46. 6. These essentials of divine love were the reason the universe was created, and they are the reason it is maintained. By examining and scrutinizing the three essentials of divine love, one can come to see that they were the reason for creation. The first essential, loving others outside of himself, was a reason for creation in that the universe is outside God (just as the world is outside the sun). The universe is something to which God could extend his love and in which he could put his love into action and so find rest. We read that after God had created heaven and earth he rested; and that he made the Sabbath day for that reason (Genesis 2:23).

You can see that the second essential, God's wanting to be one with others, was also a reason for creation from the fact that people were created in the image and likeness of God. The "image" and the "likeness" mean that we were made as forms that are receptive to love and wisdom from God - forms that God could be one with, and on whose account he could be one with all the other things in the universe, which are all nothing but means. A connection with the final cause is also a connection with the intermediate causes. Genesis, the Book of Creation, makes it clear that all things were created for the sake of humankind (Genesis 1:28-30).

That the third essential, God's blessing others from himself, is a reason for creation you can see from the fact that the angelic heaven was provided for everyone who has let God's love in, a place where the blessings of all come from God alone.

The three essentials of God's love are the reason the universe is maintained as well, because maintaining is an ongoing creation, just as continuing to exist is the same as perpetually coming into being. Divine love is the same from eternity to eternity. The nature God's love has now and will have in the future is the same nature it had when creating the world.

'Works,' as in Revelation 16:11, signify falsities of faith, and the resulting evils of life.

In Revelation, 'I know thy works,' is said frequently. This makes it clear that 'works' signify, generally, every aspect of the church.

'Works,' as in Genesis 46:33, denote goods, because they are from the will, and anything from the will is either good or evil, but anything from the understanding, like spoken words, are either truths or falsities.

In Genesis 2:2, the work signifies the celestial man, the highest use of God; or the accomplishment when the spiritual man becomes celestial. (Arcana Coelestia 84, 88)

In Exodus 5:9, work signifies assault for the purpose of subjugation. (Arcana Coelestia 7120)

In Genesis 39:11, it signifies the process when the Lord was conjoining Himself with spiritual good in the natural. (Arcana Coelestia 5004)

In Genesis 47:3; Psalms 8:3; 44:1; 63:12, works concern offices and uses which are done for the neighbor, the country, the church, and the Lord's kingdom.

In Exodus 5:4, work signifies that the people were not to be exempted from things that were hard to bear. (Arcana Coelestia 6073, Arcana Coelestia 7104)

In Revelation 2:2, works signify that the Lord sees man's exterior as well as his interior things. (Apocalypse Revealed 76)

In Revelation 2:6, it signifies that people do not want to claim personal merit. (Apocalypse Revealed 86)

In Revelation 2:19, 23, 26, it signifies all things of charity and faith. (Apocalypse Revealed 138, 141)

In Revelation 9:20, it signifies that they did not shun as sins their own things, which are evils of every kind. (Apocalypse Revealed 457)

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 6048)