24. Verse 6 And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let there be a distinguishing of the waters from the waters.

After the Spirit of God, which is the Lord's mercy, has brought out into the daylight cognitions of truth and good, and has shed the light of dawn to reveal that the Lord does exist, and that He is good itself and truth itself, and that no good or truth exists except from the Lord, a distinction is at that point made between the internal man and the external man, and so between cognitions which reside with the internal man and the facts which belong to the external man. The internal man is called 'an expanse, and the cognitions residing with the internal man are called 'the waters above the expanse', while the facts belonging to the external man are called 'the waters below the expanse'.

[2] Until his regeneration starts a person is not aware of even the existence of the internal man, let alone the identity of the internal man. Submerged in bodily and worldly concerns he imagines there is no difference between the two. Furthermore he has submerged in those same concerns the things that belong to the internal man and has made one thorough obscurity out of things that are distinct and separate. For this reason it is first said, 'Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters', and then, 'Let there be a distinguishing of the waters from the waters', and not a distinguishing of the waters. But this is followed immediately by the statement, Verses 7-8, And God made the expanse and He made a distinction between the waters that were under the expanse and the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven.

[3] The second thing therefore that a person notices when being regenerated is that he is starting to become aware of the existence of the internal man, or that what reside in the internal man are goods and truths which are the Lord's alone. And since the external man during regeneration is such as still imagines that he is the source of the good deeds he performs, or of the truth he utters, and since such a person, by means of them, is led by the Lord to do good and to speak truth as if they were his own, therefore the identification of those under the expanse comes first, and the identification of those above the expanse follows. It is also a heavenly arcanum that the Lord uses those things that are man's own - both his illusions of the senses and his desires - to lead and direct him towards the things that are goods and truths. Every single movement of regeneration is accordingly a progression from evening to morning - from external man to internal, that is, from earth to heaven. This is why the expanse, or internal man, is now called 'heaven'.

5398. THE INTERNAL SENSE

This chapter and the ones that follow it concerning Jacob's sons and Joseph deal in the internal sense with the regeneration of the natural so far as the truths and goods of the Church are concerned - such regeneration being effected not by means of factual knowledge but by an influx from the Divine. Those who belong to the Church at the present day know so little about regeneration as to know virtually nothing at all about it. They do not even know that regeneration is a process that takes place throughout the whole course of the life of someone who is being regenerated and continues in the next life. Nor do they know that the arcana of regeneration are so countless that hardly the smallest fraction can be known even by angels, or that those which angels do know are what constitute the intelligence and wisdom they possess. Those belonging to the Church at the present day know so little about regeneration because they talk so much about the forgiveness of sins and justification, believing that sins can be forgiven instantaneously. Some believe that sins are washed away like dirt from the body by the use of water, and that a person is justified or made righteous by means of faith alone, that is, by means of trust of only a moment's duration. The reason people within the Church believe the way they do is that they do not know what sin or evil is. If they did possess such knowledge they would know that no one's sins can by any means at all be washed away, but that these are separated or cast away to the sides to prevent them from rising up, when the Lord maintains the presence of good within that person. They would also know that this cannot be accomplished unless evil is being cast out all the time, which is done by means that are numerically without limit and for the most part beyond description.

[2] In the next life people who have brought with them the notion that a person is made righteous by faith in an instant and completely cleansed from sins are dumbfounded when they learn that regeneration is effected by means that are numerically without limit and beyond description. They laugh at their own ignorance, which they also call madness, that is, at the ideas they held to in the world regarding instantaneous forgiveness of sins and justification. Sometimes they are told that the Lord forgives the sins of everyone who in his heart desires forgiveness; but this does not mean that they are separated from the devil's crew, to whom they are bound through the evils which go along with the life which they bring with them in its entirety. After this they learn from experience that being separated from the hells is being separated from one's sins, and that this cannot possibly be accomplished except by thousands of ways known to the Lord alone, a process which, if you can believe it, continues for ever one stage after another. For the human being is so full of evil that he cannot ever be released from even one sin. But solely by the Lord's mercy, if he will accept that mercy, he is withheld from sin and maintained in good.

[3] The way therefore in which a person receives new life and is regenerated is contained in the sanctuary of the Word, that is, in its internal sense. The primary reason why the internal sense contains that information is that when the Word is being read by man, it causes the angels to be aware of the bliss that wisdom brings them and at the same time to take delight in serving as means. The subject in the highest sense of this chapter and those that follow it, where the narrative concerns Joseph's brothers, is the glorification of the Lord's natural, and in the representative sense the regeneration by the Lord of man's natural, in this chapter so far as the truths of the Church are concerned.