DEEPER DEFINITIONS - 2

The role of the intellect is to hear the Lord -- The role of the will is to do it.
The Will + Intellect = the Mind

Spiritual - adjective for anything having to do with religious knowledge = our knowledge.  OUR INTELLECT

Heavenly - applies to everything having to do with Love for the Lord and for our neighbor.  OUR WILL

Spiritual person - represents the 6th day (Creation - story of regeneration of the human)  Focuses on eternal life as a goal; and then the Lord. Acknowledges spiritual and heavenly truth and goodness - through FAITH.  Subject to conflict, but always wins.  Restraints = internal - bonds of CONSCIENCE.  Spiritual people have no perception; only conscience.

Heavenly person - represents the 7th day (Creation).  Focuses first on the Lord; then His Kingdom; and then eternal life.  Believes and perceives truth and goodness of spiritual and heavenly kinds - no other faith than one that springs from LOVE.  No conflict ; spurns evil falsity = victors.  No apparent restraints to curb.  Invisible restraints - goodness and truth they perceive.

a. Heavenly people act not from their own desire - but the Lord's pleasure. (Not my will - but Thine, Oh God)..

b.  Heavenly people are blessed with inner peace and happiness.

c. Heavenly people depend on the Lord for perception of what is good and true.

Lifeless people - bodily and worldly truth and goodness only.  Focuses on bodily and world life as goals; no belief. Gives in to conflict - they are slaves to evil and falsity (evil and falsity are their Masters).  Self-love and materialism are forms of hatred.  Only external restraints - Fear, Law, Life, Wealth, Reputation ...many people never rise beyond this state. 

**Do not depend on yourself or the world around you-- Do not rely on sensory evidence or secular knowledge - when inquiring into the mysteries of Faith.

Breathing - breath - Life force.  the breath is the vital quality of Love and Faith.

Garden - Intelligence -(also) desert, gladness, voice of song.  Those are further intellectual (spiritual) aspects. Garden also represents = Human Being

Eden - Love -(also) wilderness, joy, acclimation.  Those are further loving (heavenly) aspects of faith.

East - The Lord

Tree - perception - inner feeling whether a thing is true and good -can only come from the Lord.
a). Tree Desirable in Appearance = perception of truth
b). Tree Good for Food = perception of goodness
c). Tree of Lives = Our Will. Love and the Faith it leads to.  The tree of lives stands in the middle of the garden - the tree is the Lord's mercy, the source of all Love and Faith = Life.
d). Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil = faith based only on evidence of the senses = secular knowledge.

Wisdom comes from Love - the Lord
Intelligence comes from Faith - the Lord

Good = Love = Lord
Truth = Faith = Lord

Gold - symbolizes goodness that belongs to wisdom or to Love.
Silver - symbolizes truth that belongs to understanding
Precious stones - religious truth
Stones - heavenly and spiritual quality of faith

Canaan - Mt. Zion = Heaven

River Pishon - knowledge - faith based in love
River Gihon - knowledge of goodness (Love) and truth (Faith)
River Hiddekel - ability to reason - clearsightedness
River Euphrates - secular, factual knowledge - the final boundry of the mind.  Sensory factual information.

Land of Cush (Ethiopia) = Mental abilities. The Will and Intellect - the Mind.  Knowledge of Love and Faith. Religious knowledge.
Egypt - Secular knowledge. Facts from the sensory.  Facts in the memory are the outer limit of understanding and wisdom.
Assyria - reasoning mind, the ability to think rationally.
--King of Assyria - delusions, falsities, falty reasoning.  Falsities adopted as premises.
Israel - the ability to understand
Philistines- those who seize on false premise and use them as a basis for reasoning about spiritual matters.

Example - "River goes east to Assyria" = From the Lord (east) (through the inner self) to the part of the mind that reasons (in outer self) Assyria.

Heavenly person's inner life organized: (pattern starts) Lord (East) to Wisdom to Understanding to Reason to Facts

Heavenly people acknowledge (perceive) absolutely everything is the Lord's.

Spiritual people acknowledge too, but only in speech - because they learned it from the Word.

None of us can acquire anything unless it is given to us from Heaven.

Garden of Eden = everything in a Heavenly person
Cultivating - free to enjoy all those things, but not to claim it as their own.
Ground - - Theology. The church, or the people in the church. Regenerate people (planted with heavenly seed)  The "outer" self.
Guarding - not to claim personal possession - it is the Lord's.  Preserving and protecting.

