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.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Explained #649

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649. And when they shall have finished their testimony.- That this signifies in the end of the church, when the Divine of the Lord is no longer acknowledged, and thence when there is no longer the good of love and the truth of doctrine, is evident from the signification of testimony, as denoting the acknowledgment of the Divine in the Lord, and thence the good of love and truth of doctrine, of which we shall speak presently; and from the signification of finishing, as denoting to end; and because this ending takes place in the end of the church, therefore the end of the church is here signified by finishing. And because there is then no longer any acknowledgment of the Divine in the Lord, therefore there is not any good of love and truth of doctrine.

[2] That this is signified by testimony, is evident from what has been thus far said concerning the two witnesses, namely, that by them is meant the good of love and of charity and the truth of doctrine and of faith, because these principally bear witness concerning the Lord, for they are from Him, and are of Him with man, therefore their testimony signifies preaching concerning them. That the acknowledgment of the Divine in the Lord is here signified by testimony, is evident from the statement in the Apocalypse:

"That the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (19:10).

For unless man acknowledges this from the heart, and believes it from spiritual faith, he cannot be in any power of receiving the good of love and the truth of doctrine.

[3] At the end of the church the Lord is, indeed, preached, and also, from doctrine, a Divine similar to the Divine of the Father is attributed to Him; but nevertheless scarcely any one thinks of His Divine, because it is placed above or outside of His Human, therefore when they look to His Divine they do not look to the Lord, but to the Father as to another, when yet the Divine, which is called the Father, is in the Lord, as He Himself teaches in John (10:30, 38; 14:7). Hence it is that man does not think of the Lord otherwise than as of an ordinary man, and his faith flows from that thought, although he may say with his lips that he believes in His Divine. Let any one examine, if he can, the idea of his thought concerning the Lord, whether it be not of this character, and if this is the case, he cannot be conjoined to Him in faith and love, nor by conjunction receive any good of love and truth of faith. It is for these reasons that at the end of the church there is not any acknowledgment of the Lord, that is, of the Divine in the Lord and from the Lord. There is a kind of belief as though the Divine of the Lord were acknowledged, because it is affirmed in the doctrine of the church. But when the Divine is separated from His Human, so far His Divine is not acknowledged inwardly, but only outwardly, and to acknowledge it outwardly is to acknowledge it with the mouth only and not in the heart, or in speech only and not in faith.

[4] That this is so is evident from the case of Christians in the other life, where the thoughts of the heart are made manifest. When they are permitted to speak from doctrine, and from what they have heard from preaching, then they attribute a Divine to the Lord, and call it their faith; but when their interior thought and faith are examined, then [it is found] that they have no other idea concerning the Lord than as it were of an ordinary man in whom there is nothing Divine. The interior thought of man is the ground of his faith, and because such is the thought and thence the faith of his spirit, it is evident that there is not any acknowledgment of the Divine in the Lord and from the Lord in the Christian world at the end of the church. In a word, there is, indeed, an external, but no internal acknowledgment of the Divine of the Lord; and external acknowledgment belongs to the natural man alone, but internal acknowledgment belongs to his spirit itself; and the external is laid asleep after death, and the internal belongs to his spirit. From these considerations it may in some degree be evident what is meant by the beast coming up out of the abyss shall overcome and kill the two witnesses, and by their bodies being seen on the street of the city which is called Sodom and Egypt, and by the spirit of life afterwards entering into them.

  
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Translation by Isaiah Tansley. Many thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

The Bible

 

Genesis 2:3

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3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.