30. Verses 14-17 And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to make a distinction between the day and the night; and they will be for signs, and for set times, and for days and years. And they will be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light upon the earth; and it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to have dominion over the day, and the lesser light to have dominion over the night; and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.

No one can have an adequate understanding of what 'the great lights' are unless he knows what the underlying essence of faith is and how it develops in people who are being created anew. The very essence and life of faith is the Lord alone. In fact it is impossible for anyone who does not believe in the Lord to have life, as He Himself has said in John,

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God will rest upon him. John 3:36.

[2] With people who are being created anew faith develops as follows: First of all they have no life, for life does not exist in anything evil and false but in what is good and true. Then they start to receive life from the Lord by means of faith - first by faith existing in the memory, which is factual faith, then by faith existing in the understanding, which is conceptual faith, and after this by faith existing in the heart, which is loving or saving faith. Factual faith and conceptual faith are represented in verses 3-13 by the inanimate, but faith made alive by means of love is represented in verses 20-25 by the animate. Consequently this is the first point at which love and faith deriving from it, which are called 'lights', are dealt with. Love is 'the greater light which has dominion over the day', and faith deriving from love is 'the lesser light which has dominion over the night'. And because they ought to make one the verb in the phrase 'let there be lights 'is singular and not plural.

[3] Love and faith have their place in the internal man as warmth and light do in the external, bodily man, and for this reason love and faith are represented by warmth and light. Therefore it is said that 'the lights' were set in the expanse of the heavens, that is, in the internal man - the greater light in his will and the lesser in his understanding. Yet they make their appearances in the will and understanding only as sunlight does in the objects it strikes. To the Lord alone belongs the mercy which moves the will with love and the understanding with truth or faith.

2156. 'My Lord' means the Three in One, that is to say, the Divine itself, the Divine Human, and the Holy proceeding; and as the Three exist in One the word 'Lord' in the singular is used, as similarly it is used -

In verses 27, 31 'Behold now, I have undertaken to speak to my Lord'.

In verses 30, 32, 'Let not now my Lord be incensed'.

The three men are also called Jehovah -

In verse 13, Jehovah said to Abraham.

In verse 14, 'Will anything to be too wonderful for Jehovah?'

In verse 22, Abraham still stood before Jehovah.

In verse 33, And Jehovah departed, when He had finished speaking to Abraham.

From these places it is clear that the three men, that is, the Divine itself, the Divine Human, and the Holy proceeding, are one and the same as the Lord, and the Lord one and the same as Jehovah. In the statement of Christian faith called the Creed the same is recognized, where it is explicitly stated,

There are not three uncreated, not three infinites, not three eternals, not three almighties, not three Lords, but One.

There are none who separate Three that are within a One, apart from those who say that they acknowledge one Supreme Being, the Creator of the Universe. Such an acknowledgement is excusable among those outside the Church; but in the case of those inside the Church who declare the same, these do not acknowledge any God at all, though they say and sometimes think it. Still less do they acknowledge the Lord.