Genesis 2 tells the story of God’s creation of Adam from the dust of the earth, and the forming of the Garden of Eden at the headwaters of four rivers. In it there are many trees, with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of them. Then God seeks a helpmeet for Adam, and creates Eve from Adam’s rib while he is sleeping.

Here’s a brief outline:

• God rests on the seventh day, blesses it, and makes it holy. (Verses 1-4)
• God creates man, Adam, from the dust of the earth (Verses 5-7)
• God plants a garden in Eden (Verses 8-14)
• Adam is placed in the Garden of Eden, and warned not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Verses 15-17)
• God seeks a helpmeet for Adam, and creates Eve from one of Adam’s ribs, and they are married, conjoined. (Verses 18-25)

In its inner spiritual sense, this chapter continues the story of the regeneration, or rebirth, of a human being. The early verses describe a person reaching the seventh stage of rebirth, represented by the Sabbath. It’s the celestial or heavenly state, in which a person has become remade, internally, in the image and likeness of God. Then, God shines through in all that a celestial person does and speaks.

Also, on another level, this chapter begins the story of the most ancient church on earth, sometimes called the Adamic church. “Adam” in Hebrew means “man”, so this is the church of mankind, i.e. a beginning stage of spiritual development in early human beings.

The prior chapter ended with the sixth day, the spiritual stage when a person has been transformed by God into a spiritual person, after the lifelong series of battles that a person encounters in this process. In the opening of Genesis 1, a person is pictured as spiritually dead, void and empty, blind to the love and truth of God, and living his or her life in pursuit of worldly ambitions and sensual pleasures. The evil and falsities that permeate that kind of existence enslave us, and, on our own, we are fighting a losing battle. The bonds that restrain us from evil are fear of the law, fear of the loss of life or loss of wealth, and fear of damage to our reputations. This state is a “natural” one, i.e. not one with much spiritual depth or activity.

If we turn to the Lord for help, though, we can be reformed, and develop a spiritual life, and be reborn. A spiritual person is also in combat with temptations towards evil and falsity, but is victorious. The bonds that restrain such a person are internal – the bonds of conscience. The celestial person, who will be discussed in this chapter of Genesis, is no longer in such combat, because evil and falsities no longer hold any interest.

For this summary, here’s some important insight: In our life in this world, we are very much aware of our physical, natural existence, and largely unaware of our concurrent spiritual one. On the spiritual level, we are continually interacting with people who are already in heaven or hell – spirits, both good (angels) and bad (evil spirits). The classic cartoon image with the little angel on one shoulder and the little devil on the other, both trying to influence us, isn't that far from the truth.

In ancient times, people had a more direct ability to communicate with the spiritual world, but we’ve lost that ability as we’ve become more enmeshed in worldly affairs. In the spiritual battles we need to go through as we’re being reformed, as we become more in tune with God’s love and truth, angels are helping us on our path to reach heaven, both here, as we live out our lives, and then further in the next life.

Spiritual lessons from this chapter:

As we continue in our path to enlightenment, it is God who is still leading us and teaching us about his way. He will continue to feed us the spiritual food that will bring us wisdom and understanding. When we reach the final stage of rebirth, we fulfill the potential He hopes for when he creates us, being made in God's image and likeness -- still uniquely ourselves, but loving and wise, useful and active but internally at peace.

9300. 'The first of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of [Jehovah] your God' means that every truth of good and every good of truth is holy because it comes from the Lord alone. This is clear from the meaning of 'the firstfruits of the ground' as the truth that the Church's forms of good and its truths must be attributed to the Lord alone (for these are meant by 'the firstfruits', see 9223, and the Church by 'the ground', 566, 1068), the expression 'the first of the firstfruits' being used because that truth must be paramount, since forms of good and truths receive their life from the Lord, that is, they receive it from the Lord when they are attributed to Him; and from the meaning of 'bringing into the house of God' as bringing them to the Lord, in order that they may be holy (for 'the house of God' is the Lord, see 3720, and everything holy comes from the Lord, 9229). From all this it is evident that 'the first of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of your God' means that every truth of good and every good of truth is holy because it comes from the Lord alone.

[2] The terms 'truth of good' and 'good of truth' are used because in the case of a person who is being regenerated, and especially of one who has been regenerated, truths emanate from good, and forms of good emanate from truth. For the truths compose the life of his understanding, and the good the life of his will. And with the person who has been regenerated understanding and will form a mind that is one, communicating reciprocally with each other; the truths which belong to the understanding communicate with the good which belongs to the will, and the good belonging to the will with the truths belonging to the understanding. There is a mutual flow from one to the other, scarcely any different from the flow of the blood from the heart into the lungs, and from them into the heart again, then from the left side of the heart into the arteries, and from these back again through veins into the heart. One can form an idea similar to this regarding the reciprocal flow of the good and truth with a person from his understanding into his will and from his will into his understanding. The reason why the heart and lungs can give us an idea especially of the reciprocal activity of the truth of faith and the good of charity in the understanding and the will is that the lungs correspond to the truths belonging to faith and the heart to the good belonging to love, 3635, 3883-3896. So it is also that 'the heart' in the Word means the life of the will, and 'the soul' ¹ the life of faith, 9050.

