1044. And it will serve as a sign of the pact between me and the earth means an indication of the Lord's presence in charity, and the earth here means human selfhood, as statements above show [§§1036, 1038]. The symbolism of the earth as human selfhood can be seen from the inner meaning, too, and also from the sequence of thoughts. Earlier the text said, "This is the sign of the pact between me and you and every living soul that is with you," which symbolizes whatever has been reborn. Here, however, the phrasing changes: "It will serve as a sign of the pact between me and the earth." The change — and the repetition of the sign of the pact as well — shows that the present verse has another meaning. It shows, in fact, that the earth is that which has not been reborn and cannot be reborn, and this is human self-will.

[2] So far as their intellectual side goes, regenerate people are the Lord's, but so far as their voluntary side goes, they are their own. These two sides in a spiritual person are opposed to each other, but although a person's voluntary part is opposed, its presence is still unavoidable. All the darkness in spiritual people's intellectual part, all the thickening of their cloud, comes from the will side. The darkness constantly streams in from their will side, and the more it does, the more the cloud in their intellectual part thickens. On the other hand, the more the darkness withdraws, the more the cloud thins. That is the reason the earth in this case symbolizes human selfhood. (It was shown earlier that the earth symbolizes our bodily concerns and much else besides [§§16, 17, 28, 29, 82, 566, 620, 662, 800, 895].)

[3] The situation resembles that of two people who were once bound together in a pact of friendship, as will and intellect were among the people of the earliest church. When the friendship breaks down and enmity arises — as it did when humanity completely perverted its power of will — and a new pact is entered into, the hostile party then takes center stage, as if it were the party with which the pact had been struck. The pact is not with this side of our mind, however (since it is diametrically opposed and contrary), but with what streams from it, as noted earlier [§1023] — with intellectual selfhood, that is. The sign or indication of the pact is this: the larger the Lord's presence in our intellectual selfhood, the more remote our self-will.

The case is just like that of heaven and hell. A regenerate person's intellectual half is heaven because of the charity in which the Lord is present. But such a person's will side is hell. The more present the Lord is in heaven, the more hell moves away. When we depend on ourselves, we are in hell. When we depend on the Lord, we are in heaven and are always being lifted up from hell into heaven. The higher we rise, the greater the distance between us and our hell.

The sign or indication that the Lord is present, then, is the withdrawal of our own will. Times of trial and many other means of regeneration work to distance it.

16. Genesis 1:1. In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.

The word beginning is being used for the very earliest times. The prophets frequently call them "the days of old." ¹

"The beginning" includes the first period of regeneration too, as that is when people are being born anew and receiving life. Because of this, regeneration itself is called our new creation [2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15]. Almost everywhere in the prophetic books, the words creating, forming, and making stand for regenerating, though with differences. ² In Isaiah, for example:

All have been called by my name, and I have created them for my glory; I have formed them; yes, I have made them. (Isaiah 43:7)

This is why the Lord is called Redeemer, One-Who-Forms-from-the-Womb, Maker, and Creator, as in the same prophet:

I am Jehovah, ³ your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your Monarch. (Isaiah 43:15)

In David: ⁴

The people created will praise Jah. ⁵ (Psalms 102:18)

In the same author:

You send out your spirit — they will continue to be created — and you renew the face of the ground. ⁶ (Psalms 104:30)

Heaven, or the sky, symbolizes the inner self, and the earth, before regeneration occurs, symbolizes the outer self, as may be seen below [§§17, 24:3, 27].

Footnotes:

19. (i) THE ONE GOD IS NAMED JEHOVAH FROM HIS BEING, THAT IS, FROM THE FACT THAT HE ALONE IS, [WAS] AND WILL BE, AND BECAUSE HE IS THE FIRST AND THE LAST, THE BEGINNING AND THE END, ALPHA AND OMEGA.

It is well known that Jehovah means 'I am' and 'Being'. It is clear from the Book of Creation, called Genesis, that God was so called from most ancient times; for there He is called God in the first chapter, but in the second and subsequent ones Jehovah God. Later on when the descendants of Abraham, starting with Jacob, forgot the name of God owing to their long stay in Egypt, it was recalled to their memory. About this we read:

Moses said to God, What is your name? God said, I am who I am; thus

shall you say to the Children of Israel, I am has sent me to you; and you shall say, Jehovah the God of your fathers has sent me to you. This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial from generation to generation, Exodus 3:13-15.

Since God alone is I am or Being, that is, Jehovah, therefore there cannot be anything in the created universe which does not owe its being to Him; how this happens will be seen below. The same is meant also by these words:

I am the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, Alpha and Omega, Isaiah 44:6; Revelation 1:8, 11; 22:13.

This means that He is the one single source from beginning to end, from which everything comes.

[2] God is called Alpha and Omega ¹ , the Beginning and the End, because alpha is the first and omega the last letter in the Greek alphabet, and they thus mean everything taken together. The reason is that every letter of the alphabet in the spiritual world stands for some thing. Vowels, which allow words to be pronounced, stand for something to do with affection or love. This is the origin of the speech of spirits or angels, and also of their writing-systems. But this is a mystery not previously known: there is a universal language used by all angels and spirits, which has nothing in common with any human language in the world. Everyone comes into possession of this language after death, for it is inborn in everyone from his creation. Therefore everyone throughout the spiritual world can understand everyone else. I have often been permitted to hear that language, and I have compared it with languages in the world, and found that it does not agree in the slightest detail with any natural language on earth. It differs from them in its basic principle, which is that each letter of every word stands for some thing. That can now be seen to be the reason why God is called Alpha and Omega, the one single source from beginning to end, from which everything comes. On this language and its writing-system, which is derived from the spiritual thought of angels, see Conjugial Love 326-329, and also further in this book [280, 365, 386].

Footnotes: