62. The stages and states of the regeneration of man - both of mankind and of the individual person - divide into six and are called the days of his creation. Gradually from being no man at all, he first becomes something, though only little, then something more, until the sixth day is reached, when he becomes 'an image'.

2545. 'Abimelech called Abraham and said to him' means the Lord's thought from the doctrine of faith. This becomes clear from the representation of 'Abimelech', and also of 'Abraham', and from the meaning of 'saying', dealt with several times already. No intelligible explanation of what thinking from the doctrine of faith is can be given because the perception of this matter cannot fall into any but angelic ideas, yet within these it presents itself in so much light, together with heavenly representatives, that scarcely anything of it can be described. The inability to perceive this matter except within angelic ideas is made evident when it is said that the Lord's thought was from intellectual truth, which was above the rational which He looked upon from that truth, but that His perception from which He thought was from Divine Truth.