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.

Commentary

 

Resurrection, the first

  

'The first resurrection,' mentioned in Revelation 20:5, 6, does not mean a first resurrection, but the essence and primary part of resurrection, which is salvation and eternal life. There is only one resurrection to life. A second does not happen, and is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 6; Apocalypse Revealed 851; Revelation 20:5-6)

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #4652

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4652. CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE GRAND MAN, WHICH IS HEAVEN - continued

IN THIS SECTION THE CORRESPONDENCE OF HEARING AND OF THE EARS WITH HEAVEN

The nature of the correspondence that exists between the soul and the body - that is, between the things constituting a person's inward spirit and those constituting his outward body - may be clearly recognized from the correspondence, influx, and communication of thought and discernment, which are functions of the spirit, with speech and hearing, which are functions of the body. When a person is speaking, his thought is nothing else than the power of speech which his spirit possesses, while his discernment of speech is nothing else than the power of hearing which his spirit possesses. When a person speaks, his thought does not, it is true, present itself to him as speech because it links itself to and is present within the power of speech that his body possesses. And when he hears something his discernment of it seems to him to be simply a hearing within his ear. For this reason the majority of people who have not stopped to reflect on the matter do not know that all five senses are located somewhere else than within organs belonging to the body; so they think that when these organs cease to function through death no sensory perception remains, when in actual fact a person, that is, his spirit, then passes into a life of perfect sensory perception.

[2] The fact that it is the spirit which has the powers of speech and hearing has become quite clear to me from my conversations with spirits. Their speech was communicated to my spirit; it entered my own interior power of speech, and from there into the organs corresponding to it. What they communicated ended as an endeavour in me, which I have perceived clearly on several occasions. Consequently I have heard what they said in tones as clear as anything spoken by someone on earth. Sometimes spirits have spoken to me while I was among a group of people, and some of those spirits have imagined that, because I could hear so clearly what they - the spirits - said, those people present with me could hear them too. But I have told them that their speech was flowing into my ear by the internal route, whereas human speech comes in by the external route. From this one may see how a spirit spoke to one of the prophets - not as a man speaks to another man but as a spirit speaks to a man, that is to say, within him - as in Zechariah 1:9, 13, 19; 2:3; 4:1, 4-5; 5:5, 10; 6:4; and elsewhere. But I realize that these matters are unintelligible to people who do not believe that man is a spirit, the body serving him solely for functions to be performed in the world. Those who have become quite convinced that man is not a spirit refuse even to listen to talk about any kind of correspondence; and if they do listen they reject what they hear because they have a negative attitude Indeed they are unhappy if anything is said not to belong to the body.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.