606. These facts allow us to reach the conclusion that a person who is not regenerated is like someone who seeing phantoms by night thinks they are people. Then when he is being regenerated he is like someone who sees at daybreak that what he saw in the night was a delusion, and later, when he has been regenerated and is in full daylight, he sees that they were hallucinations. The person who has not been regenerated is like a dreamer; one who has, is like someone wide awake. In the Word too natural life is likened to sleep, spiritual life to wakefulness. It is the unregenerate person who is meant by the foolish virgins who had lamps, but no oil. The regenerated person is meant by the wise virgins who had lamps and also oil. Lamps mean things to do with the understanding, oil things to do with love. Regenerated persons are like the lights of the lampstand in the Tabernacle; and like the bread of the Presence and the incense placed on it there. These are the people who 'will shine like the radiance of the firmament, and be bright as stars for an age and for ever', as described in Daniel (Daniel 12:3).

[2] The person who is not regenerated is like someone in the Garden of Eden who eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and is therefore expelled from the garden; in fact he is that very tree. But a regenerated person is like someone in that garden who eats of the tree of life. These words in Revelation establish that it is permissible to eat of that tree.

To him who overcomes I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God, Revelation 2:7.

The Garden of Eden means intelligence in spiritual matters arising from the love of truth; see Apocalypse Revealed 90. In short, the unregenerate is the 'son of the evil one', and the regenerate is the 'son of the kingdom' (Matthew 13:38). 'Son of the evil one' there is the son of the devil, 'son of the kingdom' the son of the Lord,