49. Verse 26 And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and they will have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, ¹ and over the beasts, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

To people in the Most Ancient Church with whom the Lord spoke face to face, the Lord appeared as Man. (Much can be told about those people, but this is not the time to do so.) For this reason they called nobody man except the Lord and whatever may have been His. They did not even call themselves man, but only the things which they perceived that they had from the Lord, such as every good stemming from love and every truth of faith. These things were said to be human because they were the Lord's.

[2] In the Prophets therefore, in the highest sense, 'man' and 'son of man' are used to mean the Lord. In the internal sense they are used to mean wisdom and intelligence, and so everyone who is regenerate, as in Jeremiah,

I looked to the earth, and behold, a void and an emptiness, and towards the heavens, and behold, they had no light. I looked, and behold there was no man; and all the birds of the air ¹ had fled. Jeremiah 4:23, 25.

In Isaiah where in the internal sense 'man' means a regenerate person, the Lord Himself as the One Man is meant in the highest sense,

Thus said Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and He who formed him, It was I that made the earth and it was I that created man upon it; My hands stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. Isaiah 45:11-13

[3] The Lord was therefore seen by the Prophets as Man, for example by Ezekiel,

Above the firmament in appearance like a sapphire stone there was the likeness of a throne, and above the likeness of a throne, there was a likeness, as the appearance of a Man upon it above. Ezekiel 1:26.

And the One whom Daniel saw was called 'a Son of Man', or what amounts to the same, Man,

I looked, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like the Son of Man was coming; and He came even to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. And to Him was given dominion and glory and kingdom; and all peoples, nations, and languages will serve Him. His dominion is the dominion of an age, which will not pass away, and His kingdom one that will not perish. Daniel 7:13-14.

[4] Moreover the Lord quite often calls Himself the Son of Man or Man, and, as is done in Daniel, foretells His entry into glory,

They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and glory. Matthew 24:23, 30.

The literal sense of the Word is called 'the clouds of heaven', its internal sense 'power and glory'. The internal sense, in every single detail, focuses exclusively on the Lord and His kingdom. Consequently it is the spiritual sense which contains power and glory.

Footnotes:

834. 19:20 Then the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who worked signs in its presence, by which he led astray those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. This symbolizes all those people who professed faith alone and were inwardly evil, both the laity and common people and the clergy and the learned, who by arguments and assertions that faith alone is the only means of salvation, had brought others to accept that faith and to live in accordance with it.

The beast here means the beast from the sea, described in Revelation 13:1-10, and the false prophet means the beast from the earth, described in the same chapter, verses 11 to 18. The beast from the sea means the laity and common people who are caught up in a religion teaching faith alone, and the beast from the earth means the clergy and the learned who are caught up in that religion, as may be seen from the exposition of that chapter.

It is clearly apparent that the false prophet here is the beast from the earth, described in chapter 13:11-18, because we are told here that the false prophet worked signs in the presence of the other beast, by which he led astray those who received the mark of the beast and who worshiped its image. For the same thing is said about the beast from the earth in chapter 13, namely, that it performed great signs in the presence of the beast from the sea, and led astray those who dwell on the earth, so that they worshiped its image and received its mark on their right hand and on their foreheads (Revelation 13:12-17). It is apparent from this that the false prophet here symbolizes the clergy and the learned who had confirmed themselves in a religion teaching faith alone and had led the laity and common people astray. They are called a false prophet, because a false prophet symbolizes people who teach and preach falsities by twisting the Word's truths (nos. 8, 701).

The signs done by this beast symbolize arguments and assertions that faith alone is the only means of salvation, as may be seen in nos. 598, 599, 704 above. To receive the mark of the beast and worship its image means, symbolically, to acknowledge and accept that faith (nos. 634, 637, 679).