5. II. THERE HAVE BEEN FOUR SUCCESSIVE STATES, OR PERIODS, OF EACH CHURCH, WHICH IN THE WORD ARE MEANT BY "MORNING, "DAY," "EVENING," AND "NIGHT." That there have been four successive states, or periods, of every one of these Churches above-named, will be illustrated in the following pages, wherein each will be dealt with in its turn. They are described by those alternations of time, because every man who is born in the Church, or in whom the Church has commenced, first comes into its light such as that is in the dawn and morning; afterwards, he advances to its day, and, he who loves its truths, right on to its mid-day; if he then stops in the way, and does not advance into the heat of spring and summer, his day declines towards evening, till at length, like the light at night-time, it grows dark; and then his intelligence in the spiritual things of the Church becomes a cold light, like the light of the days in winter, when he indeed sees the trees standing beside his house, or in his gardens, but stripped of leaves and destitute of fruits-thus, like bare trunks. For, the man of the Church advances from morning to day, to the end that he may be reformed and regenerated by means of the light of reason, which only takes place by a life according to the Commandments of the Lord in the Word. If this does not take place, his light becomes darkness, and the darkness, thick darkness; that is, the truths of light with him are turned into falsities, and the falsities into unseen evils. It is otherwise with the man who suffers himself to be regenerated: night does not overtake him, for he walks in God, and hence is continually in the day; into which, also, he fully enters after death, when he is associated with angels in heaven. This is understood by the following words in the Apocalypse, concerning the New Jerusalem, which is the New Church, truly Christian:

That city shall have no need of the sun and of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of God shall lighten it, and the Lamb is the lamp thereof. And the nations which are saved shall walk in the light of it; and there shall be no night there (Rev. 21:23-24, 25; Ezek. 32:8; Amos 5:20; 8:9).

That the successive states of the Church are understood by "morning," "day," "evening," and "night," in the Word, is evident from the following passages therein:

Watch, for ye know not when the Lord of the house will come, at even, or at mid-night, or at cock-crowing, or in the morning (Mark 13:35; Matt. 25:13).

The subject there treated of is the Consummation of the Age, and the coming of the Lord at that time.

The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spake to me: He is as the morning light, a morning without clouds (2 Sam. 23:3-4).

I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright and morning Star (Rev. 22:16).

God shall help her, when the morning appeareth (Psalm 46:5).

He is calling to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night (Isa. 21:11-12).

An evil, one evil, behold, is come. The end is come [The morning is come] upon thee, O inhabitant of the land; the time is come, the day is near. Behold the day, behold, it is come; the morning hath gone forth (Ezek. 7:5, 6, 7, 10).

There shall be a day... which shall be known to Jehovah; not day nor night; for about the time of evening there shall be light (Zech. 14:7).

About the time of evening, behold, terror; before the morning, he is not (Isa. 17:14).

In the evening; weeping will endure all night, but singing in the morning (Psalm 30:5).

Even to the evening and the morning, ¹ two thousand three hundred; then shall the holy place be justified:... the vision of the evening and the morning is true (Dan. 8:14, 26).

Jehovah in the morning will bring His judgment to light; He will not fail (Zeph. 3:5).

Thus said Jehovah, If ye have made void My covenant of the day and My covenant of the night, so that there be not day and night in their season, My covenant also shall be made void with David My servant (Jer. 33:20-21, 25).

Jesus said, I must work the works of God while it is day; the night cometh when no one can work (John 9:4).

In this night there shall be two men on one bed; one shall be taken, but the other shall be left (Luke 17:34).

In these passages, the Consummation of the Age and the Coming of the Lord are treated of. Hence it may be evident what is meant by there being

Time no longer (Rev. 10:6),

namely, that there would be no morning, day, or evening in the Church, but night; likewise what is meant by

Time, times, and half a time (Rev. 12:14; Dan. 12:7); as also what is meant by the

Fulness of time (Ephes. 1:10; Gal. 4:4).

Footnotes:

Like so many common verbs, the meaning of "know" in the Bible is varied and dependent on context. And in some cases -- when it is connected to ideas or objects -- its spiritual meaning and natural meaning are essentially the same. When the Bible talks about people knowing each other and especially when it talks about the Lord knowing people, the meaning has more to do with the states of love within people than it does with any factual knowledge. This makes sense if you think about it. When we really "know" somebody, what we mean is that we know what kind of person they are, what their motivations are, what they love, what they hate, what makes them tick. Those things are far more important than knowing their parents' names, where they were born or what year they graduated from school. Most often then, especially applied to people, "knowing" has to do with the perceptions we have about other people's loves and the conjunction that can exist between those with similar loves, not just a collection of facts.