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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 Christianity # 508

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508. The sixth memorable occurrence. One day there appeared to me a magnificent temple, square in form. The roof was shaped like a crown - it arched upward and was elevated all around. The walls were continuous windows of crystal clear glass. The door was made of a pearly substance. On the southwest side of the interior there was a large raised pulpit, on top of which, to the right, the Word lay open, surrounded by a sphere of light so bright that it engulfed the whole raised area of the pulpit and made it shine. In the middle of the temple there was a sanctuary, with a veil at the front of it that was now lifted up. There an angel guardian, made out of gold, stood with a sword moving this way and that in its hand.

[2] Once I had looked carefully at all of these items, the meaning of each one flowed into my meditation. The temple means the new church. The door made of a pearly substance means our entry into the new church. The crystal clear windows mean the truths that enlighten the new church. The pulpit means its priesthood and preaching. The Word that lay open on the pulpit, lighting up the raised area of it, indicates that the Word's inner meaning, which is spiritual, has been revealed. The sanctuary in the middle of the temple means the partnership between the new church and the heaven of angels. The angel guardian made out of gold, standing in the sanctuary, means the literal meaning of the Word. The sword moving back and forth in its hand means that the literal sense can be turned this way and that, provided the purpose is to apply it to some truth. The fact that the veil in front of the angel guardian was lifted up means that the Word has now been opened to view.

[3] Later on, as I came closer to the building, I saw an inscription above the door: Now It Is Allowed, which means that we are now allowed to use our intellect to explore the mysteries of faith.

Seeing this inscription brought to my mind how extremely dangerous it is to use our intellect to explore any dogma of faith that was constructed by a self-serving mindset and therefore consists of falsities. It is even worse to use statements from the Word to support such dogmas. Doing so shuts down our intellect at its highest level, and gradually shuts it down at lower levels as well, to the point where theological teachings become disgusting to us and are finally obliterated, the way writing on paper is eaten away by worms or wool clothing is consumed by moths. Then the only way in which our intellect still functions is in dealing with political issues that affect our life in the region where we live, with civic issues that affect our jobs, and with domestic issues that relate to our homes. In these arenas we continually embrace the material world and love it for the alluring pleasures it offers, the way idolaters carry their golden effigy close to their heart.

[4] The dogmas of the Christian churches of today have been constructed not from the Word but under a self-serving mindset; as a result they consist of falsities. These dogmas have also been supported by certain statements in the Word. Therefore in the Lord's divine providence the Word was taken away from the Roman Catholic laity; and although the Word was opened up for Protestants, they closed it by their widespread assertion that the intellect has to be held under obedience to their faith.

[5] In the new church, however, the opposite happens. In this church, we are allowed to use our intellect to explore and penetrate all the church's mysteries and also to use the Word to support what we find. The reason this is allowed is that the teachings of the new church are continuous truths revealed by the Lord through the Word. Rational arguments that support these truths cause the intellect to open up more and more at its highest level and to be elevated into the light that the angels in heaven enjoy. That light is essentially truth. In that light, acknowledgment of the Lord as the God of heaven and earth shines in its glory. This is the meaning of the inscription Now It Is Allowed over the door to the temple, and the meaning of the fact that the sanctuary veil in front of the angel guardian was lifted up. It is a principle of the new church, you see, that falsities shut down the intellect but truths open it up.

[6] Afterward I saw someone like a young child overhead, holding a piece of paper in his hand. As he came nearer to me, he grew into a person of medium height. He was an angel from the third heaven, where all the inhabitants appear from a distance like little children. When he was in my presence, he handed me the piece of paper. Because it was written in the curved letters they use in that heaven, however, I handed it back and asked that they express the meaning of the message in words adapted to the ideas in my thinking. He replied, "What is written there is this: 'From now on, explore the mysteries of the Word, which was formerly closed up. All of its individual truths are mirrors that reflect the Lord. '"

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