The Bible

 

Genesis 1:24

Study

       

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #287

Study this Passage

  
/ 432  
  

287. We can also tell that love and wisdom are human by looking at heaven's angels, who are people in full beauty to the extent that they are caught up in love, and therefore in wisdom, from the Lord. The same conclusion follows from what it says in the Word about Adam's being created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26), because he was created in the form of love and wisdom.

All earthly individuals are born in the human form as to their physical bodies. This is because our spirit, which is also called our soul, is a person; and it is a person because it is receptive of love and wisdom from the Lord. To the extent that our spirit or soul actually accepts love and wisdom, we become human after the death of these material bodies that we are carrying around. To the extent that we do not accept love and wisdom we become grotesque creatures, retaining some trace of humanity because of our ability to accept them.

  
/ 432  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #8343

Study this Passage

  
/ 10837  
  

8343. 'The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea' means that as a result simply of His presence falsities in faith and evils in life cast themselves into hell. This is clear from the meaning of 'horse and rider' as falsities arising from evil, dealt with in 8146, 8148; and from the meaning of 'throwing into the sea' as into hell, dealt with in 8099, 8137, 8138. As regards its happening as a result simply of the Lord's presence, see 8137 (end), 8265. The reason for saying that the falsities and evils cast themselves into hell is that falsities and evils themselves are what are cast into hell, and these drag down with them the people to whom they cling. For through evil in life a person becomes a form of the falsity that arises from evil; consequently when evils themselves accompanied by falsities are thrown down, forms to which they cling are dragged down together with them. Falsities and evils are emanations from the hells, flowing in among those who through evils in life have made their inner selves into forms that receive those emanations, since everything composing thought and will flows in, what is good from heaven, but what is bad from hell, see 2886-2888, 4151, 4249, 5846, 6189, 6191, 6193, 6203, 6206, 6213, 6324, 6325, 7147, 7343. These then are the reasons for saying that the falsities in faith and evils in life cast themselves into hell. On account of this when angels think and talk about the hells they think and talk about falsities and evils completely separate from the inhabitants there; for angels always banish ideas that focus on persons and confine themselves to those that focus on things, 5225, 5287, 5434.

  
/ 10837  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.