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Genesis 2

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1 The heavens and the earth were finished, and all their vast array.

2 On the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

3 God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy, because he rested in it from all his work which he had created and made.

4 This is the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Yahweh God made the earth and the heavens.

5 No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain on the earth. There was not a man to till the ground,

6 but a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the ground.

7 Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

8 Yahweh God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

9 Out of the ground Yahweh God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was parted, and became four heads.

11 The name of the first is Pishon: this is the one which flows through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

12 and the gold of that land is good. There is aromatic resin and the onyx stone.

13 The name of the second river is Gihon: the same river that flows through the whole land of Cush.

14 The name of the third river is Hiddekel: this is the one which flows in front of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 Yahweh God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

16 Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat;

17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die."

18 Yahweh God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."

19 Out of the ground Yahweh God formed every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

20 The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field; but for man there was not found a helper suitable for him.

21 Yahweh God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.

22 He made the rib, which Yahweh God had taken from the man, into a woman, and brought her to the man.

23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called 'woman,' because she was taken out of man."

24 Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh.

25 They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

   

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True Christian Religion # 470

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470. II. Man is not life, but a receiver of life from God.

It is generally believed that the life which a person has is his own, so that he is not merely a receiver of life but also is life. This general belief exists because he appears to live, that is, to feel, think, speak and act exactly as if of himself. The result is that the statement that man is a receiver of life and is not life must inevitably seem an unheard-of idea or a kind of paradox to those whose thought is based on the senses, because it is contrary to appearances. I have traced to appearances the reason for this wrong belief that man is also life, and that consequently life is implanted in man from creation, and propagated subsequently by transfer. But the reason for this mistake based on appearances is that most people at the present time are natural, and only a few are spiritual; and a natural man bases his judgment on appearances and the mistakes these lead to, and these are diametrically opposed to this truth, that man is merely a receiver of life, and is not life.

[2] The fact that man is not life, but a receiver of life from God, is proved by the following clear evidence, that all created things are in essence finite, and man, being finite, could only be created of finite substances. That is why the Book of Creation tells us that Adam was made of earth and its dust, and this is the reason for his name, since Adam means the ground. In fact every person is composed exclusively of substances to be found in the earth or emitted from the earth into the atmosphere. The emanations from the earth in the atmosphere are absorbed by people by means of the lungs and by pores throughout the body; the denser substances are absorbed in the form of food made from the earth's products.

[3] As for man's spirit, however, this too was created from finite substances. What is man's spirit but a receiver of mental life? The finite materials of which it is composed are spiritual substances, to be found in the spiritual world, and also transferred to our earth and there stored up. If they were not present there along with material substances, no seed could at the inmost level have been made fertile, and so grow in a wonderful way without any aberration from its first structure until it produces fruits and new seeds. Nor would any worms be procreated by effluvia from the earth and from gases given off by plants and impregnating the atmosphere.

[4] Can anyone reasonably suppose that the Infinite could create anything other than that which is finite, or that man, being finite, is anything but a form, which the Infinite can bring to life by the life in itself? This is what is meant by the following:

Jehovah God formed man, dust from the earth, and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, Genesis 2:7.

God, being infinite, is life in Himself. This cannot be created and copied into man, for this would be making him God. The idea that this happened was the madness of the serpent, or the devil, which he passed on to Eve and Adam, for the serpent said:

On the day when you eat of the fruit of that tree, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, Genesis 3:5.

[5] This deadly conviction, that God infused and copied Himself into men, was held by the people of the most ancient church in its final period leading up to its termination, as I have heard from their own lips. On account of their horrendous belief that they were thus gods, they lie hidden deep within a cavern, which no one can approach closely without falling victim to an inner vertigo. The previous section made it known that Adam and his wife mean and describe the most ancient church.

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