26. The "likeness of God," after which man was made, is that he is able to live, that is, to will, to love, and to intend, as also to think, reflect and choose, to all appearance as of himself; consequently, that he is able to receive from God those things which are of love and those which are of wisdom, and to reproduce them in an image, as God does, of himself; for God says:

Behold the man was as one of us, in knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:22);

for, without the faculty of receiving and reproducing those things which proceed into him from God, to all appearance as of himself, man would be no more a "living soul" than the oyster in its shell at the bottom of the river, which is not in the least able to move itself out of its place: nor would he be any more an "image of God" than a jointed carving of a man capable of motion by means of a handle, and of giving forth sound by being blown into; yea, the very mind of man, which is the same as his spirit, would actually be wind, air, or ether, according to the idea of the present Church respecting spirit; for, without the faculty of receiving and reproducing the things flowing in from God, altogether as of himself, he would not have anything of his own, or any proprium, except an imperceptible one, which is like the proprium of a lifeless carving. But more about the image and likeness of God with man may be seen in a memorable relation in the preceding work (n. True Christian Religion 48), of which this is the Appendix.

The sun in the Bible represents the Lord, with its heat representing His love and its light representing His wisdom. “Daytime,” then, represents a state in which we are turned toward the Lord, receiving His love and being enlightened by His truth. And “nighttime,” obviously, represents states in which we are turned away from the Lord, left cold and blind to the truth. The most common word used for it in the New Christian theology is “obscurity.” The darkness is not absolute, of course. The light of the moon represents the understanding we can have based on facts and our own intelligence. But while the moon reflects some of the sun's light, it offers almost no heat, so this kind of understanding is a cold one, without the warmth of love. And at its darkest and coldest, night represents a state of judgment. This happens when a person -- or a church -- becomes so mired in evil and falsity that there is no light or heat. The Lord can then step in, separate the good from the evil, consign the evil to hell and begin rebuilding based on the remnant that is still good. Drastic as that sounds, it is something that we all go through repeatedly in various aspects of our loves, so that we can be rid of what is evil and let the Lord rebuild us as angels.