The Lord's New Chapel
The Creation of Mankind
By Rev. Paul Booth
Genesis 1:26,27; 2:18-24  .  Matthew 19:4-6  .  Arcana Coelestia Verse 18, 140; Verse 21, 148
    And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness&…;so God Created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.     (Genesis 1:26,27)

    And the Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in stead thereof; and the rib, which Jehovah God had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her to the man.                                             (Genesis 2: 21,22)

In and from Love and Wisdom, God creates man, that is, God makes man male and female in His own image and after His likeness. And Jehovah God appeared to man, that is, to us as Man. As Man, as All Good of Love and Truth of Faith, He is with us. From Him mankind has the faculties of understanding and will and can receive the truth and the good, that is, the Lord's love. This is the image and the likeness in which all mankind was created.

From this we see that the understanding of man was called male and the will of man female. None of us, that is, no one determines whether he or she will be male or female. That ability is from God alone, for God creates, not man, and He creates us either male or female according to His will. It is not too difficult to understand that God in creating us male and female, that there is to be a marriage between the male and the female, that they are to act as one. To help make this clear we need only ask the question: What is Truth unless it is from Good? Is it anything? In other words, understanding, unless there is love or good within, is but a form without substance and is nothing. Likewise, good is nothing except it is manifested, and it is only manifested in truth. Again, try and think of mankind not as male and female or not having an understanding and a will. Would there be any life? No, for life would cease, for man is but a receptacle of life, life being the Lord's. It is when they, male and female, act as one, that from good and truth, there comes life; when male and female act as one this is a called a marriage, a marriage of good and truth.

Yet, in God's infinite Wisdom and Love in creating us male and female, in which, when they become one in marriage, the Lord God creates, He forms, and He makes man into His image and likeness. We often forget this and turn our understanding to learning and accepting fallacies. As such, we may read the Word where it is said that "for man there was not found a help as with him" And, that "Jehovah God then caused a deep sleep to fall upon man," and that the rib He took from man "He built into a woman (and) brought her to the man." (Gen. 2: 20- 23).

From this, we may think that the Word is explaining how God made man and from man He made women, that is, that from the male He made the female. And that this then shows us that man is to be over the woman; the woman is to be subordinate to the man and other such ideas that often keep some women from being truly liberated or free.

However, this is not what the Word explains. In fact, when one reads the Word in Genesis 1: 26, 27, 28 there is no mention of a woman as there is in Genesis 2: 22, nor is there in Arcana Coelestia where this is explained using the science of correspondences. There is only the word 'man' (homo), and as mankind, God created both male and female, which, as we said, when act together as one produce and become a use, and so, the Lord makes or creates man either male or female, both of which are called man, (homo) from the Lord.

What is meant by creating man, that is, making mankind or man (homo) male or female, as a "help as with him" or as the King James Version says, as a "help meet for him?" It is giving mankind a proprium or what is called 'his own' and is often referred to the 'self'. The point being that mankind had began to turn away from Jehovah God and was not content to be led by the Lord; both male and female wanted to be led by 'self' and the desires of the world.

Today, we will be talking about the proprium, and the proprium of the corporeal and worldly man is everything to him and is seen as an evil thing, however since the Lord has allowed man to have a proprium, then its purpose was of use. So, we need to realize that from the proprium of the spiritual man the Lord is seen as the life of all and man can think and act, but only with the lips; while with the celestial man's proprium a man discerns that the Lord is the life of all and gives power to think and act, to perceive that it is really so.

From a literal understanding of Genesis, the Word here speaks of Jehovah God forming the different animals, "the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heavens."  These, we see in the natural or literal sense man was to name; that is, we are to study and thereby are to come into scientific knowledge that will help us live in this world. And, that is all very good and true, but that does not help us to know the Lord except very little, for all that we learn in this way is through our own 'self' and from what is merely taken from what is natural and in our natural there is nothing spiritual, because our spiritual and celestial plains of existence are closed to us.

At the end of verse 20, we read the words: "but for man there was not found a help for him." Anyone with common sense knows that God did not expect the male to find a female for himself among the beasts and fowls. We just learned that Jehovah God created mankind both male and female and that when they act as one the Lord forms and makes man (homo) in His own image and likeness. One begins to see or understand here that the written Word must have an internal sense, that those who lived in the most ancient times expressed and understood differently, and in a different style, the words of which do not mean what we today understand.

