39. Verse 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things, living creatures; and let birds fly above the earth, upon the face ¹ of the expanse of the heavens.

After the great lights have been kindled and lodged in the internal man, from which the external man receives its light, a person starts to live for the first time. Till then he can hardly be said to have lived, for he had imagined that the good he had done he had done from himself, and the truth he had uttered he had spoken from himself. And since man functioning from himself is dead - there being nothing in him that is not evil and false - therefore whatever he brings forth from himself is not living. So true is this that of himself he is incapable of doing any good deed that is in itself good. The fact that man cannot begin to think about good or to will it, and so cannot do good, unless the Lord is the source, is clear to everyone from the doctrine of faith, for the Lord says in Matthew,

He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. Matthew 13:37.

Nor can good come from anywhere else than the one fount itself of all good, as yet again He says,

Nobody is good but one, God. Luke 18:19.

[2] Nevertheless when the Lord is revitalizing a person, or regenerating him, He does allow him, to begin with, to imagine that good and truth originate in himself, for at that point a person cannot grasp anything else, or be led to believe and finally perceive, that all good and truth come from the Lord alone. As long as he held the former opinion his truths and goods were comparable to 'a tender plant', then 'a plant bearing seed', and after that 'a fruit tree', which are inanimate. But once he has been brought to life by love and faith and believes that the Lord is at work in every good deed he does and in every truth he utters, he is compared first to creeping things from the water and to birds which fly above the earth, and then to beasts, all of which are animate and are called 'living creatures'.

Footnotes:

5530. 'That behold, each man's bundle of silver' means truths in ordered groups freely given. This is clear from the meaning of 'bundle' as an ordered group, dealt with below; and from the meaning of 'silver' as truth, dealt with in 1551, 2954 - 'each man's in his sack' meaning that the ordered groups were freely given. The reason why 'bundle' means an ordered group is that the truths present with a person are arranged and ordered into sequences. The truths most in harmony with his loves lie in the middle; ones less in harmony with his loves lie immediately around those in the middle, while truths that are not at all in harmony with his loves lie pushed back to the peripheries. And lying outside that whole sequence are those which are contrary to his loves. The truths in the middle are therefore called kindred ones since love is the creator of kinship; those that are more remote are called associated ones, extending to and ending with associates that are on the fringes. All the truths present with a person are arranged into sequences like this and are meant by 'bundles'.

[2] From this one may see quite clearly what the situation is with those governed by self-love and love of the world and what it is with those governed by love to God and towards their neighbour. With people governed by self-love and love of the world the kinds of truths that lend support to these loves are in the middle, while those giving them little support are on the peripheries, and those contrary to them, such as truths to do with loving God and loving their neighbour, are cast to the outside. Such is the state of those in hell. This also explains why sometimes a band of light is seen around them; but inside this band where they themselves are, there exists a dark, gruesome, and horrible centre. With angels however there is a radiance at the centre, fuelled by the good of celestial and spiritual love, with a band of light or shining whiteness clothing it round about. Those who appear like this are likenesses of the Lord, for when He Himself revealed His Divinity to Peter, James, and John, He shone with His face like the sun, and His garments became like the light, Matthew 17:2. The fact that angels, who are likenesses of Him, are seen in a radiance with a surrounding whiteness is evident from the angel who came down from heaven and rolled the stone away from the door of the tomb,

His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. Matthew 28:3.