Is the Noah’s Ark story in the book of Genesis really about God destroying creation? A spiritual Bible interpretation of the story reveals its true meaning.

In this video, host Curtis Childs guides us through the revelations about the Old Testament parable that eighteenth-century philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg had during his spiritual experiences. Swedenborg’s perspectives transcend literal interpretations to provide a hopeful lesson about salvation. While it may seem like the Bible story is about God destroying creation, Swedenborg’s spiritual perspectives suggest that it symbolizes God’s still-ongoing efforts to save us from self-destruction.

In the Bible, the wind represents the power of the Lord working on us through the heavens. The Lord is love itself, and by extending His love He created the energy that created the universe, the energy that still sustains and empowers us. That love, and the wisdom that is its form, can act on us more or less directly depending on our spiritual states. A powerful wind indicates a more direct force.

It's interesting to note that the sun corresponds to the Lord, that its heat corresponds to the Lord's love and its light to the Lord's wisdom. In the natural world, the sun's heat causes wind by warming the air. In the spiritual world, the Lord's love causes spiritual wind by acting through heaven.

The Bible also talks about four winds, an east wind and a "wind of the sea." The four winds stand for the whole of the impact of the Lord's love. The east wind is withering, devastating – it represents the Lord's love as experienced by those in hell. The west wind represents stopping or turning aside the flow of the Lord's love – in Israel the "wind of the sea" would come from the west, opposing the east wind.

(References: Apocalypse Explained 418, 419; Apocalypse Revealed 343 [2-4]; Arcana Coelestia 7679, 7702)