29. Verses 11-12 And God said, Let the earth cause tender plants to spring up, seed-bearing plants, fruit trees bearing fruit, each according to its kind, in which is its seed, upon the earth; and it was so. And the earth brought forth tender herbs, seed-bearing plants, each according to its kind, and trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, each according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Once the earth or the individual has been made ready in such a way that he can receive from the Lord heavenly seeds and produce some measure of good and truth, the Lord first of all causes something tender to spring up, which is: called 'a tender plant', then something more useful which reproduces itself and is called 'a seed-bearing plant', and finally something good which bears fruit and is called 'a tree bearing fruit' in which is its seed, 'each one according to its kind'. The person who is being regenerated is at first such as imagines that any good he does comes from himself, and that any truth he utters comes from himself; but the fact of the matter is that all good and all truth come from the Lord. Consequently anyone who imagines that these originate in himself does not as yet have the life that belongs to true faith, though he is able to receive it later on. Indeed he is not yet able to believe that they come from the Lord because his state is one of preparation for receiving the life inherent in faith. That state is represented in these verses by plant life, the subsequent state, when the life inherent in faith is present, by living creatures.

[2] The Lord Himself saw fit to tell us that He is 'the sower', that 'the seed' is His Word, and that 'the earth' is man, Matthew 13:19-24, 37-39; Mark 4:14-21; Luke 8:11-16. He describes the matter again in a similar way,

The kingdom of God is like a man casting seed into the ground, and sleeping and rising night and day, and the seed sprouts and springs up, he knows not how; for the earth bears fruit of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Mark 4:26-28.

In the universal sense, 'the kingdom of God' is used to mean the whole of heaven, in the less universal sense the Lord's true Church, and in particular every individual who has true faith, that is, who has been regenerated by means of the life that inheres in faith. For that reason the individual is also called 'heaven', for heaven is within him, and 'the kingdom of God', since that too is within him. This the Lord Himself teaches through Luke,

Jesus was asked by the Pharisees, When is the kingdom of God coming? He answered them and said, The kingdom of God is not coming with observation, nor will people say, Behold, here it is! or, Behold, there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:20-21.

This is the third stage of a person's regeneration, a state when he is repentant. It is like passing from shadow into the light, or from evening to morning, and this is why it is said in Verse 13, And there was evening, and there was morning, a third day.

Doctrine may be defined as organized truth that informs the way we act and think about the world.

In common usage, "doctrine" is not something that has to be grand or solemn. We all have doctrines about many little things like lawn care, car maintenance, or fixing chili; this kind of doctrine is just the way we do something because we think it is the right way. Often the reasoning behind these doctrines is that it is the way our parents did it, that we read it somewhere, or that it just seems right.

Everyone has a doctrine about how they live their lives in general as well, such as a charitable doctrine of looking out for others, or a selfish doctrine of "me first." Whether or not we have given it much thought, we live in accordance with our doctrine - our way of thinking.

Swedenborg used "doctrine" quite specifically to mean the organized arrangement of spiritual teachings about various aspects of reality. All religions have sacred beliefs, some of them written, like the Bible or the Quran, and some of them oral. From these beliefs they establish doctrine. In many cases organizations of the same religion will emphasize or reject different sets of truths and develop different forms of doctrine. Moreover, different religions will disagree about the validity of the original beliefs. But most would agree that the Truth, with a capital T, comes from some version of God.

The Writings for the New Church tell us that, in the Bible, cities represent doctrine. This was because cities were organized habitations, home ground to many people, places where there was much interchange of ideas and goods between people. They were places that could accommodate differing neighborhoods, and that could be fortified. On a spiritual plane all these things can be said about doctrine. It’s interesting to notice just how often cities are mentioned in the Word, either to be conquered, lived in, or built. Mention of a city comes as early as Genesis 4:17, just after the expulsion from the garden of Eden, where we are told that Cain built a city in the land of Nod and named it after his son, Enoch. Then in Genesis 11, men are not only building the well-known tower of Babel, but also a city of which the tower was a part. There are hundreds of other cities mentioned, and they signify different structures of doctrine.

Finally, in the next to last chapter of the Word (Revelation 20) we are told of the descent from God of the City New Jerusalem, coming down to earth. We in the New Church believe that this City represents a new doctrine, given by the Lord, written down and published by Emanuel Swedenborg in the 1700s, that resolves the false ideas that came into Christianity with the ideas of three persons in God, and with the later belief in salvation by faith alone.

New Christian doctrine holds that there is one God - one Divine Person who is the Lord God Jesus Christ, and that salvation requires a joining of faith and charity (a belief in true ideas, and a love for God and the neighbor).

(References: Apocalypse Revealed 320, 902; Arcana Coelestia 399, 402, 3364 [2]; Teachings about the Sacred Scripture 54; The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord 63; The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 7; True Christian Religion 508 [5])