1024. The symbolism of with you as a spiritual person who has been reborn is established by a plethora of earlier statements to the effect that Noah and his sons symbolize a spiritual church that took the place of the earliest, heavenly church [§§597-598, 605, 726, 765, 788:1, 851]. Since they symbolize a church, they symbolize every member of that church and so a spiritual person who has been reborn.

788. The waters grew and lifted the ark and it rose off the earth means that this is how those people wavered. The water strengthened and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark went on the face of the water means that this is how their wavering intensified. The symbolism here will not be apparent until I say what conditions were like in this Noah church.

Noah was not the true ancient church but a kind of progenitor or seed from which that church came, as already pointed out [§773]. Noah and Shem, Ham, and Japheth together constituted the ancient church that came right after the earliest church. All those in the church who were referred to as Noah came from the descendants of the earliest church. Consequently their condition in respect to an evil heredity ¹ was almost the same as that of the other descendants, who were destroyed. Because their condition was similar, they could not regenerate and become spiritual in the same way as those who do not inherit such a character. The nature of their heredity was described above, at §310.

[2] Let me explain more clearly how the situation stands. Those — such as Jews — who have descended from Jacob's seed cannot regenerate in the same way as other races. They maintain a creed hostile to genuine faith, acquired not only from principles adopted in childhood and later confirmed but also from heredity. The fact that heredity contributes can be seen from the consideration that their mentality, their mores, and even their faces differ from those of others and these three attributes (by which they can be recognized) are inherited. So also for their deeper qualities, since custom and facial appearance are signs of what lies within. Consequently, converted Jews waver between truth and falsity more than others do. ²

The same is true of the first adherents of this church, referred to as Noah, because they came from the stock and seed of the earliest people. ³

Such vacillation is what the present verses depict, as do later verses that say Noah was a man of the ground, planted a vineyard, drank some of the wine, and became so drunk that he lay naked in the middle of his tent (Genesis 9:20-21).

I was able to tell how small their numbers were from seeing the people of that church represented in the world of spirits as a tall, slender man dressed in bright white, standing in a cramped room. Yet these were the people who preserved the doctrinal teachings of faith, which they had among them.

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