16. Verse 1. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The most ancient times of all are called 'the beginning', and are throughout the Prophets referred to as 'days of antiquity' and also 'days of eternity'. 'The beginning' also embodies within it that first Period when a person is being regenerated, for at that time he is being born anew and receiving life. Regeneration itself is therefore called a new creation of man. Almost everywhere in the prophetical sections 'to create', 'to form', and 'to make' mean to regenerate, though each of these verbs has a different shade of meaning, as in Isaiah,

Every one who is called by My name - I have created him for My glory, I have formed him, I have also made him. Isaiah 43:7

This is why the Lord is called Redeemer, One who forms from the womb, Maker, and also Creator, as in the same prophet,

I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. Isaiah 43:15.

In David,

A people to be created will praise Jah. Psalms 102:18.

In the same author,

You send forth Your Spirit; they are created; and You renewest the face ¹ of the ground. Psalms 104:30.

'Heaven' means the internal man, and 'earth' the external man prior to regeneration. This will be seen further on.

Footnotes:

1712. That 'he divided himself against them by night' means the shade which the apparent goods and truths were in is clear from the meaning of 'night' as a state of shade. It is called a state of shade when a person does not know whether good and truth are apparent or genuine. While a person is limited to apparent good and truth he imagines that these are genuine good and truth. It is the evil and falsity present in apparent good and truth that produce the shade and cause them to be seen as genuine. What else can people who are in ignorance know than that the good they do is their own, and that the truth they think is their own? The same applies to people who ascribe the good deeds they do to themselves and place merit in them, unaware of the fact that in this case those deeds are not good though they appear to be so, and that the proprium and the self-merit they place in them are evils and falsities that cause obscurity and darkness. And the same applies in many other instances.

[2] What evil and falsity are like, and how much evil and falsity lie concealed in such deeds, cannot possibly be seen so clearly in the life of the body as in the next life, where these are presented to view altogether as in broad daylight. But it is different if a person acts out of ignorance that has not been confirmed, for in that case those evils and falsities are easily dispersed. But if people confirm themselves in the notion that they are able to do good and to withstand evil by their own powers, and that thus they merit salvation, such a notion remains attached, and causes the good to be evil, and the truth to be falsity. Yet for all this, order requires that a person should do good as though from himself, and ought not therefore to stay his hand and think to himself, 'If I am unable to do anything good at all from myself I must wait for immediate influx' and so remain inactive. This is also contrary to order. Man ought to do good as though from himself; but when he stops to reflect on the good he is doing or has done, let him think, acknowledge, and believe that the Lord present with him has accomplished it.

[3] If by thinking as described he gives up acting as of himself he is not a subject into whom the Lord can operate. The Lord cannot flow into anyone who deprives himself of everything into which power has to be introduced. He is like someone who is not willing to learn anything except through a revelation made to him; or like someone who is not willing to teach anything unless the words are put into his mouth; or like someone who is unwilling to attempt anything unless he is directed as one without a will. But if this were done he would be more indignant still at being like an inanimate object. In fact however that which is animated by the Lord in a person is the very thing which makes it seem as though it were from himself. That man does not live from himself is an eternal truth; yet if he did not appear to do so he could not possibly live at all.