The Bible

 

Genesis 1:7

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7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

Commentary

 

Resurrection, the first

  

'The first resurrection,' mentioned in Revelation 20:5, 6, does not mean a first resurrection, but the essence and primary part of resurrection, which is salvation and eternal life. There is only one resurrection to life. A second does not happen, and is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 6; Apocalypse Revealed 851; Revelation 20:5-6)

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #5102

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5102. 'Saying, Why are your faces sad today?' means, What affection gives rise to this sadness? This is clear from the meaning of 'faces' as the things that are within, dealt with in 358, 1999, 2434, 3527, 4066, 4796, 4797, and so as the affections, for a person's interiors from which his thoughts spring - which are also things that are within - are his affections; and being aspects of his love, these affections are essentially his life. It is well known that the affections reveal themselves in the faces of those who are in a state of innocence; and when those affections reveal themselves, so too does a general impression of their thoughts, for people's thoughts are the forms their affections take. Regarded in itself therefore the face is nothing else than an image representing the things that are within.

[2] No face is looked at by the angels in any other way, for angels do not see the material but the spiritual form that a person's face takes; that is, they see the form presented by his affections and the thoughts springing from those affections. These are the essential components of the human face, as anyone may recognize from the fact that when bereft of thought and affections the face is completely dead, and that the face is enlivened by them and owes its pleasing looks to them. The sadness expressing some affection, or an affection which gives rise to sadness, is meant by Joseph's words, Why are your faces sad today?

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