25. THE FIRST STATE OF THIS MOST ANCIENT CHURCH, OR ITS RISE AND MORNING, is described in the first chapter of Genesis by these words:

God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them (Gen. 1:26-27);

and also by these in the second chapter:

Jehovah God formed man dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives; and man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7).

That its rise, or morning, is described by his being made, or created, "in the image of God," is because every man, when he is first born, and while an infant, is an "image of God" interiorly; for the faculty of receiving and of applying to himself those things which proceed from God, is implanted in him; and since he is also formed "dust of the earth" exteriorly, and there is thence in him an inclination to lick that dust like the serpent (Gen. 3:14), therefore, if he remains an external or natural man, and does not become at the same time internal, or spiritual, he destroys the "image of God," and puts on the image of the serpent which seduced Adam. But, on the other hand, the man who strives and labours to become an "image of God," subdues the external man in himself, and interiorly in the natural becomes spiritual, thus spiritual-natural; and this is effected by a new creation, that is, regeneration by the Lord. Such a man is an "image of God," because he wills and believes that he lives from God and not from himself: on the contrary, man is an image of the serpent as long as he wills and believes that he lives from himself and not from God. What is man but an "image of God" when he wills and believes that he is in the Lord and the Lord in him (John 6:56; 14:20; 15:4-5, 7; 17:26), and that he can do nothing of himself (John 3:27; 15:5)? What is a man but an "image of God" when, by a new birth, he becomes a "son of God" (John 1:12-13)? Who does not know that the image of the father is in the son? The rise, or morning, of this Church is described by Jehovah God's "breathing into his nostrils the breath of lives," and by his thus "becoming a living soul," because by "lives," in the plural, are meant love and wisdom, which two are essentially God; for, in proportion as a man receives and applies to himself those two essentials of life, which proceed continually from God, and continually flow into the souls of men, in the same proportion he becomes "a living soul"; for "lives" are the same as love and wisdom. Hence it is evident, that the rise and morning of the life of the men of the Most Ancient Church, who taken collectively are represented by Adam, is described by those two shrines of life.

433. 'Cain's being avenged sevenfold' means that it was utterly forbidden to violate separated faith meant by Cain. See what has been shown at verse 15. 'Seventy-sevenfold' means that it was something even more inviolable on account of which condemnation follows the number seven is a holy number is that the seventh day means the celestial man, the celestial Church, the celestial kingdom, and in the highest sense the Lord Himself. Consequently whenever the number seven occurs in the Word it means that which is holy or utterly inviolable. And this holiness or inviolability has reference to, or else is determined by, the subject being dealt with. The same applies to the meaning of the number seventy consisting of seven ages (saecule), ¹ for in the Word an age (saeculum) is a span of ten years. When anything extremely holy or utterly inviolable needed to be expressed people used the phrase 'seventy-sevenfold', as the Lord did, when He said that people were to forgive their brother not seven times but seventy times seven, Matthew 18:21-22. By this He meant that they were to forgive as often as he sinned. Their forgiveness was to know no limits, that is, was to be eternal and timeless, which is holy. In the present instance his being avenged seventy-sevenfold means condemnation, for it was utterly and completely forbidden to violate.

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