The nuts and bolts of predicate substitution in the Word

On Monday, during the teaching on root, branch, fruit, and the supply chain of love, mention was made of something called predicate substitution. This is a useful matter to know about because it involves the nuts and bolts of the Word and how God wrote it. So we will first look at the verse which occasioned the mention of predicate substitution in the first place: 

"But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel; for they are at hand to come" (Ezekiel 36:8). 

As you can see, God might have mentioned root, branch, and fruit here; but instead mentioned mountains, root, and fruit. This is because all of these words are correspondences, which are symbols greater than symbols hardwired into the structure of reality. If God wishes to substitute one correspondence pertaining to the heart with another so pertaining, then this He will do. Therefore, since mountain and root both mean love -- being predicates of the heart or platter -- it is possible to substitute mountain for root in this passage. 

Let us look at a couple of verses involving beasts and birds to see a clear example of this pattern; which, like all patterns mentioned here, I hope you will look for while you are studying the Word:

The first verse is from Hosea:

"And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely" (Hosea 2:18).

This is a standard mention of the Heavenly conjunction of divine love in the heart and divine truth in the mind so that the victorious believer -- whose victory is Christ's -- may genuinely love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul and mind.

Beasts involve desires, feelings, and deeds which flow from these, good or evil; here good. And birds involve thoughts, ideas, and information which support those beasts, with good beasts supported by true birds and evil beasts supported by false birds. 

The second verse is from Job, and it is one of my favorites because of its beauty: 

"For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee" (Job 5:23).

Again, we have an expression of the Heavenly conjunction of divine love and divine truth in the believer's face, their interior with which they thus see God face to face; the double portion of manna on the 7th day after six days of baking and boiling the manna, spiritual combat or temptation.

In this case, God chose to use beasts to express love in the heart and not birds but stones to express truth in the mind; that is because, just as with the verse where He substituted mountain for root, it is possible to substitute one predicate of the mind or truth in the mind for another. In this case, He substitutes stone for bird; and while there are nuances which cause these different pairings to have their own meanings, the basic meaning is essentially the same.

While one will not go into great detail about this, another set of examples which we often encounter in the Word is: bread and wine, bread and water, and oil and wine. In each of these cases, it may be that there are individual nuances which justify using one over another. However, the basic meaning is still recognizably the same. That is because bread and oil both express the good of love; while water and wine both express divine truth.

Suppose, then, that God were to say something like the following:

Manasseh will be full of fat and Ephraim be merry from new wine.

This example, which is purely invented on the spur of the moment for instructional purposes, would mean that the will of the Church is full of love and that the understanding of the Church is full of divine truth.

Again, if God wishes to say that a Church has gone rotten He may write the passage so that root, branch, and fruit burn up; but He might also say something like:

The house shall burn and John and James and Peter they shall perish in their flames.

This is again purely invented, but it would express a similar meaning of a Church having lost its way such that it no longer enjoys a covenantal relationship with the Lord and thus a conjunction of His love and His truth in their faces. 

This is more of an advanced lesson for people who have been paying attention to correspondences, so one hopes that this applies to a fair number of you. As always, look diligently for these patterns and the ways in which the correspondences are used when upright and reversed; for the book sealed with seven seals has been opened by the Lamb who is worthy. Godspeed.

Appendix:

"Something will now be said about the knowledge of correspondences and its use. It was said above that the spiritual world, which is heaven, is conjoined to the natural world by means of correspondences. Therefore, by means of correspondences, communication with heaven is granted to man. For the angels of heaven do not think from natural things, as man does. Consequently, when man is in the knowledge of correspondences, he is able, in regard to the thoughts of his mind, to be together with the angels, and thus, as to his spiritual or internal man, to be conjoined with them. In order that there may be conjunction of heaven with man, the Word has been written by means of pure correspondences, for all things in it in general and particular are correspondences.# If man, therefore, were in the knowledge of correspondences, he would understand the Word as to its spiritual sense and would thereby be enabled to know arcana of which he sees nothing in the sense of the letter. For in the Word there is a literal sense and these is a spiritual sense. The literal sense consists of such things as are in the world, but the spiritual sense of such things as are in heaven, and since the conjunction of heaven with the world is by means of correspondences, therefore such a Word was given in which the details down to the least jot (iota) are in correspondence" (Heaven and Hell 114).