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:

4015. 'And he stripped white strips on them - an exposing of the white which was on the rods' means an ordering effected by the interior power of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'stripping' and of 'strips' as peelings away of the exterior parts so that the interior may be laid bare, and so as exposings; from the meaning of 'while' as truth, dealt with above in 3993, 4007; and from the meaning of 'a rod' as power, dealt with just above in 4013, in this case an interior power because the surface of the rods beneath their outer covering is meant. By an ordering effected by the interior power of truth is meant the power of the interior man acting on the exterior man, that is, of the spiritual man acting on the natural man. For all ordering of good and truth within the natural man comes from the spiritual man, that is, it comes from the Lord by way of the spiritual man - by way of the truth there. For the Lord flows into the good of the spiritual or interior man; and through the truth there He flows into the natural man. But He does not flow in directly by way of good into the natural until the person has been regenerated. All ordering within the natural man therefore is effected by the interior man. The natural - that is, the natural man - cannot possibly be ordered, that is, regenerated, in any other way.

[2] The fact that this ordering is effected by the interior man is evident from a person's acknowledgement of truth. Unless this acknowledgement is made by the interior man it is not acknowledgement; nor is it so unless it is made by conscience too, which is the acknowledgement by the interior man, and also by perception. Because the ordering by the interior man is effected by means of truth, power is therefore attributed to truth, as it is also to a rod, by which power is meant, as well as to the hand, by which likewise power is meant, 3091, as may be substantiated from very many places in the Word. Not that the power which truth possesses is from that truth but from good; and so it is truth empowered by good, that is, by the Lord through good. This shows to some extent what is meant by an ordering effected by the interior power of truth. In the highest sense, where the Lord is the subject, His own power is meant, for the power which the Divine has is His own power since it does not come from another.