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Genesis 3

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1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which Jehovah God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?

2 And the woman said unto the serpent, Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat:

3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

8 And they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden.

9 And Jehovah God called unto the man, and said unto him, Where art thou?

10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

13 And Jehovah God said unto the woman, What is this thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

14 And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

20 And the man called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

21 And Jehovah God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skins, and clothed them.

22 And Jehovah God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever-

23 therefore Jehovah God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden the Cherubim, and the flame of a sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

   

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Arcana Coelestia #2034

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2034. 'You and your seed after you' means that from Him there is a conjunction of all who have faith in Him. This is clear from the meaning of 'seed' as faith, dealt with frequently above, and from the meaning of 'after you' as following Him, dealt with above in 2019. Previously the subject has been the union of the Divine Essence with the Human Essence and of Human Essence with Divine Essence. But now it is the conjunction of the Lord with those who believe in Him, which is also why the word 'you' is repeated, that is to say, 'you shall keep My covenant' followed by 'you and your seed'. From this repetition of 'you' and from the coupling of it with 'seed' it is clear that in the internal sense conjunction is meant, in particular conjunction with those who constitute the seed, which has been shown in 1025, 1447, 1610, to mean the faith that inheres in charity. And the fact that faith is charity itself, see Volume One, in 30-38, 379, 389, 654, 724, 809, 916, 1017, 1076, 1077, 1162, 1176, 1258, 1798, 1799, 1834, 1844.

[2] Furthermore when the Lord speaks of the union of Himself with the Father He is at one and the same time speaking about His own conjunction with the human race since this was the reason for the union, as is clear in John,

That they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me. For I made known to them Your name, and I will make it known, that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them. John 17:21-23, 26.

These verses show that in the union of Himself with His Father the Lord had conjunction of Himself with the human race in view, and had this conjunction at heart because it constituted His love. Indeed all conjunction comes about through love, love being conjunction itself.

[3] Elsewhere in the same gospel,

Because I live you will live also; in that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and does them, he it is who loves Me. John 14:19-21.

This similarly shows that in the union of His Human Essence with the Divine Essence the Lord had in view the conjunction of Himself with the human race, and that this was His end in view, and this His love, which was such that His inmost joy was the salvation of the human race, which He had had in view in the union of Himself with His Father. These verses from John describe what it is that effects union, namely having His commandments and doing them, which is loving the Lord.

[4] In the same gospel,

Father, glorify Your name. A voice therefore came from heaven, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Jesus said, Not for My sake has this voice come but for yours. But I, when I have been lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself. 1 John 12:28, 30, 32.

'Glorification' is used to mean union, as stated already. And the fact that in the union of Himself with the Father He had the conjunction of Himself with the human race in view is stated openly in the words, 'When I have been lifted up I will draw all men to Myself'.

[5] As for the conjunction of the Infinite, or Supreme Divine, with the human race being accomplished through the Lord's Human made Divine, and as for this conjunction being the reason for the Lord's Coming into the world, this is an arcanum to which many apply their minds, but because it is beyond their grasp they do not believe it. And since they do not believe it, for the reason that they cannot grasp it, that arcanum becomes a stumbling-block to them. That this is so I have been given to know from much experience of people entering the next life. Very many of these - the majority of clever people in the world - when they merely think that the Lord became man and was in outward appearance like any other human being, and that He suffered, and yet is at the same time governing the universe, immediately fill the sphere around them with stumbling-blocks. The reason they do so is that to them this whole idea had been a stumbling-block during their lifetime, though they had not then made this public but had worshipped Him in outward expressions of holiness. For in the next life the things that are interior are laid bare and revealed by the sphere that emanates from them, dealt with in Volume One, in 1048. 1053, 1316, 1504. From this sphere one perceives quite plainly what their faith had really been and what they had really thought about the Lord.

[6] This being so let the matter be explained a little further. After everything celestial with man perished, that is, all love to God, so that as a result the will for what is good existed no longer, the human race was separated from the Divine. For nothing other than love effects conjunction, and when love has been reduced to nothing, disjunction has taken place. And when the latter has taken place destruction and annihilation follow. At that point therefore a promise was given concerning the Lord's Coming into the world, who was to unite the Human to the Divine, and by means of this union was to join [to the Divine] the human race that was abiding in Himself through faith grounded in love and charity.

[7] From the time of that first promise given in Genesis 3:15, this kind of faith in the Lord who was to come was conjunctive. But once faith springing from love did not remain any more in the world the Lord came and united the Human Essence to the Divine Essence so that these were completely one, as He Himself states explicitly. At the same time He taught the way of truth to the effect that everyone who believed in Him, that is, who loved Him and what was His, and who abided in His love, which is a love directed towards the entire human race and so towards the neighbour, would be conjoined and thus saved.

[8] Once the Human had been made Divine, and the Divine made Human in the Lord, an influx of the Infinite, or the Supreme Divine, took place with man which could not possibly have manifested itself in any other way. Also by means of that influx the dreadful false persuasions and the dreadful desires for evil were dispersed with which the world of spirits had been filled and was constantly being filled by souls streaming into it from the world; and those who were actuated by such persuasions and evil desires were cast into hell and so separated. Unless this had been done the human race would have perished, for it is by means of spirits that the Lord rules the human race. They could not have been dispersed in any other way because there was no activity of the Divine by way of man's rational concepts into his inner sensory awareness, for these are far below the Supreme Divine when not so united. Still deeper arcana exist which cannot possibly be explained intelligibly to anyone. See what has appeared already in 1676, 1990, 2016. That the Lord appears as the Sun in the heaven of celestial angels and as the Moon in the heaven of spiritual angels, and that the Sun is the celestial existence of His love and the Moon the spiritual existence of it, see 1053, 1521, 1529-1531; and that every single thing comes beneath His gaze, 1274 (end), 1277 (end)

Fußnoten:

1. The Latin means after Me but the Greek means to Me which Swedenborg has in other places where he quotes this verse.

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