Animals - Contents of the Will - feelings ...Bad feelings (wolf, bear etc) good feelings (sheep, lamb).  Emotions of the Heavenly type.
Birds - Contents of the intellect and reasoning. Comprehension of the truth

To See and Name the Animals - Granting humankind the ability to recognize the nature of those feelings...gifts of the Lord.

Snake - Self Love. The snake means reliance solely on the senses and on factual knowledge. Our senses - which we trust.  A person's sensory abilities.  All evil.  Snakes are only able to hurt the "lowest" things on earth...(their own kind). 
Serpent - traveling on belly.  Sensory level could no longer look up toward Heavenly values as it had before....but only down-toward bodily or earthly ones
Snake's head - tyranny of evil in general and self love.  Seeks power over everything on earth - control over everything in Heaven...Dominate - Hate.  Snake's seed - all unbelief
Trampling - pushing it down until it travels on it's belly and eats dirt.

Example: "Snake head lifts up to dominate Heaven - until the Lord tramples it down to the ground."  When the snake raises it's head (tries to use abilities of the senses to overcome or dominate heavenly things.

Heel - what is bottommost on the earthly level - orientation towards the body. Also bottom-most things in the rational mind - the facts we know.
Belly - things that are closest to the earth - underground realm...Hell
Chest - things higher than earth
Head - highest things of all

Devil - Never means an individual devil who is the ruler of others - but the TOTAL horde of evil spirits = evil itself.

To the Lord, and consequently to the Angels in Heaven, the future is the same as the present.  What is to come is already here, or what will happen is already an accomplished fact.

People who take the Word literally:
a) Deceptive appearances, but readily allow themselves to learn better.
b) They believe the Lord is angry with the ungodly, punishes them and does evil to them.
c) They believe they can do good on their own - and that in the next life they will receive a reward from the Lord if they are intrinsically good.

The "literals" will learn:
a) That the good they do comes from the Lord.
b) The Lord rewards them freely out of Mercy.

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.

LOVE AND FAITH -- THE BIBLE'S TRUE MEANING

The true meaning and symbolism of Love and Faith is key to understanding and "living" the Word of God.

FAITH

The actual essence and life of faith is the Lord's alone.  Through our faith, the Lord endows us with charity...and then charity becomes the highest importance.  Charity is Love for our neighbor and mercy.

Faith does not have any life besides that which it gains from Love.  It is from Love that Faith forms and sprouts.  Faith is like light.  No light exists that does not come from the sun (Love) --- the source of where light develops.  Faith develops according to the quality of Love or Charity.

To have faith without love is lifeless.  Faith without love is represented in the story of Cain and Abel.  Abel represents charity and Cain represents faith detached from love.  Cain killing Abel means a detached faith extinguishes charity.

The first form of faith to bring life is a memorized type of thing...facts.  Factual faith is represented in Gen 3-13 as things that had no living soul.

The next form of faith to bring life is in the intellect...faith truly understood.  Faith truly understood is also represented in Gen 14-19 as things that have no living soul.

The last is faith from the heart...faith born of love, or saving faith.  Faith brought alive by love is represented in Gen 20-25 as animate creatures.

Love and the faith that arises from it are called "Lights"

Love is the greater light that rules by day...the Sun.

Faith is the lesser light and rules by night...the Moon.

People who live their lives through love...do love the Lord with all their hearts, but these people know, say and perceive that all love comes from the Lord, and nowhere else, as does all life (a product of love), and all happiness.  Therefore, they do not claim love, life or happiness as their own...but from the Lord.  To live life this way, faith springing from love, in all our hearts, souls and mind -- is to be one with the Lord.

LOVE

The earliest church acknowledged no faith besides love itself.  Heavenly angels have no idea what faith is if it is not a matter of love.  The entirety of heaven gives itself over to love, because no other kind of life than that of love exists in the heavens.  Love is the source of all their happiness, which is so immense that it could never be understood by the human mind.

If you were to take ALL the things you love -- the things you long for (since longings are bound up with love) -- and set them aside, your thought processes would come to an immediate halt and you would be like a corpse.

Self love and materialism produce an imitation of life and an imitation of joy, but since they are diametrically opposed to genuine love-- that is, loving the Lord above all and loving your neighbor as yourself-- it stands to reason that they are not forms of love, but hatred.  Notice that the more we love ourselves and worldly goods, the more we hate our neighbor and therefore the Lord.

