29. Verses 11-12 And God said, Let the earth cause tender plants to spring up, seed-bearing plants, fruit trees bearing fruit, each according to its kind, in which is its seed, upon the earth; and it was so. And the earth brought forth tender herbs, seed-bearing plants, each according to its kind, and trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, each according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Once the earth or the individual has been made ready in such a way that he can receive from the Lord heavenly seeds and produce some measure of good and truth, the Lord first of all causes something tender to spring up, which is: called 'a tender plant', then something more useful which reproduces itself and is called 'a seed-bearing plant', and finally something good which bears fruit and is called 'a tree bearing fruit' in which is its seed, 'each one according to its kind'. The person who is being regenerated is at first such as imagines that any good he does comes from himself, and that any truth he utters comes from himself; but the fact of the matter is that all good and all truth come from the Lord. Consequently anyone who imagines that these originate in himself does not as yet have the life that belongs to true faith, though he is able to receive it later on. Indeed he is not yet able to believe that they come from the Lord because his state is one of preparation for receiving the life inherent in faith. That state is represented in these verses by plant life, the subsequent state, when the life inherent in faith is present, by living creatures.

[2] The Lord Himself saw fit to tell us that He is 'the sower', that 'the seed' is His Word, and that 'the earth' is man, Matthew 13:19-24, 37-39; Mark 4:14-21; Luke 8:11-16. He describes the matter again in a similar way,

The kingdom of God is like a man casting seed into the ground, and sleeping and rising night and day, and the seed sprouts and springs up, he knows not how; for the earth bears fruit of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Mark 4:26-28.

In the universal sense, 'the kingdom of God' is used to mean the whole of heaven, in the less universal sense the Lord's true Church, and in particular every individual who has true faith, that is, who has been regenerated by means of the life that inheres in faith. For that reason the individual is also called 'heaven', for heaven is within him, and 'the kingdom of God', since that too is within him. This the Lord Himself teaches through Luke,

Jesus was asked by the Pharisees, When is the kingdom of God coming? He answered them and said, The kingdom of God is not coming with observation, nor will people say, Behold, here it is! or, Behold, there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:20-21.

This is the third stage of a person's regeneration, a state when he is repentant. It is like passing from shadow into the light, or from evening to morning, and this is why it is said in Verse 13, And there was evening, and there was morning, a third day.

3226. Though he is not aware of it, one of the abilities which are present in a person, and which are taken by him into the next life when he passes into that life on his being released from the body, is the ability to perceive what is meant by the representatives that are seen in the next life. He is also able intuitively (sensu animi) to express fully within an instant that which he was unable to do during his lifetime even if he spent hours over it. He does this by means of ideas gained from the things that belong to the light of heaven; and those ideas are strengthened, being so to speak equipped with wings, by the addition of visual images representative of the subject under discussion, images such as defy description. And since everyone enters into those abilities after death and does not need to be taught them in the next life, it may therefore be recognized that everyone possesses those things, that is, that those abilities exist within him during his lifetime even though he is not aware of this. The reason this is so is that with everyone the Lord is flowing in constantly by way of heaven. That influx is an influx of spiritual and celestial things which come down into his natural ideas and there manifest themselves in a representative manner. With angels in heaven their thoughts are fixed solely on celestial and spiritual things which belong to the Lord's kingdom, whereas with man in the world his thoughts are fixed on scarcely anything other than the bodily and natural things that constitute the kingdom in which he dwells and the necessities of life which he requires. And since the spiritual and celestial things of heaven that flow in manifest themselves in a representative manner in man's natural ideas they therefore remain ingrafted and exist with a person when he casts off bodily things and leaves behind worldly things.