From Swedenborg's Works

 

Secrets of Heaven #82

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82. Genesis 2:1. And the heavens and the earth were completed, and their whole army.

This means that we are now spiritual — so much so that we have become "the sixth day." Heaven is our inner and the earth our outer being. Their army is love and faith, and knowledge about love and faith. These things were symbolized earlier by the great lights and the stars.

Scriptural passages quoted in the preceding chapter demonstrate that the inner being is called heaven and the outer being is called earth. 1 Let me add another from Isaiah:

I will render a man more rare than solid gold, and a human being [more rare] than the precious gold of Ophir. 2 Therefore I will strike the heavens with terror, and the earth will quake out of its place. (Isaiah 13:12-13)

And another:

You will forget Jehovah your maker, who stretches out the heavens and founds the earth. But I will put my words in your mouth, and in the shadow of my hand I will hide you, to stretch out heaven and found the earth. (Isaiah 51:13, 16)

All of this makes it clear that both heaven and earth refer to humankind.

Although the earliest church forms the subject here, the Word in its inner depths is such that whatever it says about the church applies also to every individual in the church. If we were not each a church, we could not be part of the church. Likewise, anyone who is not a temple to the Lord cannot be what the Temple symbolizes: a church and a heaven.

This is why the earliest church is referred to as a human being in the singular.

Footnotes:

1. There are a great many Scripture passages quoted in the previous chapter (from somewhere other than Genesis 1) that mention "heaven" or "earth": see §§17, 22-25, 28-29, 31, 34, 37, 40, 46, 49-50, 52, 55, 58. In that chapter Swedenborg explicitly draws the connection between "heaven" and the inner being in §24:3, and between "earth" and the outer being in §27. [JSR]

2. On the terms "man" and "human being" here, see note 1 in §40. [LHC]

  
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Many thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation and its New Century Edition team.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Secrets of Heaven #22

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22. Genesis 1:5. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

From this we now see what evening and morning mean. Evening is every preliminary stage, because such stages are marked by shadow, or by falsity and an absence of faith. Morning is all later stages, because these are marked by light, or by truth and religious knowledge.

Evening stands in general for everything that is our own, while morning stands for everything of the Lord's. As David says, for example:

The Spirit of Jehovah has spoken in me and his words are on my tongue. The God of Israel has said, the rock of Israel has spoken to me. He is like the morning light when the sun rises, like a morning when there are no clouds, when because of the brightness, because of the rain, the tender grass springs from the earth. (2 Samuel 23:2-3, 4)

Since evening is when there is no faith and morning is when there is faith, the Lord's coming into the world is called morning. The period in which he came, being a time of no faith, is called evening. In Daniel:

The Holy One said to me, "Up till [the day's second] evening, when it becomes morning, 1 two thousand and three hundred times." (Daniel 8:14, 26)

Morning in the Word is similarly taken to mean every coming of the Lord, so that it is a word for being created anew.

Footnotes:

1. "Up till [the day's second] evening" means "when the night becomes morning." In addition to the usual meaning as the time when day turns into night, Swedenborg considered the word "evening" in Old Testament idiom to apply as well to the twilight before dawn. Compare Secrets of Heaven 883, "Evening meant the half-light before morning," and a similar statement in §2323:1. Compare also Secrets of Heaven 7844, 10135:5, where Swedenborg discusses the Mosaic phrase "between the evenings" (Exodus 12:6; 16:12; 29:39, 41; 30:8; Leviticus 23:5; Numbers 9:3, 5, 11; 28:4, 8) and defines it as meaning "overnight," that is, during the period between twilight at the end of one day and twilight at the beginning of the next. [LHC]

  
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Many thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation and its New Century Edition team.

The Bible

 

Genesis 1

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1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. God's Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.

3 God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

4 God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.

5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." There was evening and there was morning, one day.

6 God said, "Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters."

7 God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.

8 God called the expanse "sky." There was evening and there was morning, a second day.

9 God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;" and it was so.

10 God called the dry land "earth," and the gathering together of the waters he called "seas." God saw that it was good.

11 God said, "Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with its seed in it, on the earth;" and it was so.

12 The earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with its seed in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.

13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

14 God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;

15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth;" and it was so.

16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.

17 God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth,

18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.

19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

20 God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky."

21 God created the large sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good.

22 God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."

23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

24 God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind;" and it was so.

25 God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.

26 God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

27 God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them. God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

29 God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.

30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;" and it was so.

31 God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.