1043. The symbolism of a cloud as the dim light in which a spiritual person lives, as compared to a heavenly person, is established by the remarks immediately above on the rainbow. A rainbow with all its colors, after all, never occurs except in a cloud. To repeat, the darkness through which the sunbeams shine is itself what turns colorful. The type of darkness that the shaft of light touches, then, determines the color.

So it is for a spiritual person. The darkness in such people — which is being called a cloud — is falsity, which is the same thing as their intellectual selfhood. When the Lord infuses this selfhood with innocence, charity, and mercy, the cloud is no longer seen as something false but as the outward appearance of truth, together with truth that is true, which comes from the Lord. This is what creates the effect of a colorful arc. It is a kind of spiritual transformation that is completely impossible to describe. If it is not pictured in terms of color and the generation of color, I do not know whether it can be explained in a comprehensible way.

[2] What this cloud is like in a person reborn can be gleaned from an individual's condition before regeneration. We are regenerated by what we suppose to be religious truth. (We each imagine our own theology to be the truth.) This supplies us with conscience. So for us, after we have acquired conscience, violating the strictures stamped on our minds as religious truth is violating our conscience. This is true of every regenerate person, because the Lord regenerates large numbers of people of every creed. When we have regenerated, we do not receive any direct revelation (except the ideas instilled in us through the Word and preaching from the Word). But since we do receive love for our fellow humans, the Lord works through that love to affect our cloud. Light then floods out of it, as happens when the sun strikes a cloud, making it brighter and variegating its color. The same process also creates something like a bow in the cloud. So the thinner the cloud is — that is, the more religious truth it has mixed in — the lovelier the bow is. The thicker the cloud is, though — or the less religious truth it has — the less attractive the bow is. Innocence adds a great deal of beauty; it lends a vivid glow to the colors, so to speak.

[3] All apparent truths are clouds, and they engross our attention when we focus on the Word's literal meaning, since the Word speaks in appearances. But when we maintain a simple trust in the Word (even if we cling to the appearances) and cultivate a feeling of charity, the cloud is relatively thin. For those inside the church, the Lord forms a conscience within this cloud.

All instances of ignorance about truth are also clouds. We live in these clouds when we do not know what the truth of the genuine faith is, when we more generally do not know what the Word is, and especially when we have never heard about the Lord. For those outside the church, the Lord forms a conscience within this cloud. Ignorance, you see, is itself capable of holding innocence and therefore charity within it.

All falsities, too, are clouds, but these clouds are the shadowy darkness inside either those who have a false conscience (as discussed earlier [§1033]) or those who have no conscience.

These are the general qualities of cloud. As for their quantity, we have such large, thick clouds inside that if we were aware of it, we would be astounded to think that any rays of light from the Lord could ever shine through, or that anyone could be reborn. Those who believe they have the smallest cover of cloud sometimes have a huge amount, while those who believe they have a huge amount have less.

[4] Spiritual people have these kinds of clouds around them, but heavenly people have smaller ones, because they have love for the Lord implanted in the will-related part of their mind. As a result, they also do not have the conscience that a spiritual person has. Instead, the Lord gives them the ability to perceive goodness, together with the truth growing out of what is good. When people's capacity of will is such that it can receive the radiance of a heavenly flame, their capacity for understanding glows with its light, and love enables them to recognize and perceive everything true in the realm of faith. Their power of will is then like a miniature sun shining into their intellectual side. This is what the people of the earliest church were like.

Sometimes our willpower is radically depraved and hellish, though, so that a new will (which is conscience) is formed in our intellectual part. This is what happened with the people of the ancient church, and it occurs with every regenerate individual who is part of the spiritual church. When it does, there is dense cloud, because the person has to learn what is true and good and cannot intuit it. Under these circumstances, falsity flows in endlessly from the person's black, will-related part, or rather through it from hell. This is the dark shadow of a cloud. That is why the intellectual side of a spiritual person can never be enlightened the way it is in a heavenly person. Consequently, the cloud in this verse symbolizes the dim light in which a spiritual person lives, compared to a heavenly one.