[3] The reason why those two organs can help us to form an idea regarding truths belonging to the understanding and good belonging to the will is that all things which are aspects of faith and of love are accompanied by ideas formed from such things as a person knows. For without ideas formed from things that can be known and things that can be perceived by the senses a person has no ability to think. And a person thinks properly, even about aspects of faith and love, when he does so from objects that correspond; for correspondences are natural truths in which spiritual truths are reflected as in a mirror. Therefore to the extent that ideas in the mind regarding spiritual realities are conceived of but not by means of those correspondences, they are formed either from the illusions of the senses or from absurdities. What a person's ideas are like regarding aspects of faith and of love is transparently evident in the next life, for people's ideas there are plainly perceptible.

[4] The statement that the truths of faith belong to a person's understanding and the good of charity to his will may seem to be nonsensical to people who say and are convinced that having a belief in matters of faith is all that is necessary. This is because the natural man and his power of understanding has no grasp whatever of things of that nature, and because faith comes not from a person himself but from the Lord. But those same people nevertheless acknowledge and believe that a person is enlightened by truths and inspired by good when he reads the Word, and that when he is enlightened he perceives what is or is not the truth. They also speak of those who excel others in uncovering truths from the Word as the enlightened. From this it is evident that those who are enlightened see and perceive within themselves whether something is the truth or not; what is then enlightened within them is their understanding, and what is then inspired within them is their will. But if that which enlightens them is the authentic truth of faith and that which inspires them is the authentic good of charity, it is the internal man's understanding that is enlightened and the internal man's will that is inspired. The situation is different if the truth of faith, or the good of charity, is unauthentic.

[5] People governed by these, and even those ruled by falsities and evils are indeed able to give their assent to the Church's truths; yet they have no inner ability to see and perceive whether they really are truths. So it is that most people keep to the teachings of the Church in which they were born but go no further than giving their assent to them. They would assent even to extremely heretical beliefs such as those of Socinianism or Judaism if they had been born from parents holding such beliefs. From all this it is evident that the understanding is enlightened in the case of those with an affection for truth arising from good but not in the case of those with an affection for truth arising from evil. In the case of those with an affection for truth arising from good the internal man's understanding is enlightened and the internal man's will is inspired, whereas in the case of those with an affection for truth arising from evil the internal man's understanding is not enlightened nor is the internal man's will inspired, for the reason that they are natural men and women. As a consequence of this they maintain that the natural man has no ability to grasp any thing which is a matter of faith.

[6] The fact that the understanding is what is enlightened by the truths of faith and the will is what is inspired by the good of charity in the case of those with an affection for truth arising from good, who are therefore more internal or spiritual men and women, is evident from the same kind of people in the next life. Those who are there are able to understand all matters of faith and to will all that constitutes charity, as they themselves also clearly perceive. Consequently intelligence and wisdom beyond description are theirs; for after they have cast aside the body they enjoy that more internal understanding which was being enlightened in the world and that more internal will which was being inspired in the world. But they could not perceive during that time how they were being enlightened and inspired because during that time their thinking took place within the body and was founded on such things as belong to the world. From all this it is now clear that the truths of faith compose the life of the understanding and the good of charity composes the life of the will, that is, that the understanding ought to be present in those things which are matters of faith and the will in those which are aspects of charity. Or what amounts to the same thing, those two powers of mind are what faith and charity from the Lord flow into; and these are received according to the state of those powers. Thus the Lord's dwelling-place with a person is nowhere else than within those powers.

[7] An idea of what more there is to all this may be gained from what has been stated about the internal man and the external man in 6057, 9279, namely this: The internal man has been created so as to conform to an image of heaven, but the external man so as to conform to an image of the world; and those whose internal man has not been opened up see nothing from a heavenly point of view. And what they see from a worldly point of view regarding heaven is thick darkness, as a consequence of which they cannot have any spiritual idea about such things as are matters of faith and charity. As a result of this furthermore they fail so completely even to see what Christian good is, that is, what charity is, that they entirely suppose that the life of heaven consists solely in truths, which they call the truths of faith, and also that this life can be imparted to anyone at all with whom the assurance of faith exists though not the life of faith.

[8] How blind these people are regarding the life of faith, which is charity, is plainly evident from the consideration that they pay no attention whatever to thousands of things taught by the Lord Himself regarding goodness of life, and that when they read the Word they instantly toss them away behind the back of faith, thereby concealing them from themselves and from others. So it is also that anything which has to do with good, that is, with charity and its works, is banished by them from the teachings of the Church to that lower body of teachings which they call moral theology, and which they regard as natural, not spiritual. But in reality the life of charity remains after death, and faith only in the measure that it accords with that life, that is, thought regarding the truths of faith remains in the measure that there is a will to do good in accordance with them. Those who have faith that arises out of good are able to use any factual knowledge whatever to corroborate things for themselves and thereby make their faith stronger, see 2454, 2568, 2588, 4156, 4293, 4760, 5201, 6047, 8629.

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