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.
Secrets of Heaven #880
880. The symbolism of he waited another seven days as the start of the second stage of regeneration can be seen from this: the clause describes the interval between the first stage (discussed just above in verses 8-9) and the second (discussed here in verses 10-11). To weave its story, the text uses the words he waited to stand for the interval.
The facts with respect to the second stage of rebirth can be seen to some extent from what was stated and shown concerning the first stage, in which religious truth could not yet put down roots because falsity was getting in the way. Religious truth first takes root when we begin to acknowledge and believe it. Until then, it has no roots. The things that we hear from the Word and hold in our memory are no more than seeds sown there.
Roots, however, do not develop until we receive and welcome charitable goodness. The goodness embraced by faith, that is, the good urged by charity, is what gives root to the truth taught by faith. The situation is like that of seed cast on the earth while winter still holds sway and the earth remains frozen. The seed lies there, but it does not grow roots. As soon as the warming sun of early spring thaws the ground, though, the seed begins to develop roots, at first growing them inside and then extending them into the earth. So it is with the planting of spiritual seed; no roots grow until the goodness of charity warms it. Then it first develops roots internally and afterward sends them out.
[2] We have three parallel, unified layers within us: earthly, spiritual, and heavenly. Our earthly level receives no life at all except from the spiritual; our spiritual level receives no life at all except from the heavenly; and our heavenly level receives life from the Lord alone, who is life itself.
To offer a somewhat fuller picture, our earthly level is a reservoir that holds spiritual qualities, or a container into which they are poured; and our spiritual level is a reservoir that holds heavenly qualities, or a container into which they are poured. Through our heavenly level, we receive life from the Lord. This is what influx is. 1 The heavenly aspect is everything good connected with faith or (in a spiritual person) the goodness connected with charity. The spiritual aspect is truth, which definitely does not become a part of our faith unless it has inside it the goodness that belongs to faith, or the goodness of charity, which in turn has within it life itself from the Lord.
To present a still clearer view of what is entailed, our earthly dimension involves carrying out a work of charity 2 by means of our physical body, whether in deed or word. But this dimension in itself is dead. It has no life except from the spiritual dimension lying behind the work; and the spiritual dimension has no life except from the heavenly dimension, which comes from the Lord. Because of him a deed is called good; nothing is good unless it comes from the Lord.
[3] This being the case, everyone can see that in any charitable deed, the act itself is just a function of the material body; whatever vitality it possesses comes from the religious truth that underlies it. Furthermore, religious truth is itself just a lifeless entity; anything alive in it comes from religious goodness. Religious goodness, again, has no life except from the Lord alone, who is goodness itself and life itself.
This demonstrates why heavenly angels are unwilling to hear about faith, still less about good deeds (see §202), because they trace the origin of each to love. They act on their faith out of love, and even the good works of faith are something they do out of love, so that for them, both the works and the faith vanish and only love and the good that comes of it remain. Within their love the Lord is present.
Because these angels have such heavenly ideas, they are kept separate from the angels described as spiritual. Their way of thinking and consequent manner of speech is much harder to grasp than the spiritual angels' thought and speech.
Footnotes:
1. For the meaning of "influx" here, see note 2 in §657. For the idea of influx in the contemporary debate about the interaction of the soul and the body, see note 2 in §196. [RS]
2. The phrase "a work of charity," which could also be translated as "a labor of love," may be an allusion to 1 Thessalonians 1:3; Hebrews 6:10; and possibly Galatians 5:6. [LSW]