566. The symbolism of the face of the ground as that whole area where the church existed can be seen from the symbolism of the ground, since the Word carefully distinguishes ground from the earth or the land. Wherever it appears, ground symbolizes the church, or some aspect of the church. This is the origin of the human's name — Adam, which means ground. ¹ Often when the earth or the land is mentioned in the Word, it means the absence of the church or of anything having to do with the church. The first chapter is an example. In it, only the earth or land is mentioned, ² since the church — the regenerate person — did not yet exist. The ground is first mentioned in the second chapter, because by then the church did exist. Something similar occurs here and in the next chapter:

All substance would be destroyed from the face of the ground. (Genesis 7:4, 23)

This means in the territory where the church was. In the same chapter:

... to keep their seed alive on the face of the earth. (Genesis 7:3)

This is about a church yet to be created. The same holds true everywhere in the Word, as in Isaiah:

Jehovah will have mercy on Jacob and will yet choose Israel and will put them on their ground; and the peoples will take them and lead them to their place, and the house of Israel will inherit them upon the ground of Jehovah. (Isaiah 14:1-2)

This is about a church that has been formed; but a place where there was no church is called the earth in verses 9, 12, 16, 20-21, 25, and 26 of the same chapter.

[2] In the same author:

And the ground of Judah will make Egypt quake. On that day there will be five cities in the land of Egypt speaking the tongue of Canaan. (Isaiah 19:17-18)

The ground is where the church is and the land is where the church is not. In the same author:

The earth will wander, wander, like a drunkard. Jehovah will punish the army of the heights on high, and the monarchs of the ground down on the ground. (Isaiah 24:20-21)

The meaning is similar. In Jeremiah:

Because of the chastened ground, since there was no rain on the land, the farmers were put to shame, they covered their head; for even the doe in the field gave birth. (Jeremiah 14:4-5)

The land means the area surrounding the ground, and the ground means the area surrounding the field.

[3] In the same author:

He brought the seed of the house of Israel out from the north land and from all the lands to which I drove them, and they will live on their ground. (Jeremiah 23:8)

The land and lands are where there are no churches; the ground is where the church or true worship is. In the same author:

I will make the survivors of Jerusalem — those left in this land and those living in the land of Egypt — I will make them a disturbance, an evil to all the kingdoms of the earth. And I will send against them sword, famine, and contagion to the point of devouring them off the ground that I gave to them and their ancestors. (Jeremiah 24:8-9, 10)

The ground stands for theology and for the worship it gives rise to. The same holds true for Jeremiah 25:5. ³

[4] In Ezekiel:

I will gather you from the lands to which you have been scattered, and you will acknowledge that I am Jehovah, when I have returned you onto Israel's ground, onto the land in which I lifted my hand to give it to your ancestors. (Ezekiel 20:41-42)

The ground stands for inner worship; it is called land when there is no inner worship. In Malachi:

I will harangue against the devouring pest for you, and it will not spoil the fruit of the ground for you; and the grapevine in the field will not be bereft for you. And all nations will call you fortunate, because you will be a land of pleasure. (Malachi 3:11-12)

The land stands for the whole surrounding area and so, quite obviously, for a person, who is called "a land." The ground surrounded by that land stands for the church, or theology.

[5] In Moses:

Sing, you nations, his people. He will expiate the guilt incurred by his ground, his people. (Deuteronomy 32:43)

Clearly this stands for the church among non-Jewish nations, which is called the "ground." ⁴ In Isaiah:

Before the child knew to spurn evil and choose good, the ground that you despise in the presence of its two monarchs would be deserted. (Isaiah 7:16)

This speaks of the Lord's Coming, saying that the ground prepared for the church — the true doctrine concerning faith — would be deserted. It is clear that the words ground and field are used in connection with planting, as in Isaiah:

He will give rain for the seed with which you would sow the ground. Oxen and young donkeys are working the ground. (Isaiah 30:23-24)

And in Joel:

The field was devastated and the ground mourned, because the grain was devastated. (Joel 1:10)

From this it can now be seen that the human — called adam in Hebrew, from the word for ground — symbolizes the church.

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