The Bible

 

Genesis 1:26

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26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Commentary

 

Spirit of God

  

'The spirit of God,' as in Genesis 1:2, signifies the divine mercy of the Lord.

'The spirit of God' denotes good from an interior level, so from the divine. The spirit of God is what proceeds from the divine, so from good itself, because the divine is good itself, and what proceeds from it is truth within which is good. This is what 'the spirit of God' signifies in the Word, because the spirit itself does not proceed, but the truth itself within which is good, the spirit being the instrument which produces it.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 19; Divine Love and Wisdom 100)


From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #9546

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9546. 'Towards My faces unceasingly' means the Lord's presence thereby with peace and heavenly joy flowing from His mercy. This is clear from the meaning of Jehovah's or the Lord's 'faces' as all the blessings attributable to Divine Love or to mercy, such as innocence, peace, or joy, thus heaven itself with those who receive them. For when the word 'faces' refers to people on earth and angels in heaven it means interior things, which are attributes of the will and consequently of the understanding, and so which are attributes of love and consequently of faith, see 1999, 2434, 3527, 3573, 4066, 4796, 4798, 5102, 5165, 5168, 5585, 5592, 6604, 6848, 6849, 9306; and from this it may be recognized that when the word 'faces' refers to Jehovah or the Lord it means those things which are the attributes of Divine Love or of mercy, thus all celestial good, 222, 223, 5585, 9306.

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