16. Verse 1. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The most ancient times of all are called 'the beginning', and are throughout the Prophets referred to as 'days of antiquity' and also 'days of eternity'. 'The beginning' also embodies within it that first Period when a person is being regenerated, for at that time he is being born anew and receiving life. Regeneration itself is therefore called a new creation of man. Almost everywhere in the prophetical sections 'to create', 'to form', and 'to make' mean to regenerate, though each of these verbs has a different shade of meaning, as in Isaiah,

Every one who is called by My name - I have created him for My glory, I have formed him, I have also made him. Isaiah 43:7

This is why the Lord is called Redeemer, One who forms from the womb, Maker, and also Creator, as in the same prophet,

I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. Isaiah 43:15.

In David,

A people to be created will praise Jah. Psalms 102:18.

In the same author,

You send forth Your Spirit; they are created; and You renewest the face ¹ of the ground. Psalms 104:30.

'Heaven' means the internal man, and 'earth' the external man prior to regeneration. This will be seen further on.

Footnotes:

59. THE ENTIRE HEAVEN, AS ONE WHOLE, RESEMBLES ONE MAN

That heaven in its whole complex resembles one man is an arcanum not yet known in the world, but it is very well known in the heavens. To know this and the specific and particular things relating to it, is the chief thing in the intelligence of the angels there. Indeed, on it many things depend which, without it as their general principle, would not enter distinctly and clearly into the ideas of the angels' minds. Since they know that all the heavens with their societies resemble one man they therefore call heaven the GRAND AND DIVINE MAN ¹ -Divine because it is the Divine of the Lord that makes heaven (see above 7-12).

Footnotes: