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Genesis 3

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1 And the serpent was more crafty than any animal of the field which Jehovah Elohim had made. And it said to the woman, Is it even so, that God has said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2 And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;

3 but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God has said, Ye shall not eat of it, and ye shall not touch it, lest ye die.

4 And the serpent said to the woman, Ye will not certainly die;

5 but God knows that in the day ye eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and ye will be as God, knowing good and evil.

6 And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a pleasure for the eyes, and the tree was to be desired to give intelligence; and she took of its fruit, and ate, and gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah Elohim, walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah Elohim, in the midst of the trees of the garden.

9 And Jehovah Elohim called to Man, and said to him, Where art thou?

10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I feared, because I am naked; and I hid myself.

11 And he said, Who told thee that thou art naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee not to eat?

12 And Man said, The woman, whom thou hast given [to be] with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.

13 And Jehovah Elohim said to the woman, What is this thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate.

14 And Jehovah Elohim said to the serpent, Because thou hast done this, be thou cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field. On thy belly shalt thou go, and eat dust all the days of thy life.

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall crush thy head, and thou shalt crush his heel.

16 To the woman he said, I will greatly increase thy travail and thy pregnancy; with pain thou shalt bear children; and to thy husband shall be thy desire, and he shall rule over thee.

17 And to Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed be the ground on thy account; with toil shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life;

18 and thorns and thistles shall it yield thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou return to the ground: for out of it wast thou taken. For dust thou art; and unto dust shalt thou return.

20 And Man called his wife's name Eve; because she is the mother of all living.

21 And Jehovah Elohim made Adam and his wife coats of skin, and clothed them.

22 And Jehovah Elohim said, Behold, Man is become as one of us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ...!

23 Therefore Jehovah Elohim sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

24 And he drove out Man; and he set the Cherubim, and the flame of the flashing sword, toward the east of the garden of Eden, to guard the way to the tree of life.

   

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True Christian Religion # 470

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470. II. Man is not life, but a receiver of life from God.

It is generally believed that the life which a person has is his own, so that he is not merely a receiver of life but also is life. This general belief exists because he appears to live, that is, to feel, think, speak and act exactly as if of himself. The result is that the statement that man is a receiver of life and is not life must inevitably seem an unheard-of idea or a kind of paradox to those whose thought is based on the senses, because it is contrary to appearances. I have traced to appearances the reason for this wrong belief that man is also life, and that consequently life is implanted in man from creation, and propagated subsequently by transfer. But the reason for this mistake based on appearances is that most people at the present time are natural, and only a few are spiritual; and a natural man bases his judgment on appearances and the mistakes these lead to, and these are diametrically opposed to this truth, that man is merely a receiver of life, and is not life.

[2] The fact that man is not life, but a receiver of life from God, is proved by the following clear evidence, that all created things are in essence finite, and man, being finite, could only be created of finite substances. That is why the Book of Creation tells us that Adam was made of earth and its dust, and this is the reason for his name, since Adam means the ground. In fact every person is composed exclusively of substances to be found in the earth or emitted from the earth into the atmosphere. The emanations from the earth in the atmosphere are absorbed by people by means of the lungs and by pores throughout the body; the denser substances are absorbed in the form of food made from the earth's products.

[3] As for man's spirit, however, this too was created from finite substances. What is man's spirit but a receiver of mental life? The finite materials of which it is composed are spiritual substances, to be found in the spiritual world, and also transferred to our earth and there stored up. If they were not present there along with material substances, no seed could at the inmost level have been made fertile, and so grow in a wonderful way without any aberration from its first structure until it produces fruits and new seeds. Nor would any worms be procreated by effluvia from the earth and from gases given off by plants and impregnating the atmosphere.

[4] Can anyone reasonably suppose that the Infinite could create anything other than that which is finite, or that man, being finite, is anything but a form, which the Infinite can bring to life by the life in itself? This is what is meant by the following:

Jehovah God formed man, dust from the earth, and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, Genesis 2:7.

God, being infinite, is life in Himself. This cannot be created and copied into man, for this would be making him God. The idea that this happened was the madness of the serpent, or the devil, which he passed on to Eve and Adam, for the serpent said:

On the day when you eat of the fruit of that tree, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, Genesis 3:5.

[5] This deadly conviction, that God infused and copied Himself into men, was held by the people of the most ancient church in its final period leading up to its termination, as I have heard from their own lips. On account of their horrendous belief that they were thus gods, they lie hidden deep within a cavern, which no one can approach closely without falling victim to an inner vertigo. The previous section made it known that Adam and his wife mean and describe the most ancient church.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.