Arcana Coelestia (n. 289, 2691, 2717, 3703, 5581, 8897); that “length of days” signifies the happiness of eternal life (n. 8898); and the “honor” signifies good of love (n. 8897), and Apocalypse Explained (n. 228, 345).  All this makes clear that the third and fourth commandments involve arcana relating to the Lord, namely, acknowledgment and confession of His Divine, and worship of Him from good of love.  (A.E., n. 966.)

V. The Fifth Commandment

The fifth commandment is, “Thou shalt not steal.”  By “thefts” both open thefts and those not open are meant, such as unlawful usury and gains, which are effected by fraud and craft under various pretenses to make them appear lawful, or so done clandestinely as not to appear at all.  Such gains are commonly made by higher and lower managers of the goods of others, by merchants, also by judges who sell judgments and thus make justice purchasable.  These and many other things are thefts that must be abstained from and shunned, and finally renounced as sins against God, because they are against the Divine laws that are in the Word and against this law, which is one among the fundamental laws of all religions in the whole globe.  For these ten commandments are universals, given to the end that in living from these a man may live from religion, since by a life from religion man is conjoined with heaven, while a life according to these from obedience to civil and moral law conjoins man with the world and not with heaven, and to be conjoined with the world and not with heaven is to conjoined with hell.  (A.E., n. 967.)

Man is so created as to be an image of heaven and an image of the world, for he is a microcosm.  He is born of his parents an image of the world, and he is born again to be an image of heaven.  To be born again is to be regenerated; and man is regenerated by the Lord by means of truths from the Word and a life according to them.  Man is an image of the world in respect to his natural mind, and he is an image of heaven in respect to his spiritual mind.  The natural mind, which is the world, is beneath; and the spiritual mind, which is heaven, is above.  The natural mind is full of all kinds of evil, such as thefts, adulteries, murders, false witnesses, covetousnesses, and even blasphemies and profanations respecting God.  These evils and many others have their seat in that mind, for the loves of them are there, and thus the delights of thinking, willing, and doing them.