39. Verse 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things, living creatures; and let birds fly above the earth, upon the face ¹ of the expanse of the heavens.

After the great lights have been kindled and lodged in the internal man, from which the external man receives its light, a person starts to live for the first time. Till then he can hardly be said to have lived, for he had imagined that the good he had done he had done from himself, and the truth he had uttered he had spoken from himself. And since man functioning from himself is dead - there being nothing in him that is not evil and false - therefore whatever he brings forth from himself is not living. So true is this that of himself he is incapable of doing any good deed that is in itself good. The fact that man cannot begin to think about good or to will it, and so cannot do good, unless the Lord is the source, is clear to everyone from the doctrine of faith, for the Lord says in Matthew,

He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. Matthew 13:37.

Nor can good come from anywhere else than the one fount itself of all good, as yet again He says,

Nobody is good but one, God. Luke 18:19.

[2] Nevertheless when the Lord is revitalizing a person, or regenerating him, He does allow him, to begin with, to imagine that good and truth originate in himself, for at that point a person cannot grasp anything else, or be led to believe and finally perceive, that all good and truth come from the Lord alone. As long as he held the former opinion his truths and goods were comparable to 'a tender plant', then 'a plant bearing seed', and after that 'a fruit tree', which are inanimate. But once he has been brought to life by love and faith and believes that the Lord is at work in every good deed he does and in every truth he utters, he is compared first to creeping things from the water and to birds which fly above the earth, and then to beasts, all of which are animate and are called 'living creatures'.

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5807. 'And his father loves him' means that this truth exists joined to spiritual good from the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'love' as a joining together, dealt with below; from the representation of Israel, who here is the one who 'loves him', as spiritual good from the natural, dealt with in 4286, 4598; and from the representation of Benjamin, who is the one whom 'his father loves', as new truth, dealt with above in 5804, 5806. The existence of this truth joined to that good is what is meant by 'his father loves him'; and to this truth that good cannot fail to be joined since such truth has its origin in that good. This truth and good exist joined together like father and son, and also like the mental powers of will and understanding since all good has a place in the will and all truth in the understanding. When the will wills what is good this good is implanted in the understanding, where it is given a specific form fashioned according to the essential nature of that good. This form is truth; and as this new truth is born in that manner one can see that it cannot fail to be joined to that good.

[2] As regards love, that it is a joining together, it should be recognized that love is a spiritual joining since it is a joining together of two people's minds, that is, of their thought and will. From this it is evident that regarded essentially love is something purely spiritual, the natural counterpart of which is the delight that comes with companionship and that kind of togetherness. Essentially love is the harmony that results from changes of state and from variations in the forms or substances from which the human mind is built. If that harmony originates in the heavenly form it is heavenly love. From this one may see that love cannot have its origin in anything other than genuine Divine love, which is received from the Lord. This means that love is the Divine flowing into forms and so arranging them that their changes of state and variations may exist in the harmony of heaven.

[3] But loves contrary to this - self-love and love of the world - are not joinings together but separations. They do, it is true, appear to be joinings together; but this is due to one person considering another to be one with him as long as he co-operates with him in making gain, acquiring important positions, or in taking revenge on and persecuting those who oppose him. But as soon as one ceases to show the other person favour, they separate. Heavenly love is different. This is totally averse to doing good to another for selfish reasons; rather it does it for the sake of the good which resides with that other person and which he receives from the Lord, consequently for the sake of the Lord Himself, the Source of that good.