Genuine love is love from the Lord, and genuine life is a life of love received from Him.  True joy is the joy of that life.  Only one genuine love can exist, so only one genuine life can exist, and it gives rise to true joy and happiness, like that felt by angels in heaven.

Deuteronomy 6

Love and faith can never be separated, because they make a single unit.  Some say that they believe in the Lord; but actually they had not lived as He taught.  The Lord speaks of them this way in Matthew:

"Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord" shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.  Matt 7:21

All this makes it clear that people who have love have faith and consequently heavenly life.  The same cannot be said of those who claim to have faith but do not lead a loving life.

GENESIS - DEEPER MEANING TO THE STORY OF CREATION

The Word in the Old Testament contains hidden or deeper meanings, and every single aspect of it has to do with the Lord, His Church, and faith and the literal tenents of faith.  Every part of the Old Testament contains inner meanings...this is the fascinating introduction to Emanuel Swedenborg's major work "Secrets of Heaven".  Enjoy...

Most of us were raised with the traditional, literal story of creation.  With further understanding, it is easy to see that each of the seven days of creation represents the development of a soul.

THE FIRST DAY (or stage)-- we are in preliminary infancy.  What it means is we have no awareness or understanding of our connection with God.  Rather than saying we are born with "original sin" -- I think it's more fitting to say we are born without a connection to the Lord. There is void (absence of goodness), empty (absence of good) which results in darkness. Darkness is a person being totally ignorant or oblivious of anything having to do with faith in the Lord or a spiritual or heavenly life.  The first stirring is the Lord's mercy.  The spirit of God is in constant motion like a "mother hen to her brood". Some people never develop past this stage. 

THE SECOND DAY (or stage) -- An awareness or distinction is defined between things that are the Lord's and things that are our own.  It is the starting of awareness of of our "inner" or "higher" self  which are things of the Lord (also called a remnant or survivor) -and- things of our outer self, which consists of bodily or worldly concerns -- and are our own.  The "things" of the outer self are completely separated from things of the inner self.  The "remnant" which is of the Lord, at this stage refers to religious knowledge we have learned.  This remnant contained in our inner self, is put aside by the Lord until the right time.

THE THIRD DAY (or stage)  -- Is repentence.  The inner self begins to awaken and we begin to speak devoutly and reverently (yielded a good harvest) and even sometimes show acts of neighborly kindness.  These "things" are still part of the void and emptiness (lifeless), indicated by the Lord creating "the tender plant"..alive, but not sentient. The reason we are still considered lifeless is because we still think these acts and thoughts come from ourselves, rather than the Lord.  We are in a state of trial and anguish at this point, between our inner self (of the Lord) and our outer self (of the world).

THE FOURTH DAY  (or stage) -- Love stirs and faith enlightens us!!   Before, we spoke devoutly and reverently (yielded a good harvest), but we did so in a state of trial and anguish...not from a call from faith and kindness.  We now speak from a state of faith and kindness prompted from our inner selves (of the Lord)...represented by two lights.

THE FIFTH DAY  (or stage)  -- We now speak with conviction and in that process strengthen ourselves in truth and goodness.  Things we now produce have life (God) in them represented by fish of the sea, and birds in the heavens.

THE SIXTH DAY  (or stage) -- Now, we not only speak but act with conviction (from love) in speaking truth and doing good.  It is now represented in the Word that what we produce is called a living soul and a beast.  We have reached a state where we begin to act as much from love as from conviction ...We have reached the state of a "SPIRITUAL PERSON".

Before we proceed, let's look at aspects of inner meanings of phrases in the Bible, Genesis 1.  Remember, I am merely skimming the surface of infinitely deep, multidimensional hidden meanings...it would take many lifetimes to even understand a portion of the Word...it's that awesome!!

1.  In the beginning...  One meaning of "beginning" includes the first period (Day 1) of regeneration (rebirth) when people are being born anew and receiving life.
2.  Heaven or Sky...symbolizes the inner self (of the Lord)
3.  Earth...symbolizes the outer self...before regeneration (rebirth)
4.  Face of the abyss...means our cravings and falsities that cravings give rise to
5.  Spirit of God...stands for the Lord's mercy
6.  Remnant or Survivor...it is the knowledge of truth and goodness, which can never emerge to the light of day until our outer nature has been devastated (We completely let go and release concerns and ownership of our outer self...earthly and body
7.  Light... Light is the Lord. The Lord is goodness itself, or life, and truth itself...nothing good or true exists that does not come from Him.