The point here being that the men of the most ancient Church was internal men and was delighted only with internal things. The external they saw with their eyes represented internal things, from which they thought. This caused them to turn their thoughts to celestial things, to the Lord, and consequently to the Heavenly Marriage; thus they perceived happiness from their marriages. You might wonder why the Lord reminded them of the Heavenly Marriage. It is because in the Lord there are qualities of Love and Wisdom and these in Him are One and when they were married male and female the qualities in them were united as they are in the Lord.
So, in the internal sense, man was not and is not to name or know the animals, he was and is to learn and know the quality of affections that he receives from the Lord. These affections are the things of good and truth received in his or her understanding and will. He was to know the affections and their quality. And, what is revealed here to us is that even though a person may know the quality of his or her affections that come from the Lord into the will and the understanding, they still inclined to their proprium. Thus, there "was not found a help as with him" The fact is, mankind had turned from the Lord and had turned to 'self' and the world.

The results: mankind then came into a state in which he thinks from his proprium and thought his life was his own. It is obvious that God did not make the female from a 'rib' of a man - from the 'rib' of a man called Adam. To take life from man would cause man to fall as dead. So, by the proprium, which is of man's own or is his or her self, there is no life, for a man lives only from the Lord's Proprium and by His Proprium He redeems and saves us, for His Proprium is Life and from His Life or Proprium man's proprium is made alive.

The Word says Jehovah God built, not created or formed or made as when He regenerates man. It can be seen that man was turning away from the Lord, that he, therefore, was falling away from the Lord, and that the Lord 'built' up that which has fallen away. The will and the understanding in man were that which was falling and has fell; therefore, the Lord builds up within the man that which is fallen if he allows the Lord to save him. We read:
    They shall build the wastes places of eternity, they shall set up again the ancient desolation; and they shall renew the cities of the waste, the desolation of generation and generation.  (Isaiah 61:4)

The Good and the Truth of the Lord in man turns the evils and the falsities in him into good and true things, that is, into a new will and understanding that comes from the Lord. They, his or her understanding of truth and the will of good, which is charity, will be raised up or built up again in man.

What the woman that was made from the 'rib' signifies is the Heavenly Marriage, by which is the understanding of good and truth from the Lord in man, in his or her will and understanding. Also the woman means the Church. We know that we live from the Lord, that life is received from Him. Let it be also understood that when the Lord is vivified in us, in what we call our proprium or our 'own', that the good of love and truth of faith is conjoined as one in us, and not only is there life in our natural state, but in our spiritual and celestial states as well.

Again, it is not a man who is male alone, but it is both the male and the female that is meant and when the 'woman', which is the proprium or the 'self' vivified by the Lord in us is brought to us, we see that when the truth of our understanding becomes united with the good of our will we are conjoined with the Lord. As a result, our natural or external is conjoined with the spiritual or the internal. We read from the Word.

    "And the man or Adam (homo) (either male or female) said, This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; therefore, she shall be called wife, because she was taken out of man (vir) (male)". (Genesis 2: 23)

First, the woman, which signifies the vivified proprium, became separated from man and is called a 'wife'. Notice this was really taken out of mankind, and not just from the male. It was the man's internal and, as such, is the 'wife', that now needs to be conjoined with the spiritual, that is, the celestial with the spiritual in a man. So, in man, the understanding and the will are now two not one, and unless they become one again, man will remain separated from the Lord and will not enter into Heaven.

How can the will and the understanding become one in us? Or how can the internal be in us in our external in a marriage of good and truth so that we are one in the spiritual and the natural? They must be united in us by not only believing the Lord and His Word, but by acting from the Lord as if by our 'self', for He is the Good or Love and the Truth, and these must become one in us as they are in the Lord. This is, then, the Divine Marriage; that marriage can be seen here on earth with man when one man (vir) becomes united with one wife. When this is so, it is a marriage, which is from conjugial love. Such become one flesh. There must be an influx of our own into another, or of male into female. On earth, this is represented as man and wife in which the Lord, that is, love and faith are active.

Finally, let us know that the words "a rib was built into a woman" signifies the Heavenly Marriage, Such a marriage exists in the proprium, and when vivified by the Lord is the 'bride and wife' of the Lord in man. And, when this is so, man has perception of all the good of love and the truth of faith. This makes man to become celestial and spiritual or that he or she possesses wisdom and intelligence conjoined, which are the means of his or her inexpressible happiness. Such in man makes him or her an angel which he or she perceives, such a life comes from the Lord, yet when not reflecting on the Lord know that they live from 'self', which is the vivified proprium and this, too, brings them peace and happiness.

In the Word in Jeremiah we read,
    Jehovah hath created a new thing in the earth; a woman shall compass a man. (31:22)

Here is the Heavenly Marriage meant. The woman is the vivified proprium, which encompasses the heart even as the rib made flesh does.

Amen.
| About |
Site Content Copyright 2001 by The Lord's New Chapel All Rights Reserved
Site Concept and Creation Copyright 2001 by Stealth Media Solutions All Rights Reserved