Arcana Coelestia #18
18. 'The face 1 of the deep' is that person's desires and resulting falsities, of which he consists and in which he is completely absorbed; and because he has no light at all he is like the deep, or something thoroughly obscure. Throughout the Word such people are also called 'the deep' and 'the depths of the sea' which are dried up or laid waste until a person's regeneration starts, as in Isaiah,
Awake as in the days of antiquity, the generations of long ago. Was it not You that did dry up the sea, the waters of the great deep; making the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to go across? Let the ransomed of Jehovah return. Isaiah 51:9-11.
Furthermore, when looked at from heaven, this kind of person resembles a darkened mass with no life to it. The same expressions embody within them in general the vastation in man, described many times by the Prophets, which precedes regeneration. For before a person can know what truth is, or be moved by good, the things that hinder and offer resistance must be removed. Thus the old man must die before the new one can be conceived.
Footnotes:
1. literally, the faces
John 19:14-22
14
Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, at about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, "Behold, your King!"
15
They cried out, "Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar!"
16
So then he delivered him to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led him away.
17
He went out, bearing his cross, to the place called "The Place of a Skull," which is called in Hebrew, "Golgotha,"
18
where they crucified him, and with him two others, on either side one, and Jesus in the middle.
19
Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross. There was written, "JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS."
20
Therefore many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.
21
The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate, "Don't write, 'The King of the Jews,' but, 'he said, I am King of the Jews.'"
