ADAM AND EVE PART 2
Wife - Marriage - The Snake
(Genesis 2:23 - 3:1)
Taken directly from Swedenborg's "Secrets of Heaven" #151 -191
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Genesis 2:23 And the human said, "This time, bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. This is why she will be called "wife" because she was taken from man."
Bone from one's bones and flesh from one's flesh = the sense of autonomy of our outer being. The desire for autonomy belongs to our outer self.
Bone = autonomy without much life
Flesh = autonomy with life
Man = our inner being
Wife = because our inner being is intimately coupled with the outer being -- wife represents the desire to rule ourselves.
This time = means that the desire to rule ourselves has been accomplished, because our state has changed.
The condition (accomplishment of autonomy ..to rule ourselves), changed because of our desire for autonomy, which belongs to the outer being. No longer could people perceive the distinction between their inner and outer beings; for them it was as if the inner and outer were one.
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Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Leaving his father and mother = leaving the inner being behind, as it is the inner being that gives birth to the outer being.
To cling to one's wife = is to have an inner being within our outer being.
They are one flesh = means the two coexist there...Prior to this "condition" the inner being was spirit, as was the outer being, through it's connection with the inner....Now, however, they become flesh.
All laws ordaining what is true and right flow from heavenly origins, or from the structure of the inner life of a person who belongs in heaven. Heaven, taken as a whole, is a heavenly person because the Lord alone is a heavenly person. He is the totality of each and everything in heaven and in the heavenly individual.
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The law for marriage- the heavenly marriage is the source and pattern for all marriages on earth. All things display something like marriage or coupling within them, like the match of truth and goodness, or of evil and falsity, because the intellect (man) is married to the will (woman). In other words...the ideas of the intellect are married to the intentions of the will.
The heavenly marriage allows for one Lord, one heaven, or one church with the Lord as head...The resulting law for marriage is that there must be one man (our inner being) and one wife (outer being)
Marriage:
Man and Wife - our inner being within our outer being headed by the Lord
- our self hood - when inner and outer beings are joined.
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Genesis 2:25 And they were both naked, the human and his wife, and did not blush.
They were naked and did not blush = means they were innocent; the Lord introduced innocence into their self hood to keep them from being objectionable.
Human self hood alone is evil - but when infused by the Lord with charitable love and innocence, it becomes lovely.
Love for our fellow humans and innocence are what excuse self-centeredness, or a person's evil and falsity.
Unembarrassed nakedness = innocence
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Genesis 3:1 And the snake was crafty above every wild animal of the field that Jehovah God had made; and it said to the woman, "Did God really say, "You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
The snake = our senses, which we trust.
The wild animal of the field = means every emotion in our outer self
The woman = self hood
The snake's words, "Did God really say, You may not eat from any tree?" = For the first time..they experienced doubts. They began to disbelieve what had been revealed - unless they could see and feel that it was so.
Snakes was their word for a person's sensory abilities. Sense impressions rise directly out of the body, just as snakes lie directly on the ground. False logic concerning the mysteries of faith, when it sprang from sense impressions was called "snake venom". In ancient times, people who put more trust in what they learned through the senses than in what had been revealed were called "snakes".
Sense oriented people, or those who believe only what their senses tell them, deny spirit exists because they cannot see it. Scholars, philosophers, or anyone who analyzes the question of spirit on the basis of the senses denies spirit exists...and when they deny its existence, they believe absolutely nothing that is said about spirit or spiritual things.
But if you ask the simple at heart, they say they know it exists because the Lord said they would live after death. They do not snuff out their rational capacity; instead they make it a living thing by means of the Lord's Word.
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