A company might have executives setting policy and strategy, engineers designing products, line workers building them, managers handling personnel and others handling various functions. They all do different things – but if they’re doing them with a shared underlying purpose, the company – and the individuals in it – will likely be successful.
Swedenborg says the Lord wants all human society to function in a similar way. We have different skills and individual passions, but if we all share one basic love – a love of serving others – then society will function as one, will be a reflection of heaven and will be a good receptacle for the Lord’s love. This can also happen within each of us, as we unify our talents and ideas around a central love. And in an abstract sense, it illustrates how a wide collection of varying ideas can be unified around one good intention.
That is the kind of love pictured, according to Swedenborg, when “one” is used in the Bible, either as a specific number or in the sense of several people or objects “being one.”
In more casual references – when used to identify a specific person or object – the meaning is relatively literal, and is connected to that person or object.
Passages from Swedenborg
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 1013
[3] Love to the Lord makes man one with the Lord, that is, makes a likeness; charity or love towards the neighbour also makes him one with Him, but makes an image. An image is not a likeness but that which approaches a likeness. This oneness that arises from love the Lord Himself describes in John,
I pray that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me. John 17:21-23.
This oneness is that mystical union which some people have in mind, a union which is achieved through love alone. In the same gospel,
Because I live you will live also; in that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and does them, he it is who loves Me. If a man loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. John 14:19-21, 27.
From these quotations it is clear that love is what joins together and that the Lord has His home with the person who loves Him and also with him who loves the neighbour, for to love the neighbour is to love the Lord.
[4] This union which makes a likeness and an image cannot be seen very easily in the human race; but it can be seen in heaven where all angels are so to speak one by virtue of their mutual love. Each community, which consists of very many angels, constitutes as it were one person. And all the communities together, that is, the whole of heaven, constitute one human being, also called the Grand Man, see 457 and 550.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 1285
- That ‘the whole earth was one lip’ means that people everywhere held to the same doctrine in its general aspects is clear from the meaning in the Word of ‘a lip’, dealt with in the next paragraph. This verse, in these few words, describes the state of the Ancient Church as it had been, that is to say, it held to the same general doctrine. The next verse however describes how it began to be falsified and adulterated, and after that down to verse 9 how it became so utterly perverted that no internal worship existed any longer. Immediately after that the subject is the second Ancient Church begun by Eber, and at last the third Church which was the start of the Jewish Church. For after the Flood there were three consecutive Churches.
[2] In regard to what has been said of the first Ancient Church – that though so wide-spread throughout the world, its lip was nevertheless one and its words one, that is, it shared one doctrine in its general aspects and in its particular details; but for all that, the forms of worship, internal as well as external, were everywhere divergent, as shown in the previous chapter where each nation that is mentioned meant a divergent form of doctrine and of ritual – the situation is as follows: Heaven consists of countless communities. They all vary, and yet all are one, for all are led as one by the Lord; see what has appeared already in 457, 551, 684, 685, 690. A parallel exists in man, in that although internally his body has so many parts, which, like his other organs and limbs, have so many inner parts, each functioning differently from any other, yet all of them, every single one, are nevertheless controlled as one by one soul. A parallel also exists with the human body, which has different ways of exerting its strength and of moving. Nevertheless all are controlled by one motion of the heart and one of the lungs, and together make one. The reason they are able to function as one in this way is that in heaven there is one single influx which is received by everyone according to his own disposition. This influx is an influx of affections from the Lord, from His mercy and life. And although there is one influx only, everything nevertheless conforms and follows as one. And this comes about through the mutual love shared by those in heaven.
[3] Such was the situation with the first Ancient Church that although there were so many forms of internal and external worship, at the general level as many as there were nations, at the specific level as many as there were families making up nations, and at the particular level as many as there were people in the Church, they all nevertheless had ‘one lip’ and ‘their words were one’; that is, they all shared one doctrine in general and in particular. Doctrine is one when all possess mutual love, or charity. Mutual love or charity causes things, though varied, to be one, for it makes one out of varied things. If all, no matter how many – even ten thousand times ten thousand – are governed by charity or mutual love, they have but one end in view, namely the common good, the Lord’s kingdom, and the Lord Himself. Variations in matters of doctrine and in forms of worship are like the variations that exist with the physical senses and with the inner parts of man’s body, which, as stated, all contribute to the perfection of the whole. Indeed the Lord flows in and works by way of charity though in different ways according to the disposition of each individual. And in so doing He arranges every single person into a proper order, on earth as in heaven. In this way the Lord’s will is done, as He Himself teaches, ‘on earth as it is in heaven’.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 8003
- ‘It shall be eaten in one house’ means compatible forms of good grouped together to compose a single body of good. This is clear from the considerations that the Passover supper represented groups of angels living in association with one another in heaven, and that each household of the children of Israel represented an individual community, see 7836, 7891, 7996, 7997. Angelic communities are all distinct from one another, separated according to varieties of good at general, specific, and individual levels, 3241, 4625. Those governed by a like good live in association with one another. The reason why they compose a single body of good is that every complete whole is a product not of one but of a number of constituent parts. For a number of parts that are varying but nevertheless compatible produce a form which constitutes a single whole because of the harmony among the parts. That harmony in heaven is a spiritual harmony, which forms of the good of love possess, see 3241, 3167, 3744-3746, 3986, 4005, 4149, 5598, 7236, 7837, 7836. From these considerations it is evident that ‘it shall be eaten in one house’ means associations of forms of good so suited to one another that together they compose a single body of good. As regards ‘eating’ – eating the Passover – that it means being integrated among or being together with them, see above in 8001.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 9037
