487. The symbolism of days as those times and states in general was shown in the first chapter [§23], where the days of creation symbolize nothing else.

It is very common for the Word to call all units of time "days." ¹ In this verse the practice is quite obvious, as it also is in verses 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 27, and 31 below. The general states at those times accordingly are symbolized by days as well. When years are mentioned in conjunction with days, the time spans represented by those years symbolize the nature of the states then; in other words, they symbolize the specific states.

[2] The earliest people had particular numbers they used for symbolizing various aspects of the church: three, seven, ten, twelve, and additional ones that they compounded out of these and others. This allowed them to sum up the states of the church. As a result, these numbers contain hidden wisdom that would require a long explanation. It was a way of evaluating different states in the church.

The same phenomenon occurs at many other places in the Word, especially in the prophets. In the rites of the Jewish religion there are also numbers for both timing and measurement in connection with sacrifices, minhas, ² oblations, and other acts of worship; and everywhere those numbers occur they symbolize holiness in the thing they are applied to.

What these numbers specifically involve, then — the eight hundred in this verse, the nine hundred thirty in the next, and so on for the numbers of years in the following verses — is more than I can ever convey. They all come down to changes in the state of religion among those people, seen in relation to their general state.

Later on, by the Lord's divine mercy, I will need to tell what the simple numbers up to twelve symbolize. ³ Unless this is known first, the symbolism of their products cannot be grasped.

Fotnoter:

433. For the meaning of Cain will be avenged seven times as the placement of a sacred ban on violating the detached faith meant by Cain, see what was shown at verse 15 [§§392-396]. The symbolism of seventy-seven times as being far more sacrosanct and resulting in damnation can be seen from the symbolism of seventy-seven times.

Seven is a holy number because the seventh day symbolizes the heavenly person, the heavenly church, the heavenly kingdom, and in the highest sense the Lord himself. Therefore the number seven means something holy or sacrosanct wherever it occurs in the Word. The holiness or heinousness belongs to the qualities under discussion and is determined by them. Seventy is also holy because it covers seven "ages," an "age" in the Word being ten years.

When anything extremely holy or positively sacrosanct was expressed, the words seventy times seven times were used. The Lord, for instance, said that we should not forgive our brother or sister up to seven times but up to seventy times seven (Matthew 18:21-22). This means that we should forgive as often as our brother or sister sins, without limit, or to eternity, which is holy. And the fact here that vengeance would be taken seventy-seven times means damnation, because violation was absolutely forbidden.

1013. The fact that because [blood] has made humankind into God's image symbolizes charity, which is God's image, follows logically. ¹ The last section discussed the charity symbolized by blood. The fact that it was not to be snuffed out is symbolized by the fact that people were not to shed blood. Now the verse proceeds to say that it has made humankind into God's image, which indicates that charity is God's image.

Hardly anyone today knows what God's image is. People say God's image was thoroughly destroyed in the first human, whom they call Adam. They also say that Adam had previously had God's image within him, which they describe as a certain perfection unknown to themselves. Perfection is what it was, too, because Adam or Humankind ² means the earliest church, which was a heavenly individual, with perception of a type that no later church possessed. So that church was the Lord's likeness as well. (The Lord's likeness symbolizes love for him.)

[2] After this church gradually died out, the Lord created a new one that was not a heavenly church but a spiritual one. This church was not the Lord's likeness but his image. (An image symbolizes spiritual love, that is, love for one's neighbor, or charity, as also shown earlier, in §§50, 51.) Spiritual love — charity — made this church an image of the Lord, as indicated by the present verse. The reality that charity is itself the Lord's image can be seen from the fact that it says, "because it has made humankind into God's image," which is to say that charity itself made people so.

The fact that charity is God's image is very clear from the essential nature itself of love, or charity. Only love and kindness can create a likeness or an image of anyone. The essential nature of love and kindness is to form something like a single entity out of two things. When we love another as ourselves — and more than ourselves — we see the other in ourselves and ourselves in the other. Anyone can recognize this simply by observing love, or people who love one another. The will of one is the will of the other; they seem to be deeply bound together; only their bodies are distinct from each other.

[3] Love for the Lord makes us one with him, or makes us his likeness. Charity — love for our neighbor — does too, but it makes us his image. An image is not a likeness of something but is in the likeness of that thing.

This oneness rising out of love is something the Lord himself describes in John:

I pray that they may all be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they too may be one in us. I have given them the glory that you have given me, so that they can be one as we are one — I in them and you in me. (John 17:21-22, 23)

This oneness is the mystical union that some people contemplate — a union achieved only through love. ³ In the same author:

I live and you will live; on that day you will know that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you. Whoever has my commandments and does them, that is the person who loves me. If any love me, they will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make a home in them. (John 14:19-20, 21, 23)

These things show that love is what binds together, and that the Lord has a home in those who love him and who love their neighbor (since loving our neighbor is loving the Lord).

[4] This union that makes us likenesses and images is not as clear to see in the human race as it is in heaven, where mutual love makes all angels into something like a single being. Each community, consisting of many people, forms an individual person, so to speak. And all the communities taken together — the whole of heaven, in other words — form an individual person who is also called the universal human (see §§457 and 550). Heaven as a whole is the Lord's likeness, because he is their all-in-all. Each community is also a likeness. So is each angel. Heavenly angels are likenesses; spiritual angels are images. ⁴ Heaven consists of as many likenesses of the Lord as there are angels, and this comes from mutual love alone — from their loving each other more than themselves (see §§548 and 549).

The reality is that for a whole (all of heaven) to be a likeness, the parts (individual angels) have to be likenesses, or images that are in the [Lord's] likeness. If a whole does not consist of parts that resemble it, it is not a united whole. ⁵

With these principles in mind, we can easily see what makes us God's likeness and image: love for the Lord and love for our neighbor. As a result we can see that love, or charity, which comes from the Lord alone, makes every regenerate spiritual person an image of the Lord. People motivated by a sense of charity received from the Lord, furthermore, display a perfection, or wholeness. (Later sections, by the Lord's divine mercy, will discuss this perfection [§§5113:2, 3; 5658:2].)

Fotnoter: