The 1st Day: Genesis 1:1-5

1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2. And the earth was a void and emptiness, and thick darkness was upon the faces of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the faces of the waters.

3. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

4. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God distinguished between the light and the darkness.

5. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Summary

The initial state is that which precedes, including both the state from infancy, and that immediately before rebirth (regeneration). This is called a "void," "emptiness," and "thick darkness." And the first motion, which is the Lord‘s mercy, is "the Spirit of God moving upon the faces of the waters."

The first new state is when a distinction is made between those things which are of the Lord, and those which are proper to man. The things which are of the Lord are called in the Word "remains," and here are especially knowledges of faith, which have been learned from infancy, and which are stored up, and are not manifested until the man comes into this state.

Details from Emanuel Swedenborg: Verses 1-2; Verses 3-5,

from Thomas King,

from Theodore Pitcairn

from illustration by David Chambers,

from Lee Woofenden:

We start first by understanding. That's why God said, "Let there be light." Because before there is light, there is darkness and void. Swedenborg tells us that the first state, which is the state that comes before our spiritual growth, is a state that starts from our earliest childhood and continues on through until the time just before we begin to consciously decide to grow spiritually--just before we consciously invite the Lord into our life, and decide that we want to not just be material beings, but to be spiritual beings.

That first state can last well into adulthood. There are people who don't decide to have spirituality in their lives until they reach thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years old. So this period of darkness can last a long time. We may be very intelligent, but we are dark spiritually in that we don't see that God is working in our spirit; we don't see that there is a higher purpose to life.

When God says "Let there be light," that, in us, is our first realization that there is something higher than all this material realm that we have been dealing with. There is light: there is deeper understanding. Light is a universal symbol of truth. When we say, "I see," we mean, "I understand." So the very first beginning of our spiritual growth is when the light dawns in our mind that there is a higher purpose to life; that there is something more than this material existence; that there is something more that we need to look to, to go for, in our lives. "Let there be light." This is the beginning of our spiritual growth.

"And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day." It is very significant that every day starts from evening, and goes to morning. Because this is how our spiritual growth happens. We start from not understanding so well, from a state of darkness and obscurity, and we progress toward daytime: toward understanding and knowing what our life is for, and what God wants for our life. We progress from evening to morning each stage of our spiritual growth. So "there was evening, and there was morning, the first day."

from Lee Woofenden

Video: "Practicing Peace" Day One: Light

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