The Bible

 

Genesis 1

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1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first Day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

The Bible

 

Genesis 9:6

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6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #339

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339. 6. If a Christian takes more than one wife, he commits not only natural adultery but spiritual adultery as well. The point that a Christian who takes more than one wife commits natural adultery, is according to the Lord's words, namely, that it is not lawful for a man to divorce his wife, because they were created from the beginning to be one flesh, and that whoever divorces his wife without just cause and marries another, commits adultery (Matthew 19:3-11). Still more, then, is this true of one who does not divorce his wife but keeps her and marries another in addition.

The law thus given by the Lord with respect to marriages takes its deeper rationale from spiritual marriage; for whatever the Lord enunciated was in essence spiritual. This is what is meant by His saying:

The words that I speak to you are spirit and are life. (John 6:63)

The spiritual content in the present instance is that polygamous marriage in the Christian world profanes the marriage of the Lord and the church, likewise the marriage between goodness and truth, and moreover the Word, and together with the Word, the church. And profanation of these is spiritual adultery. (To see that profanation of the goodness and truth of the church by abuse of the Word has a correspondence with adultery and so is spiritual adultery, and that falsification of goodness and truth is connected similarly, though in a lesser degree, consult what we demonstrated in The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 134.)

[2] Polygamous marriages in the case of Christians would profane the marriage of the Lord and the church, because there is a correspondence between that Divine marriage and the marriages of Christians (on which subject see nos. 116-131 above 1 ). This correspondence is entirely lost if one wife is taken in addition to another, and when it is lost the married person is no longer a Christian.

Polygamous marriages in the case of Christians would profane the marriage between goodness and truth, because that spiritual marriage is the origin from which marriages on earth spring; and the marriages of Christians differ from the marriages of other peoples in this, that as good loves truth and truth loves good so as to be one, so husband and wife love each other and are one. Consequently, if a Christian were to add one wife to another, he would sunder that spiritual marriage in him; thus he would profane the origin of his marriage and so commit spiritual adultery. (On the point that marriages on earth spring from the marriage between goodness and truth, see nos. 83-102 above 2 .)

A Christian by polygamous marriage would profane the Word and the church, because viewed in itself the Word is a marriage of goodness and truth, and the Church similarly, insofar as it derives from the Word (see above, nos. 128-131).

[3] Now, since a Christian person who knows the Lord is in possession of the Word and has the church from the Lord through the Word, it is apparent that he has a capability and potential beyond that of a non-Christian for being regenerated and thus becoming spiritual, and also for attaining truly conjugial love, inasmuch as the two go together.

Since those Christians who take more than one wife commit not only natural adultery but at the same time spiritual adultery as well, it follows that the damnation of Christian polygamists after death is more severe than the damnation of those who commit only natural adultery. In response to my asking about their condition after death, I received the reply that heaven was totally closed to them, and that they appear in hell as though lying in a tub of warm bathwater. So they appear from a distance, even when standing on their feet and walking. This circumstance befalls them a result of their internal madness, I was told; and some of them are cast into chasms that are located at the boundaries of their worlds. 3

Footnotes:

1. I.e., "The Marriage of the Lord and the Church and Correspondence to It."

2. I.e., "The Origin of Conjugial Love from the Marriage between Good and Truth."

3. Cf. no. 79[11].

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.