The Parable of Creation/Chapter6
VI.
THE IMAGE OF GOD.
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. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 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. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 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. 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. 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. 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.—Gen. I: 24-31.
In five previous lectures, in review of the story of the creation, as contained in the first chapter of Genesis, we have traced the narrative in detail as a parable of the regeneration of the human mind. The five days were found to represent five advancing stages of spiritual progress, through which each individual must pass who seeks to gain the higher life. In other words, the states and experiences through which the regenerating man must pass are typified by the days of creation. He begins in a state of darkness with reference to spiritual things. The first advance which is made by his mind is into some light of truth, especially as to the higher value of a knowledge of God and eternal life. The second is to gain some ability to comprehend spiritual ideas. The third is to commence a reformation of the outward life under their influence. The fourth is to acquire that faith in the Lord, and that love for Him which is necessary to a truly spiritual walk with God. The fifth is to lead a true and noble life under a strong rational consciousness—an inward absolute intellectual conviction, of the glory and beauty of this higher faith and love.
These steps are each, in their turn, pronounced by the Lord to be good. And they are. But what is good in its degree is not always the perfection of its kind. A seed hid away in the damp, dark earth is good. The first shoot it sends upward into the realm of light is good. The noble trunk, its pillar of strength, is good. The spreading branches reaching far and wide around are good. So is its leafage. So is its flowering. But its great perfection and its final use are developed only when it has come to that stage of growth wherein it is able to bring forth fruit. The fruit is the end for which the tree was designed by its Creator. Each step of its development is good as a stage of progress; but it has fulfilled its destiny, it has reached for the first time its highest perfection as a tree, when it becomes first fruit laden. This also, in its way, is a parable of man.
And so it was with the earth. Its incipient stages of creation were pronounced by the Lord to be good. When the dry land first made its appearance above the waters, it was good. When the land brought forth vegetation, although animate life was still unknown, it was good. Good when the mists cleared away, and sun, moon and stars shone down for its greater and more glorious light; good when the fish began to people its waters, the birds to fly in its atmospheres, and the beasts to roam its grassy plains. But it was not called very good until it had advanced to a condition when it was fit for the habitation of man, and so fulfilled the object of its creation.
The earth, in the narrative, is used as a symbol of the mind of man. The regeneration of the mind goes on by steps parallel with the development of the tree, or the creation of the earth. Here again each degree of progress is good and our Lord so pronounces it. But it is good only as one step more toward perfection, and not in the sense of perfection itself. Our first religious light is good. So are our first clear conceptions of faith in God and love to Him; so are our first creeping steps under a clear intellectual life of faith and love. But the consummation and crown of it all is such an affection for good and for God, as springs from the Lord as the enthroned life, soul and centre of the being. Our desires, thoughts and acts are then saturated with the Spirit of God. We are not engulfed in the great ocean of Divinity, nor do we lose our individuality in being merged into the overwhelming glory of God, according to the Buddhist doctrine of Nirvana. On the contrary, the higher we rise in our spiritual manhood, the more distinctly individual we become. While, therefore, in coming into this much to be desired state, our personality is more and more keenly felt, our trust in, and reliance on, the Lord, and our perception of Him as our light, our life, our all, become also more and more inwardly realized.
Nor is this the ordinary doctrine of sanctification nor anything like it. The accepted theory of what is commonly called sanctification is, that the individual becomes holy. The Scripture, when interpreted in its true spirit, does not recognize that any man can ever become holy. God alone is holy. We may walk in his light, we may accept the influences of his Spirit, we may act as his stewards in dispensing to others the bounties which are by Him so plentifully prepared; but the light is his, the Spirit is his, the bounties are of his supplying. Therefore, true regeneration makes us sweet and gentle clothes us with genuine humility, strips us of all pride of holiness, expels every vestige of assumed sanctity. It draws no long faces; it makes no large pretences. Genuine regeneration never dwells, even secretly or in the lightest thought, on its own merit, on how good it has become, or compares itself in respect to righteousness in any way with its fellow man. It knows that "there is none good but one, God."
The doctrine of sanctification, as it is usually held, dwells much upon one's feelings, upon his states of ecstasy, upon his exuberant exaltations above the things of the world. Its essential theory is not so much outward use as inward transport. True regeneration throws its energies into uses and lets feelings take care of thtmselves. Or, more properly, its thoughts are directed to doing, and doing under the right spirit, and it leaves all other things with God. Happiness comes it is true. But it is not the selfish happiness of a contemplation of one's own blessedness, but that which exists in making others happy. It is not a feeling of inward bliss indulged for the sake of the bliss, but it is the satisfaction of seeing the good work go on, the heavenly cause succeed, in the sphere of one's own activities and in all the world around.
