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Genesis 1

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1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 And the earth was a void and emptiness, and darkness was on the faces* of the abyss. And the Spirit of God brooded* upon the faces of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God distinguished between the light and the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first Day.

6 And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let there be a distinguishing between waters as·​·to the waters.

7 And God made the expanse, and distinguished between the waters which were from under the expanse and the waters which were from upon the expanse; and it was so.

8 And God called the expanse Heavens. And there was evening, and there was morning, the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered·​·together to one place, and let what is dry appear; and it was so.

10 And what was dry, God called Land, and the gathering·​·together of the waters He called Seas; and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the land cause the sprout to sprout·​·forth, the herb seeding seed, and the fruit tree making fruit according·​·to its kind, in which is its seed, upon the land; and it was so.

12 And the land brought·​·forth the sprout, the herb seeding seed after its kind, and the tree making fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

13 And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be* lights in the expanse of the heavens, to distinguish between the day and the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.

15 And let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give·​·light on the earth; and it was so.

16 And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars.

17 And God put them in the expanse of the heavens, to give·​·light on the earth;

18 and to rule in the day, and in the night, and to distinguish between the light and the darkness; and God saw that it was good.

19 And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters cause the crawling thing*, the living soul, to crawl; and let the fowl fly above the earth on the faces of the expanse of the heavens.

21 And God created the great whales, and every living soul that creeps, which the waters caused to crawl after their kinds, and every winged fowl after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be·​·fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and the fowl shall be multiplied in the earth.

23 And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the land bring·​·forth the living soul after its kind; the beast, and the creeping thing, and the wild·​·animal of the land, after its kind; and it was so.

25 And God made the wild·​·animal of the land after its kind, and the beast after its kind, and every creeping thing on the ground* after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, according·​·to our likeness; and let them have·​·dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the beast, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be·​·fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue her; and have·​·dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over every living·​·thing that creeps on the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I give to you every herb seeding seed which is on the faces of all the earth, and every tree in which is fruit; the tree seeding seed, to you it shall be for food;

30 and to every wild·​·animal of the land, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth in which is a living soul, every green herb shall be for food; and it was so.

31 And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

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Divine Love and Wisdom # 11

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11. God is the essential person. Throughout all the heavens, the only concept of God is a concept of a person. The reason is that heaven, overall and regionally, is in a kind of human form, and Divinity among the angels is what makes heaven. Further, thinking proceeds in keeping with heaven's form, so it is not possible for angels to think about God in any other way. This is why all the people on earth who are in touch with heaven think about God in the same way when they are thinking very deeply, or in their spirit.

It is because God is a person that all angels and spirits are perfectly formed people. This is because of heaven's form, which is the same in its largest and its smallest manifestations. (On heaven being in a human form overall and regionally, see Heaven and Hell 59-87 [59-86], and on thought progressing in keeping with heaven's form, see 203-204 there.)

It is common knowledge that we were created in the image and likeness of God because of Genesis 1:26-27 and from the fact that Abraham and others saw God as a person.

The early people, wise and simple alike, thought of God only as a person. Even when they began to worship many gods, as they did in Athens and Rome, they worshiped them as persons. By way of illustration, here is an excerpt from an earlier booklet.

Non-Christians--especially Africans--who acknowledge and worship one God as the Creator of the universe conceive of that God as a person. They say that no one can have any other concept of God. When they hear that many people prefer an image of God as a little cloud in the center, they ask where these people are; and when they are told that these people are among the Christians, they respond that this is impossible. They are told, however, that Christians get this idea from the fact that in the Word God is called a spirit; and the only concept they have of spirit is of a piece of cloud. They do not realize that every spirit and every angel is a person. However, when inquiry was made to find out whether their spiritual concept was the same as their earthly one, it turned out that it was not the same for people who inwardly recognized the Lord as the God of heaven and earth.

I heard one Christian elder say that no one could have a concept of a being both divine and human; and I saw him taken to various non-Christians, more and more profound ones. Then he was taken to their heavens, and finally to a heaven of Christians. Through the whole process people's inner perception of God was communicated to him, and he came to realize that their only concept of God was a concept of a person--which is the same as a concept of a being both divine and human.

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