The 7 Days of Creation

Genesis 1

My personal interest in Genesis 1 stems from the temple endowment. The Genesis story of the creation of the world is painted on all historic temples walls, and the new temples show videos of the creation of the world through imagery and text of Genesis 1. It portrays a very literal view of the creation and instruction Heavenly Father gave to Jesus Christ and Adam to create the world in sequential steps.

In my research I have felt like my own world has opened up to new understandings through Swedenborg. I will start with the creation, because really the creation tell the purpose of why we are here and the foundation to other scripture.

The Bible was not written to teach us natural science, but to teach us about God and his purposes and our relations to Him. To teach us heavenly things God needed to use natural objects we are familiar with as parables or what Swedenborg calls correspondences. The internal meanings are found by understanding these correspondences in the language. This photo is taken from The Off the Left Eye Series which I have really enjoyed watching. The picture shows the 7 Days of Creation as an evolution of the mind and the process of spiritual growth we go through in life.

Scripture taken from the King James Version:

Day 1

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

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face 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 divided the light from 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.

Day 1 LIGHT/ WATER is the first state and is the beginning of our spiritual lives. When we are born we are care only about ourselves as babies and toddlers, eventually we start to realize that there are other people out there. The face of the abyss is referring to our mind. "Let there be light" is beautiful as shown below, it's the dawn of consciousness, it's where we first see something of God, where truth and light becomes transcendent. Any time water is mentioned in the scriptures it actually refers to truth. Here truth is for the eye of the mind what physical light is for the eye.

Day 2

Day 2

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waterswhich were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Day 2 EXPANSE/SEPARATING OF DRY LANDAND WATER is the second state of life. This is where we realize that there is an inner and outer self. Above water on land is our conscious experience of which forms our mind . Sometimes we only see what's on the surface, but under the sea lies the memories of our spiritual experiences, these “remains,” are internal and refer to knowledges of faith, learned from infancy,which are stored up and are not manifested until ready. During this time we separate the things of God and the things of the external man. We start to learn that there is more to life than satisfying our own physical pleasures.

Day 3

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry landappear: and it was so.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Day 3 GRASS, SHRUBS, TREES third state (symbolize our thoughts) We start to see the real signs of life. This is when our minds are organized and we start to change our behavior. This state represents a person prepared to accept a heavenly seed from the Lord and produce good which refers to a tender sprout. The plant starts to feed and reproduce itself, and finally the fruit of one good action can lead to another. It’s just how the earth grew vegetation in the physical world, and that is how we grow spiritually. This is when we first start to see the good sprout out from experimenting with the word. (reminds me of Alma 32) and the fruits is the fruit of our deeds, the seeds are new thoughts germinating ) We are building up seeds of spiritual life they will explode into life into the next life in your preparation. The 3rd day brings forth new knowledge.

Day 4

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he madethe stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

Day 4 SUN, MOON, STARS represent the fourth state. The greater light(sun) represents love of the Lord and the lesser light(moon) represents faith in Him. To rule during the day we feel the sun and things are going well, but during the night when things are hard to see, difficulties arise, or experiencing trauma and pain we may not be able to feel the sun abundantly,so we rely on the light of the moon and become illuminated by faith. We trust in the Lord of what we've been taught. The 4th day bring the first real concept of God we see a large jump in this day/state where we experience faith, and a real desire to serve and love God.

Day 5

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Day 5 FISH/BIRDS represent the fifth state. This is when we realize the source and the role of God in our life. Our spiritual life takes on a new life. When man takes faith into his life the good things produced by him come to life; they become animate, reproduce, and multiply, to an extending degree in the next life. Thoughts and feelings are alive and they have an equivalent of a body FISH (cold blooded earthly knowledge and BIRDS (warm blooded birds symbolize heavenly knowledge, a higher perspective and affections for doing useful things. The 5th day brings abundant knowledge of earthly and heavenly truths.

Day 6

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it wasgood.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Day 6 MAN represents the sixth state. The beasts refer to our affections. This is the big day where we move from our thoughts to our feelings, and act with love conviction. In the 6th state love gains dominion, having only a desire to be useful and of service to others. We become the image of God when we have love and wisdom in equal parts, and look like God in how we act, and that’s when we’ve reached the destination. The Lord gave us the world in which we live and the thoughts and affections that we have, but we must rule over them wisely. A person who speaks truth and does good brings forth a living soul, a spiritual man who is called an “image.”

Day 7

Day 7 A HEAVENLY PERSON state 7 is a regenerated person. Step by step we progress until we becomes Gods "image," a heaven created by the human race concerning itself only for the good of others. Happiness comes from learning to love to do the things the Lord would have us do, and strengthened enough that we will not fall back into the abyss. Throughout this process we are led until love takes the lead and when that happens we have won and become Gods masterpiece and"very good", We are then led into the paradise of heaven.

There is a lot here in the story of the creation and it's fascinating! It has taken on new meaning for me and I appreciate the opportunity to understand the internal meanings of it's correspondences.

#spirtuality #Swedenborg