So far as we can understand the mind of God, his infinite blessedness must arise from his infinite activities. No pent of fires of self-satisfied glory burn within his soul. All He is goes forth. He creates worlds; his ceaseless going forth of life sustains them. Creation never stops. In a single world once made, it is seed-time and harvest forever, an endless succession of efforts on the part of the Divine energies for the benefit of man. He creates man; and again it is a ceaseless working on the spiritual plane of his being for his constant elevation. He not only forms the world of nature and man as a physical being, but He forms the world of souls and man as a spiritual being. The heavens are studded with stars. Each star is a sun like that which rules our own small planetary system. Around each revolves a circle of planets peopled with human beings, or some, perhaps, preparing for that end. The more powerful they make our telescopes the more of these planetary systems come forth to view. No man and no number of men, improve your telescopes as you may, will ever count the myriads of worlds in this grand universe, which are made to rear a human progeny for heaven. And as age succeeds age a ceaseless procession of human souls is passing from every earth of this immeasurable universe of planetary spheres into the infinite world beyond. The grandeur of the thought is overwhelming. And in every time of illimitable space and in every state of each one's life in all these worlds, into the universe of nature and into that of spirit, these Divine activities are flowing, creating, sustaining, developing, recreating.
God is, therefore, not a self-glorifying Being. His happiness is in his goings forth for others, not in the contemplation of his own greatness. If we, then, are actuated by his Spirit, our happiness is never in self-satisfaction. Sanctification in any such sense is a delusion and a snare. The more we forget ourselves in our energies of use in the field of our surroundings, the more we work in the spirit of the Lord. The essence of the religion of the Scriptures, under New-Church interpretation, is altruism not egoism. And of all forms of egoism that which claims the highest seat in the synagogue of the Lord is the shabbiest and the worst, and the very one which was most condemned of Christ.
We are, in our reflections upon this parable of regeneration, approaching its highest point. It is well that we should not misunderstand its character, nor mingle it with the crude misconceptions of the day. I repeat, thus, that in the highest stage of regeneration, the Lord becomes the enthroned life, soul, and centre of the being. Our desires, thoughts and acts, are then saturated with his Spirit and his presence. But this spirit is wonderfully altruistic, not egoistic. It wanders forth to others and forgets self, except as our well being and advance is necessary to the great good in view. This state of mind is the end for which we were born. And we have not attained the symmetry of true manhood, do not bring forth fruits of a fully regenerate life, are not, in the strict sense, men until it has come to this pass with us. But before proceeding further on this line of thought, let us consider, in the order in which they occur, the words of the parable concerning the sixth day.
"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. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
As we had occasion to see in our last lecture, the fifth day of creation represented that stage of regeneration where, under the influence of a deep faith in the Lord and an earnest love for Him, the beginnings of a truly spiritual life are made. The earth was said to bring forth the living soul as a symbol of the mind making, in a spiritual sense, its first living efforts. In other words, the soul became, in a strict sense, truly living for the first time. The living soul was called a creeping thing, because our first living efforts at a spiritual life, are, as all first efforts are, infant like, creeping rather than walking. The birds were representative of our thoughts and conceptions of spiritual things, now of a living character and of a kind, which, bird-like, soar into the loftier regions of the mind and gain grand views of life and its real purposes.
Now, however, beasts are created. Beasts are symbols of affections. The creation of the beasts on the earth represents the creation of truly spiritual affections in the mind. In the fifth state of regeneration we have living conceptions of the Lord and his truths, and from those living ideas we think and discourse after a spiritual manner. We have deep faith in the Lord and a clear insight into the question of what love to the Lord means. We live spiritually, but we love because we have faith. Our faith is the primary element of our life and our love is secondary. We are more on the intellectual plane of religion yet, although our intellectuality is a living one, than we are on the love plane. But in the sixth state all this is changed. Where belief was before the predominant principle, now affection rules. We no longer love because we believe, but we believe because we love.
This is illustrated by many not uncommon experiences. In the beginning of a genuine friendship, for instance, we have learned to have so thorough a belief in a person that we cannot help loving him. We have studied his character and principles; we have trusted often and have never been deceived, and our faith ripens into a love based upon it. But afterward, when we know our friend still better, and have touched the deeper chords of his nature, and have found our sympathies intertwined on the most vital points, love becomes the controlling element of our friendship. We do not now so much love him because we have thorough faith in him, but we have faith in him because our sympathies touch at every vital point, thus because we love him.
