The Bible

 

Genesis 1:23

Study

       

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Commentary

 

One

  

A company might have executives setting policy and strategy, engineers designing products, managers handling personnel and others handling various functions. They all do different things -- but if they're doing them with a shared underlying purpose, the company -- and the individuals in it -- will likely be successful. The Lord wants all human society to function in a similar way. We have different skills and individual loves, but if we all share a mutual love -- a love of serving others -- then society will function as one, will be a reflection of heaven and will be a good receptacle for the Lord's love. This can also happen within each of us, as we unify our talents and ideas around a central love. And in an abstract sense, it illustrates how a wide collection of varying ideas can be unified around a shared good intention. That is the kind of love pictured when “one” is used in the Bible, either as a specific number or in the sense of several people or objects “being one.” In more casual references -- when used to identify a specific person or object -- the meaning is relatively literal, and is connected to that person or object.

Commentary

 

Heaven and earth

  

'Heaven and earth' signify all the inner parts of the church, and 'sea and dry land' signify all its outer parts, as mentioned in Haggai 2:6. 'Heaven and earth' signify, in general, the internal and external church. In particular, they signify the internal and external, or the spiritual and the natural parts of a person.

In Psalm 89:13, they signify the higher and lower heavens, and also the internal and external church.

'Heaven and earth being finished, and all the host of them,' as mentioned in Genesis 2:1, signifies that mankind had been made spiritual.

'In heaven, on earth, and under the earth,' as mentioned in Revelation 5:3, signify the three heavens in orderly succession, from the highest to the lowest.

'Heaven and earth' in scripture signify the heaven and earth which angels and spirits inhabit. In a spiritual sense, they signify the church amongst men.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 751; Arcana Coelestia 82; Haggai 2)