16. Verse 1. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The most ancient times of all are called 'the beginning', and are throughout the Prophets referred to as 'days of antiquity' and also 'days of eternity'. 'The beginning' also embodies within it that first Period when a person is being regenerated, for at that time he is being born anew and receiving life. Regeneration itself is therefore called a new creation of man. Almost everywhere in the prophetical sections 'to create', 'to form', and 'to make' mean to regenerate, though each of these verbs has a different shade of meaning, as in Isaiah,

Every one who is called by My name - I have created him for My glory, I have formed him, I have also made him. Isaiah 43:7

This is why the Lord is called Redeemer, One who forms from the womb, Maker, and also Creator, as in the same prophet,

I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. Isaiah 43:15.

In David,

A people to be created will praise Jah. Psalms 102:18.

In the same author,

You send forth Your Spirit; they are created; and You renewest the face ¹ of the ground. Psalms 104:30.

'Heaven' means the internal man, and 'earth' the external man prior to regeneration. This will be seen further on.

Footnotes:

5232. 'Me and the chief of the bakers' means both kinds of sensory power. This is clear from the representation of the chief of the cupbearers, to whom 'me' refers here, as the sensory power subject in general to the understanding part of the mind, dealt with in 5077, 5082, and from the representation of 'the chief of the bakers' as the sensory power in general subject to the will part, dealt with in 5078, 5082, so that 'me and the chief of the bakers' means both kinds of sensory power. The expression 'both kinds of sensory power' is used because in the human being there are two mental powers - the will and the understanding - which make up his life, and these have a connection with every single thing within him. The reason there are in the human being two mental powers which constitute his life is that there are two elements which compose life in heaven, namely goodness and truth. Goodness is connected with the will, truth with the understanding. From this one may see that there are two elements which compose the spiritual man and as a consequence constitute blessedness in the next life; these are charity and faith. For charity is essentially goodness, and faith essentially truth, so that charity is connected with the will and faith with the understanding Every single thing in the natural world too has a connection with these two, goodness and truth; it comes into being from these and is kept in being by them.

[2] The fact that every single thing in the natural world has a connection with those two elements is perfectly plain from the existence of heat and light. Heat has a connection with good and light a connection with truth, and therefore spiritual heat is the good of love, while spiritual light is the truth of faith. Since every single thing in the entire natural creation has a connection with these two - with goodness and truth - and since good is represented in heat, and faith in light, anyone can judge for himself what a person is like if he possesses faith alone without any charity, or what amounts to the same, if he possesses an understanding of truth alone without any desire for good. Does he not resemble the situation in winter, when light shines and yet every single thing is dormant for lack of heat? That is what the state is like of the person who possesses faith alone and no good of love. His state is one of cold and darkness, of cold because he is averse to goodness, of darkness because he is on that account averse to truth. For anyone averse to goodness is also averse to truth, no matter how much it may seem to him that he is not; for the one aversion leads to the other. This is what that person's state comes to be like after death.