- ‘However, if he stands for a day or two’ means a state of life remaining until it is full. This is clear from the meaning of ‘a day’ as a state of life, dealt with in 893, 2788, 3785, 4850; and from the meaning of ‘two days’ as a succeeding state, 1335, thus a complete state, that is to say, of contemplation. For when one day is mentioned in the Word, or one week, one month, or one year, a whole period of time or a state is meant, 2906. And when ‘or two’ is added it means remaining until it is full.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 9613
- ‘And the dwelling-place shall be one’ means that the whole heaven is as a result altogether one. This is clear from the meaning of ‘the dwelling-place’ as heaven, dealt with in 9594. The fact that it is one when it is so completely joined together is self-evident. For heaven consists of tens of thousands of angelic communities, and yet the Lord leads them as one total angel or man. This is so because mutual love springing from the Lord’s love exists among them all, and when that love exists among them all and within them all they can all be arranged into the heavenly form, the nature of which is such that many are one, and the more numerous they are, the stronger is their oneness. They are like the countless parts of the human body; although these are distinct and various they nevertheless make one. The reason why they do so is that they exist within a form similar to that in which heaven exists; for they correspond to heaven, as has been shown at the ends of a number of chapters, and by virtue of that correspondence they possess a kind of mutual love and are joined together by it. So it is that a person who is governed by the good of love and faith is heaven in its smallest form, 9279, and that the whole of heaven is seen in the Lord’s eyes as one total human being, 9276 (end).
[2] All the joining together of so many countless angelic communities in heaven and the modes by which they are joined were represented by the pattern according to which the dwelling-place and the tent, the subject in the present chapter, were assembled. But the modes by which things are joined together, as those modes exist in heaven, cannot pass from there into the ideas people in the world have, because they are not even aware of the fact that heaven was represented by ‘the dwelling-place’. Or if they were aware of it they would still be unaware that heavenly communities have been so joined together by means of love that they present themselves as one. Yet all such considerations enter fully into angels’ ideas when those details regarding the dwelling-place are read; for each specific detail in the description has an inner meaning, which, when manifested by the Lord to angels, presents to them the state in which all in the whole of heaven are joined to and interconnected with one another by means of love which comes from the Lord.
[3] The combination of the angelic communities into one heaven takes place in accord with the following laws,
1 Every complete whole in heaven arises from the pattern of many sharing their lives with one another in accord with the harmony of heaven.
2 Love is spiritual togetherness, which leads to the harmony of heaven.
3 There must be a universal bond, in order that the individual constituents may be held in combination and interconnection.
4 The universal bond must enter into and create the individual bonds.
5 The universal bond is the Lord, that is, it is the love that comes from Him, and from this the love directed towards Him.
6 The individual bonds are derived from the universal; they are the bonds of mutual love or charity towards the neighbour.
These are the laws by virtue of which heaven, consisting of countless angelic communities, nevertheless exists as one total human being.
Apocalypse Revealed (Rogers) n. 916
- 21:21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls: each gate was of one pearl. This symbolically means that an acknowledgment and concept of the Lord join all the concepts of truth and goodness in the Word into one and introduce into the church.
The twelve gates symbolize in sum the concepts of truth and goodness by which a person is introduced into the church (nos. 899, 900). Twelve pearls also symbolize in sum concepts of truth and goodness (no. 727). That is why the gates were pearls. Each gate was of one pearl because all the concepts of truth and goodness symbolized by the gates and by pearls relate to a single concept, one that is their containing vessel, and that single concept is a concept of the Lord. We say, a single concept, even though there are many that make up that single concept, for a concept of the Lord pervades all other doctrinal concepts, and so all concerns having to do with the church. All matters of worship take their life and soul from that concept, for the Lord is everything in the whole of heaven and the church, and so in the whole of worship.
[2] An acknowledgment and concept of the Lord join all the concepts of truth and goodness in the Word into one because all spiritual truths are connected, and if you would believe it, their connection is like the connection between all the members, viscera and organs of the human body. Consequently, as the soul holds everything together in their organization and connection, so that they are sensed only as a unit, so the Lord holds together all the spiritual truths that a person possesses.
That the Lord is the true door by which one is to enter into the church and so into heaven, He Himself teaches in John:
I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved…. (John 10:9)
And that an acknowledgement and concept of Him is the true pearl is meant by these words of the Lord in Matthew:
…the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one precious pearl, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:45, 46)
The one precious pearl is an acknowledgment and concept of the Lord.
Apocalypse Explained (Tansley) n. 374
[2] The reason why it is said a measure of wheat and three measures of barley, is, because the number one is said of good, and three of truths. And by one, when it is said of good, is signified what is perfect, thus also what is genuine; and by three, when said of truths, is signified what is full, thus also what is genuine; hence it is that a measure of wheat, and three measures of barley, signify the genuine good and the genuine truth of the church.