Father in the Word means what is most interior, and in those things that are following the Lord's order, it means what is good. In the highest sense Father means the Lord Himself, the creator. In the generation of natural children it is the father who provides the soul or the most interior receptacle of life, and an internal heredity, and the mother who provides all of the substance that the soul uses to form its body, plus an external heredity. In this process the soul comes from the Lord through the father, and not from the father, since all life is from the Lord. The wise person calls the Lord his father and the church his mother because his interior loves come from the Lord, but are given form and actuality through the truths taught by the church. Those things thus brought forth are a person's spiritual "children". In the New Testament, when speaking of Jesus and the Father, what is meant is the outward manifestation with the divine itself as the soul inside. Because Jesus was born from a natural mother, He had a natural body and a natural Jewish heredity. Throughout his life as He was tempted by the hells, He slowly put off all he had from His mother and replaced it with what He had from Himself inside, the Father. In doing this he made himself one with the Father that was His inmost so He could truly say, "I and my Father are one".

1068. “挪亚开始作起土地上的人来” 一般表被教导关于信的教义事物之人. 这一点从前面 (268, 566节) 论述的 “土地” 的含义清楚可知, 它表教会成员, 或表教会. 因为如果教会存在, 那么个体必是教会. 教会被称为 “土地”, 是因为它接受信的种子, 或信之真理与良善. “土地” 与 “地” 或 “陆地” (如前所述, “地” 也表教会) 之别, 如同信与仁之别. 正如仁是信的容器, “地” 同样是 “土地” 的容器. 所以, 当论及总体上的教会时, 教会就被称为 “地”; 当论及具体的教会时, 它被称为 “土地”, 如本节的情形. 因为总体就是源于总体之物的复合体. 古教会成员拥有的教义就是被保存下来的上古教会的启示和感知, 如前所述; 他们信这些教义, 就象如今我们信圣言一样. 这些教义就是他们的圣言. 故挪亚开始所作的 “土地上的人” 表在信的教义上接受指教的人.