30. Verses 14-17 And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to make a distinction between the day and the night; and they will be for signs, and for set times, and for days and years. And they will be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to have dominion over the day, and the lesser light to have dominion over the night; and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.

No one can have an adequate understanding of what 'the great lights' are unless he knows what the underlying essence of faith is and how it develops in people who are being created anew. The very essence and life of faith is the Lord alone. In fact it is impossible for anyone who does not believe in the Lord to have life, as He Himself has said in John,

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God will rest upon him. John 3:36.

[2] With people who are being created anew faith develops as follows: First of all they have no life, for life does not exist in anything evil and false but in what is good and true. Then they start to receive life from the Lord by means of faith - first by faith existing in the memory, which is factual faith, then by faith existing in the understanding, which is conceptual faith, and after this by faith existing in the heart, which is loving or saving faith. Factual faith and conceptual faith are represented in verses 3-13 by the inanimate, but faith made alive by means of love is represented in verses 20-25 by the animate. Consequently this is the first point at which love and faith deriving from it, which are called 'lights', are dealt with. Love is 'the greater light which has dominion over the day', and faith deriving from love is 'the lesser light which has dominion over the night'. And because they ought to make one the verb in the phrase 'let there be lights 'is singular and not plural.

[3] Love and faith have their place in the internal man as warmth and light do in the external, bodily man, and for this reason love and faith are represented by warmth and light. Therefore it is said that 'the lights' were set in the expanse of the heavens, that is, in the internal man - the greater light in his will and the lesser in his understanding. Yet they make their appearances in the will and understanding only as sunlight does in the objects it strikes. To the Lord alone belongs the mercy which moves the will with love and the understanding with truth or faith.

3548. 'He went to his father, and said, My father. And he said, Behold, here I am; who are you, my son?' means a state of perception resulting from the presence of that truth. This becomes clear from the representation of Isaac, to whom 'father' refers here, and from the representation of Jacob, to whom 'son' refers, dealt with several times already; and also from the meaning of 'saying' as perceiving, also dealt with already. From these and all the other expressions used it is evident that it is a state of perception resulting from the presence of the truth represented by 'Jacob'. But the nature of this truth represented at this point by Jacob is evident from the internal sense of what comes before and after - that in outward form it is like the good and the truth acquired from good which are represented by 'Esau' and meant by his venison, but it is not so in inward form. With one who is being regenerated, that is, prior to his having been regenerated, the truth of the natural presents this outward appearance. Not indeed that the person himself sees it, for he is quite unaware of the presence of good and truth with him while he is being regenerated; but the eyes of angels who see such things in the light of heaven do behold it. Man is not even aware of what the good and the truth of the natural are, and being unaware of what they are he cannot perceive them. And because he does not perceive them in general nor is able to perceive them in particular, he does not perceive their differences, let alone their changes of state. Not perceiving these he is scarcely able to grasp from any description of them what this good and its truth are like. But as they are the subject in this chapter, an explanation is going to be given, so far as this can be made intelligible.