24. Verse 6 And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let there be a distinguishing of the waters from the waters.

After the Spirit of God, which is the Lord's mercy, has brought out into the daylight cognitions of truth and good, and has shed the light of dawn to reveal that the Lord does exist, and that He is good itself and truth itself, and that no good or truth exists except from the Lord, a distinction is at that point made between the internal man and the external man, and so between cognitions which reside with the internal man and the facts which belong to the external man. The internal man is called 'an expanse, and the cognitions residing with the internal man are called 'the waters above the expanse', while the facts belonging to the external man are called 'the waters below the expanse'.

[2] Until his regeneration starts a person is not aware of even the existence of the internal man, let alone the identity of the internal man. Submerged in bodily and worldly concerns he imagines there is no difference between the two. Furthermore he has submerged in those same concerns the things that belong to the internal man and has made one thorough obscurity out of things that are distinct and separate. For this reason it is first said, 'Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters', and then, 'Let there be a distinguishing of the waters from the waters', and not a distinguishing of the waters. But this is followed immediately by the statement, Verses 7-8, And God made the expanse and He made a distinction between the waters that were under the expanse and the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven.

[3] The second thing therefore that a person notices when being regenerated is that he is starting to become aware of the existence of the internal man, or that what reside in the internal man are goods and truths which are the Lord's alone. And since the external man during regeneration is such as still imagines that he is the source of the good deeds he performs, or of the truth he utters, and since such a person, by means of them, is led by the Lord to do good and to speak truth as if they were his own, therefore the identification of those under the expanse comes first, and the identification of those above the expanse follows. It is also a heavenly arcanum that the Lord uses those things that are man's own - both his illusions of the senses and his desires - to lead and direct him towards the things that are goods and truths. Every single movement of regeneration is accordingly a progression from evening to morning - from external man to internal, that is, from earth to heaven. This is why the expanse, or internal man, is now called 'heaven'.

2516. 'Behold, you will die because of the woman' means that the doctrine of faith would be ruined if the rational were consulted as regards the contents of that doctrine. This is clear from the meaning of Abimelech, to whom 'you' refers here, as the doctrine of faith; from the meaning of 'dying' as being brought to ruin; and from the meaning of 'a sister', called 'the woman' here, as the rational, dealt with in 2508. Consequently the statement that Abimelech would die because of the woman means that the doctrine of faith would be brought to ruin if the rational were consulted.

[2] The reason no doctrine of faith from the rational exists is that the rational is immersed in the appearances of good and truth, and such appearances are not truths in themselves, as shown already in 2053, 2196, 2203, 2209. What is more, the rational bases itself on illusions, which are the product of external sensory impressions confirmed by facts which introduce haziness into those appearances of truth. The rational for the most part is merely human, as also becomes clear from its birth. This then is why nothing of the doctrine of faith can even be started, let alone be built up from it. Such doctrine must stem from the Lord's Divine itself and His Divine Human. This is the origin of it, so much so indeed that the Lord is doctrine itself. It is for this reason also that in the Word He is called the Word, the truth, the light, the way, and the door. Furthermore - and this is an arcanum - all doctrine is derived from Divine Good and Divine Truth and possesses the heavenly marriage within it. Doctrine which does not possess this within it is not the genuine doctrine of faith. Consequently every detail of the Word, the source of doctrine, holds the image of a marriage within it, see 683, 793, 801.

[3] It does indeed seem in the literal or external sense of the Word as though the doctrine of faith possessed much from the rational and indeed from the natural. But the reason for this is that the Word exists for the sake of man, for whom it has been adapted in this way. Nevertheless in itself the Word is spiritual from a celestial origin, that is, it is derived from Divine Truth joined to Divine Good. The fact that doctrine would be brought to ruin if the rational were consulted as regards the contents of that doctrine will be illustrated by examples in what follows.