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The True Meaning of the 7 Days of Creation: Spiritual Rebirth
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The True Meaning of the 7 Days of Creation: Spiritual Rebirth |
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Within
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IntroductionFrom the literal
meaning of the first chapters of Genesis, no one realizes that it refers to
anything besides the creation of the world, the Garden of Eden which is called
"Paradise," and Adam, the first human to be created. Who thinks
anything else? However, these things contain details that have never been
revealed until now. . . . In this inner meaning, the first
chapter of Genesis is about new creation of a human being. It is a wonderful story to start out with in the Bible. You know how there is often a preface in a book, and the preface will tell you what the book is going to tell you. They always told us that in school: when you write a paper, first you tell them what you're going to tell them, then you tell them, then you tell them what you told them. The Creation story is God telling us what he's going to tell us in the whole Bible. He is summarizing the entire Bible, which is really, Swedenborg tells us, about our own spiritual growth. It's about our process from when we first start to awaken spiritually to the time when we become angels in heaven. The Creation story is a wonderful summary, in just a little over one chapter, of the whole Bible story.
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Stages: External representation |
Spiritual State: Internal |
| Initial state: without form and void | Prior to rebirth: no spiritual form |
| First state: light and darkness | Knowing that the good and the true are something higher. |
| Second state: heavens and earth | Distinguishing those spiritual things from God (in the internal man), from those of oneself (in the external) |
| Third state: tender grass, tree bearing fruit | Acting from knowledge, not from the heart |
| Fourth state: sun and moon | Love and Insight begin in the internal |
| Fifth state: whales of the sea, birds of the heavens | Actions to confirm oneself in truth and good: deep principles & rising thoughts |
| Sixth state: living soul, beast, ‘image of God’ | Actions from insight, and hence from love: alive at last – ‘spiritual’ |
| Seventh state: day of rest | Actions from love, and hence from insight: ‘celestial’ |
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