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

 

Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture #14

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14. Where the Lord speaks with His disciples about the end of the age, which is the final period of the church, at the end of His predictions concerning its successive changes in state, He says:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn; and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send out His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31)

[2] This, in the spiritual sense, does not mean that the sun and moon will be darkened, that the stars will fall from heaven, and that a sign of the Lord will appear in the sky. Nor does it mean that people will see Him on the clouds, or at the same time angels with trumpets. Rather each of these predictions has some spiritual meaning having to do with the church, regarding whose state at its end these predictions were made.

Indeed, in the spiritual sense the sun that will be darkened means the Lord in relation to love. The moon that will not give its light means the Lord in relation to faith. The stars that will fall from heaven mean concepts of goodness and truth that will perish. The sign of the Son of man in heaven means an appearance of Divine truth. The tribes of the earth that will mourn mean an absence of any truth as a matter of faith, and of any goodness as a matter of love. The coming of the Son of man on the clouds of heaven with power and glory means the Lord’s presence in the Word and a revelation of Him. The clouds symbolize the Word’s literal sense, and glory the Word’s spiritual sense. The angels with a great sound of a trumpet symbolize heaven and Divine truth coming from it. Gathering the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, symbolizes a renewal of the church as regards love and faith.

[3] That this prediction does not mean a darkening of the sun and moon and a falling of the stars to earth is quite clear from the Prophets, in which similar predictions occur regarding the state of the church when the Lord would come into the world. As in Isaiah:

Behold, the day of Jehovah is coming, cruel..., one of wrathful anger.... ...the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its rising, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. I will visit upon the world its malice.... (Isaiah 13:9-11, cf. 24:21, 23)

In Joel:

(Behold, ) the day of Jehovah is coming..., a day of gloom and pitch darkness.... The sun and moon will darken, and the stars diminish their brightness. (Joel 2:1-2, 10, cf. 2:31, 3:15)

In Ezekiel:

...I will cover the heavens and darken the stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. All the shining lights of the heavens I will darken..., and bring darkness upon (the) land.... (Ezekiel 32:7-8)

The day of Jehovah means the Lord’s advent, which occurred when there was no longer any goodness and truth left in the church, and no knowledge of the Lord.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #278

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278. The inflow of life into human beings in particular. There is only one source of life; from it comes the life found in everyone in heaven and everyone in the world: 1954, 2021, 2536, 2658, 2886-2889, 3001, 3484, 3742, 5847, 6467. That life comes from the Lord alone: 2886-2889, 3344, 3484, 4319, 4320, 4524, 4882, 5986, 6325, 6468, 6469, 6470, 9276, 10196 (which include various illustrations). The Lord is life itself: see John 1:1, 4; 5:26; 14:6. Life flows from the Lord into angels, spirits, and people in this world in a wondrous way: 2886-2889, 3337, 3338, 3484, 3742. The Lord flows in because of his divine love, the nature of which is to want what belongs to it to belong to others: 3742, 4320. All love is like that, so divine love is infinitely that way: 1820, 1865, 2253, 6872. As a result, our life seems to be within us and does not seem to be flowing in: 3742, 4320. Another reason our life seems to be within us is that the principal cause, which is life from the Lord, and the instrumental cause, which is we ourselves as a recipient form, act as a single cause and therefore we as the instrument perceive life as our own 1 : 6325. The pinnacle of angels' wisdom and intelligence is to perceive and know that every bit of life comes from the Lord: 4318. I perceived a joy that angels were experiencing as a result of leading a life that comes from the Lord and not from themselves; things they said to me confirmed my perception: 6469. Evil people are unwilling to be persuaded that their life is flowing in: 3743. Doubts that our life flows in from the Lord cannot be removed as long as we are controlled by illusions, ignorance, and negativity: 6479. As all people in the church should know, everything good and true comes from heaven (that is, through heaven from the Lord) and everything evil and false comes from hell; in fact, every bit of life goes back to either goodness and truth or evil and falsity, and apart from these there can be no life at all: 2893, 4151. This is the clear message of the teachings of the church that have been drawn from the Word: 4249. Yet in spite of all this, people do not believe that life flows in: 4249. In reality, if our communication and connection with spirits and angels were taken away, we would die instantly: 2887. This also shows us that all life flows in from the primary reality underlying life. Nothing arises from itself; things arise only from other things that are prior (which means that absolutely everything arises from the primary underlying reality), and in all cases things maintain their existence in the same way that they arose, because continuing existence is constant coming into being: 4523, 4524. Angels, spirits, and people in this world have been created to receive life, so we are all simply forms that are receptive to life: 2021, 3001, 3318, 3344, 3484, 3742, 4151, 5114, 5986. The kind of forms we are depends on our receptivity: 2888, 3001, 3484, 5847, 5986, 6467, 6472. So the basic nature of people in this world, spirits, and angels depends on the basic nature of their forms for receiving life from the Lord: 2888, 5847, 5986, 6467, 6472. We have been created in such a way that in the inmost parts of ourselves, and therefore in other parts as well, we are capable of receiving what is divine and being raised up and joined to the Divine through the good things we love to do and the truths we believe; and therefore we, unlike animals, live forever: 5114.

[2] Life from the Lord also flows into evil people, so it flows into people in hell as well: 2706, 3743, 4417. However, they turn what is good into evil and what is true into falsity; so they turn life into spiritual death, since our nature is what determines how we accept the life that is flowing in: 4319, 4320, 4417. Goodness and truth are still constantly flowing into them from the Lord, but they reject or stifle or pervert them: 3743. The life that is in people who are devoted to evil and falsity is not genuine life; what the life they have is like: 726, 4623, 10284, 10286.

Footnotes:

1. In the usage of Scholastic philosophers, a principal cause is “a cause which works by the power of its own form and makes the effect in some way like itself”; an instrumental cause is “an instrument or tool serving as a subordinate cause; a cause without initiative in the start of action, but applied and directed as a help to its efforts and purpose by a principal agent, and influencing the product chiefly according to the form and intention of the principal” (Wuellner 1956, 19; compare the discussion by the Catholic theologian Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae 3:62:1 [= Aquinas 2012, 20:22]). Swedenborg’s point is that human beings, though merely instruments of life, experience divine life (the principal cause) as inhering in themselves. He uses this terminology of principal and instrumental cause in other contexts; for example, in Secrets of Heaven 10738[4] he refers to the body as the instrumental cause and to the will as the principal. He emphasizes the apparent but misleading unity of principal and instrumental in other passages as well; see, for example, Secrets of Heaven 2021; Soul-Body Interaction 11[2]; True Christianity 473. [SS]

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.