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Genesis 1

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

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face 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 divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first Day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

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

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his 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 let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

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Own

  

In many cases, the spiritual meaning of "own," both as a verb and as an adjective, is relatively literal. When people are described as the "Lord's own," however, it specifically means those people who know Him and have His Word. This has taken various forms since the dawn of humanity; in the prehistoric church known as the "Most Ancient Church" the Lord's truth -- the direct expression of His love -- flowed into people directly. In the Ancient Church the Lord's Word was recognized in nature and in the form of deeply representative stories, some of which were passed on to us in the early chapters of Genesis. Among the Children of Israel the Lord's Word was expressed through the Ten Commandments, the laws of Moses, the very history of the nation of Israel and the various psalms and prophecies. The early Christians had those stories along with the teaching and inspiration of Jesus himself. We now have the whole Bible, including the teachings of Jesus, and can understand the Bible's true meaning. Each of these churches, then, was at some point the Lord's own.

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Divine Love and Wisdom # 383

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383. Since our discernment corresponds to our lungs, and our thinking therefore to their breathing, "soul" and "spirit" in the Word mean discernment, as in "you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul" (Matthew 22:35 [22:37]), or "God will give a new heart and a new spirit" (Ezekiel 36:26; Psalms 51:12-13 [51:10]). I have already explained [378-381] that the heart means the love of our volition, so soul and spirit mean the wisdom of our discernment.

You may see in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on the Lord 50-51 that the spirit of God, also called the Holy Spirit, means divine wisdom and therefore divine truth, the means of our enlightenment.

This is why "the Lord breathed on the disciples and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'" (John 20:22). This is also why it says, "Jehovah God breathed the breath of life into Adam's nostrils, and he became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7), and why God said to the prophet, "Prophesy over the spirit and say to the wind, 'Come, spirit, from the four winds and breathe upon these who have been slain, so that they may live'" (Ezekiel 37:9). There are similar statements elsewhere as well. It is why the Lord is called the spirit of the nostrils and also the breath of life.

Since our breathing comes through our nostrils, they are used to mean perception. An intelligent person is referred to as "keen-scented," and a dense person as "dull-scented." This is also why in Hebrew and in some other languages, "spirit" and "wind" are expressed by the same word. In fact, the word "spirit" is derived from [a root that means] breathing; so when people die we speak of their "breathing their last." This is also why people believe that a spirit is a wind or something airy, like the breath that issues from our lungs, and believe the same of the soul as well.

We can tell from this that "loving God with the whole heart and with the whole soul" means with all our love and all our discernment, and that "giving a new heart and a new spirit" means a new volition and a new discernment.

It is because the spirit means discernment that it says of Bezaleel that "he was filled with the spirit of wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge" (Exodus 31:3) and of Joshua that "he was filled with the spirit of wisdom" (Deuteronomy 34:9), and that Nebuchadnezzar said of Daniel that "a superlative spirit, one of knowledge and intelligence and wisdom was in him" (Daniel 6:5 [5:11-12, 14]), and why it says in Isaiah that "those who are wandering in spirit will know intelligence" (Isaiah 29:24). Similar statements may be found in many other places.

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