9043. 'And her offspring come out' means if in spite of this it is made stronger in the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'coming out' - when it refers to good that is being formed out of truths - as the passing of that good from the internal or spiritual man into the external or natural man, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'offspring' as forms of good that have developed out of truths and then been acknowledged because they are both known and perceived and thereby been made stronger. For 'bearing offspring' in the spiritual sense means acknowledging in faith and action, 3905, 3915, 3919, 6585. The situation is that a person who is conceived anew, carried so to speak in the womb, and born - that is, who is being regenerated - first of all takes in from the teachings of the Church or from the Word matters of faith and charity. These are stored away at this time among items of knowledge in the memory that belongs to the external or natural man. From there they are summoned into the internal man and stored away in the memory belonging to the internal man. Regarding both these memories a person possesses, see 2469-2494. This is the beginning of spiritual life with a person; but the person is not as yet regenerate. For him to be regenerate his external or natural man must be subservient, and as a result must be in agreement with his internal man.

A person has not been regenerated until his external or natural man has also been regenerated, see 8742-8747.

The external man is regenerated by the Lord by means of the internal, 3286, 3321, 3493, 4588, 5651, 6299, 8746.

The whole person has been regenerated when his natural has been, 7442-7443.

[2] Now seeing that aspects of regeneration are expressed in the Word by the phases of a person's generation or birth from his parents in the world, one may recognize from the process of regeneration described above what is understood or meant in the spiritual sense by 'conception', 'being carried in the womb', 'going out of the womb', and 'offspring'. That is to say, 'going out of the womb' means passing from the internal man into the external or natural man; and 'offspring' means spiritual good, or the good of charity springing from the truths of faith, that comes from the internal man and is present in the external or natural. When good is present in the natural, then the person is new. Good now constitutes his life, and truths emanating from good constitute his outward form He is like an angel, for good constitutes angels' life and truths their outward form, which is the human form. But this makes no sense to the natural man.

5276. 'A great abundance of corn in all the land of Egypt' means the multiplication of truth in both parts of the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'an abundance of corn' as a multiplication of truth, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'the land of Egypt' as both parts of the natural. For knowledge is meant by 'Egypt', see 1164, 1165, 1186, 1462, 4749, 4964, 4966; and since knowledge is meant by that land, so also is the natural meant by it, for the reason that as the expression 'factual knowledge' is used to describe what is stored in the natural, 'the land of Egypt' therefore means the natural mind in which factual knowledge is stored. This being so, 'all the land of Egypt' means both parts of the natural - the interior natural and the exterior natural, regarding which, see 5118, 5126. The reason 'an abundance of corn' means a multiplication of truth is that the expression describes the opposite of 'famine', by which an absence of truth is meant. The word used in the original language to express an abundance of corn - an antonym to 'famine' - means in the internal sense a vast wealth and sufficiency of religious knowledge; for 'famine' means an absence of it. Religious knowledge consists in nothing else than the truths present in a person's natural man which have not yet been made his own by him. The multiplication of such truths is what is meant here. Religious knowledge does not come to be truths residing with a person until that knowledge finds acceptance in his understanding, which happens when he firmly embraces it; and what are then truths residing with him are not made his own until he lives in conformity with them. For nothing is made a person's own other than that which is made part of his life; thus because those truths form his life, his true self is invested in them.