The Bible

 

Genesis 1:5

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5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first Day.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Coronis (An Appendix to True Christian Religion) #25

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25. THE FIRST STATE OF THIS MOST ANCIENT CHURCH, OR ITS RISE AND MORNING, is described in the first chapter of Genesis by these words:

God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them (Gen. 1:26-27);

and also by these in the second chapter:

Jehovah God formed man dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives; and man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7).

That its rise, or morning, is described by his being made, or created, "in the image of God," is because every man, when he is first born, and while an infant, is an "image of God" interiorly; for the faculty of receiving and of applying to himself those things which proceed from God, is implanted in him; and since he is also formed "dust of the earth" exteriorly, and there is thence in him an inclination to lick that dust like the serpent (Gen. 3:14), therefore, if he remains an external or natural man, and does not become at the same time internal, or spiritual, he destroys the "image of God," and puts on the image of the serpent which seduced Adam. But, on the other hand, the man who strives and labours to become an "image of God," subdues the external man in himself, and interiorly in the natural becomes spiritual, thus spiritual-natural; and this is effected by a new creation, that is, regeneration by the Lord. Such a man is an "image of God," because he wills and believes that he lives from God and not from himself: on the contrary, man is an image of the serpent as long as he wills and believes that he lives from himself and not from God. What is man but an "image of God" when he wills and believes that he is in the Lord and the Lord in him (John 6:56; 14:20; 15:4-5, 7; 17:26), and that he can do nothing of himself (John 3:27; 15:5)? What is a man but an "image of God" when, by a new birth, he becomes a "son of God" (John 1:12-13)? Who does not know that the image of the father is in the son? The rise, or morning, of this Church is described by Jehovah God's "breathing into his nostrils the breath of lives," and by his thus "becoming a living soul," because by "lives," in the plural, are meant love and wisdom, which two are essentially God; for, in proportion as a man receives and applies to himself those two essentials of life, which proceed continually from God, and continually flow into the souls of men, in the same proportion he becomes "a living soul"; for "lives" are the same as love and wisdom. Hence it is evident, that the rise and morning of the life of the men of the Most Ancient Church, who taken collectively are represented by Adam, is described by those two shrines of life.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

Commentary

 

Night

  

The sun in the Bible represents the Lord, with its heat representing His love and its light representing His wisdom. “Daytime,” then, represents a state in which we are turned toward the Lord, receiving His love and being enlightened by His truth. And “nighttime,” obviously, represents states in which we are turned away from the Lord, left cold and blind to the truth. The most common word used for it in the New Christian theology is “obscurity.” The darkness is not absolute, of course. The light of the moon represents the understanding we can have based on facts and our own intelligence. But while the moon reflects some of the sun's light, it offers almost no heat, so this kind of understanding is a cold one, without the warmth of love. And at its darkest and coldest, night represents a state of judgment. This happens when a person -- or a church -- becomes so mired in evil and falsity that there is no light or heat. The Lord can then step in, separate the good from the evil, consign the evil to hell and begin rebuilding based on the remnant that is still good. Drastic as that sounds, it is something that we all go through repeatedly in various aspects of our loves, so that we can be rid of what is evil and let the Lord rebuild us as angels.