30. Verses 14-17 And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to make a distinction between the day and the night; and they will be for signs, and for set times, and for days and years. And they will be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to have dominion over the day, and the lesser light to have dominion over the night; and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.

No one can have an adequate understanding of what 'the great lights' are unless he knows what the underlying essence of faith is and how it develops in people who are being created anew. The very essence and life of faith is the Lord alone. In fact it is impossible for anyone who does not believe in the Lord to have life, as He Himself has said in John,

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God will rest upon him. John 3:36.

[2] With people who are being created anew faith develops as follows: First of all they have no life, for life does not exist in anything evil and false but in what is good and true. Then they start to receive life from the Lord by means of faith - first by faith existing in the memory, which is factual faith, then by faith existing in the understanding, which is conceptual faith, and after this by faith existing in the heart, which is loving or saving faith. Factual faith and conceptual faith are represented in verses 3-13 by the inanimate, but faith made alive by means of love is represented in verses 20-25 by the animate. Consequently this is the first point at which love and faith deriving from it, which are called 'lights', are dealt with. Love is 'the greater light which has dominion over the day', and faith deriving from love is 'the lesser light which has dominion over the night'. And because they ought to make one the verb in the phrase 'let there be lights 'is singular and not plural.

[3] Love and faith have their place in the internal man as warmth and light do in the external, bodily man, and for this reason love and faith are represented by warmth and light. Therefore it is said that 'the lights' were set in the expanse of the heavens, that is, in the internal man - the greater light in his will and the lesser in his understanding. Yet they make their appearances in the will and understanding only as sunlight does in the objects it strikes. To the Lord alone belongs the mercy which moves the will with love and the understanding with truth or faith.

2762. The origin of 'a horse' meaning the understanding part of the mind lies nowhere else than in representatives in the next life. Frequently there, in the world of spirits, horses which display great variety are seen, and also people seated on horses. And whenever they are seen the understanding is meant by them. Such representatives are of constant occurrence among spirits. It is because the horse is a representative of the understanding that when horses are mentioned in the Word the spirits and angels present with man know instantaneously that it is the understanding which is being spoken of. It is also why, when spirits from some other planet who have been endowed with intelligence and wisdom are raised up from the world of spirits into heaven, horses shining as though they consisted of fire appear, which I also have seen when those people were carried up.

[2] This experience has made clear to me what is meant by the fiery chariot and the fiery horses which Elisha saw when Elijah went up with the whirlwind into heaven, and what also by Elisha's shout at that time,

My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and its riders. 2 Kings 2:11-12,

and by the same spoken by Joash king of Israel to Elisha when the latter was dying,

My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and its riders. 2 Kings 13:14.

In the Lord's Divine mercy it will be shown elsewhere that Elijah and Elisha represented the Lord as to the Word. That is to say, it will there be shown that the doctrine of love and charity drawn from the Word is meant by 'the fiery chariot', and the doctrine of faith deriving from these by 'the fiery horses'. The doctrine of faith is the same as an understanding of the Word as to its inner content, which is the internal sense.

[3] As regards chariots and horses being seen in heaven among spirits and angels, this is evident not only from the fact that they were seen by the prophets, such as by Zechariah (1:8-10; 6:1-7) and by others, but also by Elisha's servant, of whom the following is said in the Book of Kings,

Jehovah opened the eyes of Elisha's servant, and he saw; and behold the mountain was full of horses, and there were fiery chariots surrounding Elisha. 2 Kings 6:17.

Furthermore, where the intelligent and wise dwell in the world of spirits, chariots and horses are constantly making their appearance, the reason being, as has been stated, that chariots and horses represent the things that belong to wisdom and intelligence. People who have been awakened after death and are entering the next life see represented to them a young man seated on a horse, who then dismounts. The meaning of this is that before they can enter heaven they have to be furnished with cognitions of good and truth - see Volume One, in 187, 188. The fact that chariots and horses meant those things was fully known in the Ancient Church, as becomes clear also from the Book of Job, a book of the Ancient Church, where these words occur,

God has made him forget wisdom and given him no share in intelligence. After raising himself on high he laughs at the horse and its rider. Job 39:17-19.

[4] The meaning of 'a horse' as the understanding spread from the Ancient Church to the wise in surrounding regions, and even into Greece. As a consequence of this, when describing the sun, which meant love, 2441, 2495, they placed the god of their wisdom and intelligence there in the sun, and gave him a chariot and four fiery horses. And when they described the god of the sea - the sea meaning knowledge in general, 28, 2120 - they gave horses to him also. And when they described the upsurge of knowledge from the understanding they portrayed it as a flying horse which with its hoof broke open a fountain where the virgins who were the branches of knowledge dwelt. And by the Trojan horse nothing else was meant than a device of their understanding for destroying city walls. Even today, when the understanding is being described, it is quite usual, drawing on the custom received from those people of old, to portray the understanding as a flying horse or Pegasus, and to portray learning as a fountain. Yet scarcely anyone knows that 'a horse' in the mystical sense means the understanding, and 'a fountain' truth, let alone that those images with a spiritual meaning spread to the gentiles from the Ancient Church.