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:

5554. Very many communities exist which constitute the outer coverings of the body, all differing from one another from the face down to the soles of the feet; for differences exist wherever you choose to look. I have had many conversations with these communities. So far as their spiritual life was concerned they were the kind of people who had allowed themselves to be convinced by others that this or that was the truth; and once they had heard proofs drawn from the sense of the letter of the Word they fully believed it and stuck firmly to the opinion they had received. They also based the life they led, though this was not an evil one, on the same convictions. But other spirits who do not possess a similar frame of mind to theirs find it difficult to have any dealings with them because of their rigid adherence to the ideas they have accepted and because of their refusal to be led away from these by reasonable thinking. Very many spirits like that come from this 'planet, for our own globe is taken up with things of an external nature and responds to internal ones in the way that the skin usually does.