565. The symbolism of humankind as the human race of that time — an evil and corrupt race — is established by subsequent verses:

My spirit will not denounce humankind forever, because they are flesh. (Genesis 6:3)

The evil of the people in the land multiplied; and everything that the thoughts of their heart fabricated was nothing but evil. (Genesis 6:5)

I will obliterate the human whom I created. (Genesis 6:7)

And from the next chapter:

All flesh creeping on the earth passed away, and every human, in whose nostrils was the breath of living spirit. (Genesis 7:21-22)

In regard to humanity, it has already been said that the Lord alone is human [§§49, 162] and that from him every heavenly person (or heavenly church) acquires the name of human [§477]. Everyone who is not heavenly acquires the name of human from him too, as do people of all religions whatever. It is what distinguishes us from animals. Still, we are not human, are not different from the animals, except through having a remnant (as noted [§§530, 560]), which is the Lord's. The remnant too enables us to be called human, and since the remnant enables this, and the remnant is the Lord's, again it is from the Lord that we acquire the name of human, no matter how bad we are. We would not be human but the lowest of the animals if we had no remnant.

560. Inner Meaning

BEFORE going any further, let me mention the situation of the church that came before the Flood. Its situation was much like that of later churches, such as the Jewish church before the Lord's Coming and the Christian church afterward: all of them perverted and adulterated true religious knowledge.

In specific regard to the people of the church before the Flood, they conceived appalling delusions as time passed. The goodness and truth that belong to faith they merged so thoroughly with their foul desires that almost no trace of either was left to them. When they reached this point, they virtually suffocated themselves. A person lacking any remnant [of goodness or truth], after all, cannot survive. Such a remnant, as noted earlier [§530], is what lifts human life above animal life. A remnant, or rather the Lord working by means of a remnant, is what allows a person to seem human, to learn what is good and true, to reflect on particular instances of it, and so to think and reason. This remnant alone has spiritual and heavenly life in it.