Reference Emanuel Swedenborg's "Secrets of Heaven" #94 through #151
Genesis 2:7 through Genesis 2:22
------------------------------------------------------------Gen 2:7 - God formed a human from dirt in the ground and breathed into the humans nostrils the breath of lives, and the human was made into living soul...
Formed a human, dirt from the ground = to form our "outer self"
Breath of lives = to put life into our love and faith.
Human made into a living soul = our outer self has also been brought to life.
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**According to Swedenborg - we are composed of an "inner being" and outer being"..depending on our perception or understanding that distinguishes between them could determine how close our union with the Lord can be.
Heavenly people's state is like - that their inner being is distinguished from their outer being. Heavenly people can tell what belongs to the inner and what belongs to the outer being. They can also tell how the Lord uses the inner being to regulate the outer.
Because of the earliest people's desire for autonomy (which belongs to the outer being). They no longer could perceive the distinction between inner and outer beings...for them, it was as if the inner and outer being were one...and this is the result of the desire from autonomy.
(From Secret's of Heaven #159)
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Genesis 2:8 And Jehovah planted a garden in Eden, on the east, and he put in it the human he had formed...
Garden = intelligence (Human Being--the earliest church)
Eden = Love...
East = the Lord
So the garden on the east of Eden symbolizes the intelligence of heavenly people, which comes to them from the Lord. The Lord enters into understanding, reason and knowledge by way of love and the convictions of love.
- - Love is our Conduit to the Lord
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Genesis 2:9 And Jehovah God caused to sprout from the ground every tree desirable in appearance and good for food, and the tree of lives in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge and good and evil.
Trees = different kinds of perception (when having to do with "heavenly people") Perception is an inner feeing for whether a thing is true and good - a feeling that can only come from the Lord. (Spiritual people have no perception - but conscience).
Tree of lives = love and the faith it leads to
Tree of the knowledge of good and evil = faith based on evidence from the senses...secular knowledge.
Middle of the garden = In the will - from the inner self
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Genesis 2:10 And a river was issuing from Eden to water the garden; and from there it parted and became four headwaters.
River from Eden = wisdom born of love
To water the garden = is to give the gift of intelligence or understanding.
Rivers = all aspects of wisdom...things that would stimulate growth. Although wisdom and understanding seem to reside in us...they belong to the Lord alone.
Gold = the goodness that belongs to wisdom or love (the ark, the Temple, the golden table, the lampstands, the utensils, and Aaron's garments had this symbolism).
**From Swedenborg, "People should be aware though, that the only wisdom comes from love and so from the Lord, and the only intelligence comes from faith and, so again, from the Lord. What is more, all good comes from love, and so from the Lord, and all truth comes from faith, and so from the Lord. When these things do not come from love and faith and so from the Lord, they are counterfeit, even though they bear the same names as the real entities." (#112)
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Genesis 2:15 And Jehovah God took the human and put the human in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to guard it.
Garden of Eden = everything in a heavenly person..they acknowledge, because they perceive, that absolutely everything is the Lord's...Wisdom Understanding, Reason, and Knowledge are not ours...but the Lord's.
Cultivating the garden and guarding it = the person is free to enjoy all those things-but not to claim personal possession of them...because they are the Lord's.
***Heavenly people can perceive that everything is the Lord's.
***Spiritual people do not perceive, but acknowledge it, but only in speech, because they learned it from the Word.
***Worldly and body-centered people do not agree or accept the idea; they claim as their own any ability they discover inside themselves, and if they lose it, they consider it completely destroyed. ( Secrets of Heaven #123).
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Genesis 2:16-17 And Jehovah God commanded the human concerning it, saying, " From every tree of the garden you are definitely to eat...."But from the tree of knowledge of good and evil you may not eat, because on the day on which you eat from it you will surely die.
To eat from every tree = to depend on perception (the Lord) in order to know and recognize what is good and true.
(People are allowed to depend on any perception they receive from the Lord...to tell them what is true and good...but NOT on themselves or the world around them (The tree of knowledge of good and evil).
-In other words, when inquiring into religious mysteries, they are NOT to rely on "sense" impressions or facts: and that to do so would be the death of their heavenly quality. (#126-128)
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Following verses deal with later generations of the earliest church, who strove for autonomy...
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Genesis 2:18 And Jehovah God said, "It is not good for the human to be alone. Let me make him an aid that seems to be his".
Being alone = being discontent with the Lord's leading and desiring to be led by oneself and the world.
An aid that seems to be his = a sense of autonomy, later referred to as the "rib" from which the woman was built (Gen 2:22)
***In carnal, materialistic people- their sense of autonomy is the all-in-all. They know nothing else. If it (sense of autonomy), died, they would think they had died.
***Spiritual people know and admit that the Lord is the life of all things, that he is the giver of wisdom and understanding and so of thought and action, but they do not really believe it.
*** Heavenly people ackowledge that the Lord is the life of all and the giver of thought and action because they perceive that it is so, and they have no desire at all for autonomy. Yet even though they do not seek autonomy, the Lord gives it to them. This autonomy and selfhood is directly bound up with their ability to perceive what is good and true and with their happiness. (#141)
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Genesis 2:21 And Jehovah God made slumber fall on the human, and he went to sleep, And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place.
Rib (Chest bone) = means part of our identity, which is hardly alive and yet is our very own, so we love it tenderly.
Bone= because they are minimally alive- they represented attributes that are of relatively little value....also human selfhood. Human selfhood is in fact nothing more than a dead trifle, even though it seems to its owner to be significant and indeed all-important.
Slumber = a state brought over us to make it seem to us as if we have autonomy. This state is like sleep because in it we have no idea that we do not live, think, speak and act on our own; but when we begin to realize how much this view is, we are toused from our sleep and wake up.
Flesh = Attributes that have a living quality. (#147)
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Genesis 2:22 And Jehovah God built a woman out of the rib that he took from the human and brought her to the human.
Building = reconstructing what has fallen down.
Rib = a sense of self devoid of life
Woman = a sense of self brought to life by the Lord.
Bringing her to the human = giving people a sense of self (brought to life by the Lord).
***You can see that the woman did not come from the rib of man and that these words involve deeper meanings. The fact that woman symbolizes selfhood is indicated by her being the one who was deceived (Gen 3:1-6), since nothing ever deceives us besides our self absorption or, what is the same, love for ourselves and for the material world. (#151)
Next -- Adam and Eve Part 2 - Marriage - Innocence - The Snake
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