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:

5114. 'And on the vine three shoots' means derivatives from this even to the final one. This is clear from the meaning of 'the vine' as the understanding part, dealt with immediately above in 5113; from the meaning of 'three' as complete and continuous even to the end, dealt with in 2788, 4495; and from the meaning of 'shoots' as derivatives; for since 'the vine' means the understanding part, 'shoots' means nothing else than derivatives from this. Because 'three' means that which is continuous even to the end, that is, which goes from first to last, 'three shoots' means derivative degrees extending from the understanding part to the final level, which is that of the senses. The first in the sequence is the actual understanding part, and the last is the senses. In general the understanding part is the sight which the internal man possesses and which sees by the light of heaven radiating from the Lord; and everything it sees is spiritual or celestial. But the senses, in general, belong to the external man; and here the sensory power of sight is meant because this corresponds to and is subordinate to the understanding part. The sensory power of sight sees by the light of the world radiating from the sun; and everything it sees is worldly, bodily, or earthly.

[2] In the human being there exist derivatives from the understanding part that dwells in the light of heaven; and they extend to the senses which dwell in the light of the world. Unless these derivatives existed the senses could not possess any life of a human quality. A person does not owe the life which his senses possess to what he sees by the light of the world, for the light of the world holds no life within it; he owes it to what he sees by the light of heaven, for this light does hold life within it. When the light of heaven falls on the perceptions a person has gained by the light of the world, it brings life to them and enables him to see objects in an intelligent manner, and thus as a human being. In this way a person possessing factual knowledge born from things which he has seen and heard in the world, and therefore from those which have entered in through the senses, comes to possess intelligence and wisdom, on which in turn he bases his public, private, and spiritual life.

[3] As regards derivatives specifically, the nature of their existence in a person is such that no brief explanation of them is possible. They exist as degrees, like steps, from the understanding part down to the senses. But no one can have any conception of those degrees unless he knows how they are related to one another, that is to say, that they are quite distinct and separate from one another, so distinct that interior degrees can come into being and remain in being without exterior ones, but not exterior degrees without interior ones. For example, a person's spirit can remain in being without a material body, as it also actually does when death separates it from the body. For a person's spirit exists in an interior degree, his body in an exterior one. Similarly with a person's spirit after death. If he is one of the blessed his spirit exists in a final and outermost degree when in the first heaven; in a more interior degree when in the second; and in the inmost one when in the third. When it exists in the inmost it exists at the same time in the other degrees, though these are inactive with him, almost as the human body is inactive during sleep, but with this difference that interiorly angels are at such times fully awake. Therefore as many distinct and separate degrees exist in the human being as there are heavens, apart from the final one, which is the body and the bodily senses.

[4] From all this regarding a person's spirit one may gain some idea of the way derivatives are related to one another from the first to the final one, that is, from the understanding part to the senses. A person's life, which he receives from the Lord's Divine, passes through these degrees from the inmost to the final one. At every degree there exists a derivative of that life which becomes increasingly general, until in the final degree it is the most general. Derivatives in the lower degrees are merely combinations - or to put it more appropriately, structured forms - of the individual and particular constituents of the higher degrees ranged consecutively, with the addition of the kinds of things drawn from purer nature, and after that from grosser nature, that can serve as containing vessels. Once these vessels are done away with, the individual and particular constituents of the higher degrees, which had received form in those vessels, move back to the degree immediately above. And because in the case of the human being there is a link with the Divine, and his inmost being is such that it can accept the Divine - and not only accept but also make Him its own, by acknowledging and having an affection for the Divine, thus by a reciprocal response to Him - and because he thereby has the Divine implanted within him, he can never die. Indeed what is eternal and infinite exists with him, not only through their flowing into him but also through his reception of them.

[5] From this one may see how uninformed and senseless in their thinking regarding the human being those people are who compare him to animals and imagine that he will not be alive after death any more than they are. Such people do not take into consideration the fact that with animals there is no acceptance of the Divine or any acknowledgement or affection leading to a reciprocal response to the Divine by making Him their own, or any consequent joining to Him. Nor do those people take into consideration the fact that, as the animal state is like this, the recipient forms of life which these possess are inevitably dissipated; for with animals that which flows into them passes through their organic forms into the world, where it comes to an end and melts away, never to make any return there.