DEEPER DEFINITIONS

The LORD is goodness itself, or life, and truth itself, or light, and consequently nothing good or true exists that does not come from HIM. 

People who focus exclusively on externals do not even know what is good or what is true; everything connected with self-love and love of worldly advantages they consider good, and anything that promotes these two loves they consider true. They are unaware that such "goodness" is evil, and such "truth" is false.

Before we are reborn, we do not know that an "inner being" exists, let alone what it is, imagining there is no difference between the two selves.  This is because we are absorbed by bodily and worldly interests and merge the concerns of the inner being with those interests.  Out of distinct and separate planes we make one dim, confused whole.

The LORD leads us by means of things that really are our own -- both illusions of our senses and our cravings--but diverts us toward things that are true and good.

When we are "reborn" however, we first begin to be aware that our "good" is not good.  And as we advance further into the light, it dawns on us that the LORD exists and that he is goodness and truth itself.

The progress of faith in those being regenerated (reborn) is as follows...
Initially people are without life, no life exists in evil and falsity, only in goodness and truth. 
Afterward they receive life from the LORD through faith. 
   The first form of faith to bring life is a memorized thing -- a matter of fact.
   The next is faith in the intellect -- faith truly understood.
   The last is faith in the heart, which is faith born of love, or saving faith.

The LORD stores away in each and every one of us (what is referred to) as a "remnant" or "survivors".  It is knowledge of truth and goodness, which can never emerge into the light of day until our outer-self (attachment to love of ourselves and worldly matters) has been devastated.

Devastation- stripping away everything self-centered and bodily..it has to die, and die through struggle and combat. To wipe out our insistence on autonomy - as long as it maintains its grip, we are dead.  When we suffer times of trouble, this sense of autonomy is shaken off - it is loosened and mitigated by truth and goodness we receive from the Lord. 

Spiritual Person- A Spiritual person represents the 6th day (stage) of Genesis.  We now act with conviction and therefore with love in speaking truth and doing good. What we then produce is called a living soul and a beast.

Light =  the LORD - goodness and truth
Heaven = (or the sky) symbolizes our inner self-- religious knowledge
Earth = our outer self before regeneration-- secular knowledge,
Morning = stands for the later stages of regeneration..marked by light, or by truth and religious knowledge. Everything that of the LORD'S
Evening =  Every preliminary stage before "regeneration" because these stages are marked by shadow, or by falsity and absence of faith. . For everything that is our own...without faith.
Darkness = a person who is oblivious to or ignorant of anything having to do with faith in the LORD -- spiritual or heavenly life.  Our lingering sense of self-sufficiency.
Water = mainly symbolizes our spiritual possessions...the intellectual elements of faith.  It represents religious and secular knowledge. 
Seas represent a body of such knowledge.
Great Lights= symbolize love and faith..they are named sun, moon and stars.
The greater light is love and the lesser light is faith.
Greater Light = The sun (love) will rule by day (of the the Lord)
Lesser Light= The moon (faith) will rule by night  (outer possession)          
Flood = times of trial and devastation. - challenge to our way of thinking
Heat = challenge to the intentions of our will
Fire and flames = evil and cravings

Ark= divine protection
Clean animal = positive emotions
Unclean animal = cravings
Bird = thoughts
Birds of Heavens = intellectual or rational matters
Creeps on the ground = sensory level / sensual pleasure...metaphore for things we aquire thru our senses.  Things that give us sensual pleasure...Lowest plane of existance - Barred from lifting any higher

Male = truth - intellect - faith
Female = goodness - the will - love

Twos = answer to each other - marriage 
Marriage = truth and goodness - intellect and will - male and female --
 Ideas of the intellect are married to the intentions of the will.

40 = every period that trials last.  Long or short = severe trial, involves impulses of the will.


Spiritual struggle is a battle inside us between evil spirits and angels present with us, and that we sense this conflict indistinctly in our conscience.

The Lord uses adversity to regenerate us and bend us into harmony.

We NEVER produce anything misguided or wicked out of ourselves - It is evil spirits with us who produce it and cause us to believe it came from us.