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Genesis 2

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1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

   

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Genesis 9:6

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6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

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Conjugial Love #339

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339. 6. If a Christian takes more than one wife, he commits not only natural adultery but spiritual adultery as well. The point that a Christian who takes more than one wife commits natural adultery, is according to the Lord's words, namely, that it is not lawful for a man to divorce his wife, because they were created from the beginning to be one flesh, and that whoever divorces his wife without just cause and marries another, commits adultery (Matthew 19:3-11). Still more, then, is this true of one who does not divorce his wife but keeps her and marries another in addition.

The law thus given by the Lord with respect to marriages takes its deeper rationale from spiritual marriage; for whatever the Lord enunciated was in essence spiritual. This is what is meant by His saying:

The words that I speak to you are spirit and are life. (John 6:63)

The spiritual content in the present instance is that polygamous marriage in the Christian world profanes the marriage of the Lord and the church, likewise the marriage between goodness and truth, and moreover the Word, and together with the Word, the church. And profanation of these is spiritual adultery. (To see that profanation of the goodness and truth of the church by abuse of the Word has a correspondence with adultery and so is spiritual adultery, and that falsification of goodness and truth is connected similarly, though in a lesser degree, consult what we demonstrated in The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 134.)

[2] Polygamous marriages in the case of Christians would profane the marriage of the Lord and the church, because there is a correspondence between that Divine marriage and the marriages of Christians (on which subject see nos. 116-131 above 1 ). This correspondence is entirely lost if one wife is taken in addition to another, and when it is lost the married person is no longer a Christian.

Polygamous marriages in the case of Christians would profane the marriage between goodness and truth, because that spiritual marriage is the origin from which marriages on earth spring; and the marriages of Christians differ from the marriages of other peoples in this, that as good loves truth and truth loves good so as to be one, so husband and wife love each other and are one. Consequently, if a Christian were to add one wife to another, he would sunder that spiritual marriage in him; thus he would profane the origin of his marriage and so commit spiritual adultery. (On the point that marriages on earth spring from the marriage between goodness and truth, see nos. 83-102 above 2 .)

A Christian by polygamous marriage would profane the Word and the church, because viewed in itself the Word is a marriage of goodness and truth, and the Church similarly, insofar as it derives from the Word (see above, nos. 128-131).

[3] Now, since a Christian person who knows the Lord is in possession of the Word and has the church from the Lord through the Word, it is apparent that he has a capability and potential beyond that of a non-Christian for being regenerated and thus becoming spiritual, and also for attaining truly conjugial love, inasmuch as the two go together.

Since those Christians who take more than one wife commit not only natural adultery but at the same time spiritual adultery as well, it follows that the damnation of Christian polygamists after death is more severe than the damnation of those who commit only natural adultery. In response to my asking about their condition after death, I received the reply that heaven was totally closed to them, and that they appear in hell as though lying in a tub of warm bathwater. So they appear from a distance, even when standing on their feet and walking. This circumstance befalls them a result of their internal madness, I was told; and some of them are cast into chasms that are located at the boundaries of their worlds. 3

Бележки под линия:

1. I.e., "The Marriage of the Lord and the Church and Correspondence to It."

2. I.e., "The Origin of Conjugial Love from the Marriage between Good and Truth."

3. Cf. no. 79[11].

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.