To believe in the Lord and the life which He commands, because we have gained a clear and living knowledge of Him and it, and to love them from such faith, is a near approach to the goal of regeneration. But to enter into such an intimate communion with Him that we are all aglow with a loving realization of his nature, and thence to have a most perfect faith in Him, is regeneration. The one is the flowering of the beautiful tree of life; the other is its fruitage. The first is represented in the parable under consideration by the creation of creeping things and birds; the second by the creation of beasts.
That beasts are symbols of the human affections is not only a fact easily deduced from Scripture, but it is a remnant of the ancient method of speaking which remains to this day. This is true both in an evil sense and a good sense. The bears and the wolves and the foxes of the world are the rude, the cruel, and the cunning. The swine of the world are those whose affections are set on sensual things. But the lion is the type of courage, the ox of meekness, the sheep of innocence. So the pure and gentle followers of the Lord are called in the Scripture the sheep of his pasture. He who is thirsting for the higher truth, not yet attained, is likened to the hart panting after the water brooks. And every animal is used by name in reference to its peculiar spiritual symbolism. So when the Psalm says, "Praise ye the Lord, ye beasts and all cattle," it is not that the dumb brutes are literally called upon to offer praises to their Creator, but that the affections of the heart, of which the beasts and the cattle are the symbols, are to go up in praise to Him. Thus also here, in the words of the Creation-parable, by the creation of the beasts of the earth is symbolized the bringing forth the most exalted spiritual affections of the mind.
But the culmination of all this is in the creation of man. To this end, from the beginning, every thing has pointed. For this purpose every thing else has been made. As this is true of the progress of earth, so it is true of the advance of the human mind. Every preparatory stage of regeneration has been for the sake of the one beyond. Each and all have been for the sake of the final outcome. Whatever has taken place, little as at the time it has seemed so to the person, has been a step to lead still further upward toward the summit life. All that has happened through a long and eventful life, each trivial incident, each, even the most obscure, of its surroundings, each changing state, was nothing in and of itself. It was valuable only in its bearings on that which was to come. All knowledge, all study, all discipline, was worthless, except so far as it led, directly or indirectly, to that. The Lord's call to each and every human being that was ever born is, Be a MAN.
Now we know very well what this, in ordinary parlance, means. Be courageous! be earnest! be faithful! be honest! But in the Lord's view a MAN is much more than this. It is the Lord alone, who, in the highest signification of the term, may properly be called MAN. He only, in the most eminent perfection, embodies all that is human. He is perfect Wisdom, perfect Love, perfect Truth, perfect Goodness. He alone possesses, in consummate and limitless measure, will and understanding, affection and intellect. He is THE MAN. We become men only so far as we are created, or reborn, into his image and likeness.
And here it will be well to remark, that in the older tongues—the Hebrew, Greek and Latin, there is a peculiarity unknown to those of modern times. They possess, each of them, two words, of different form, which we are obliged to translate by the one word man. The Hebrew term ish means man as distinguished from woman—a masculine being. But the Hebrew term Adam means man in the broad sense including male and female, just as we would say, "Man is mortal," meaning that every human being, without distinction of sex, is mortal. Where the term man, is used in the first chapter of Genesis, it is Adam—man in the abstract—man as of either sex. This relieves the text of the idea, sometimes foolishly advanced, that the Bible is man's book, not woman's, because it speaks so much of man. The trouble lies in the poverty of the English language in reference to that one expression. We possess no separate word by which to translate Adam. Man, therefore, thus used, includes both sexes.
The declaration of God, then, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," does not refer to one male being, but to mankind at large. Nor does it mean, in its spiritual, symbolic sense, the first formation on earth of the human race. It has reference to the rebirth of man into the image and likeness of God. It is not said, simply, "Let us make man," but it is said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Nor, repeating the phrase, does it simply say, "So God created man," but it says, "So God created man in his own image." The entire reference is, in its parable meaning, not to God's creating a physical man, but to his forming him into a likeness of Himself.
We have seen that, strictly speaking, God is the only man. We become men, not by rising to his level—we cannot do that but by receiving his light and love so perfectly and fully, that the self-life is removed from our consciousness and its activities. By the self-life, however, as a term thus used, is to be understood, not our individuality, nor the distinctive recognition of our free agency as rational beings, nor the necessity of self protection, support and effort, but life for the sake of self.
Before we are regenerated, we are not men; we are only in the semblance and shape of men. We are not in the human form, but full of animal propensities, which, if extraneous pressure were removed, would level us to an equality with the brutes. We become men only as we advance into the likeness of God; in other words, only as we become inwardly like Him. So long as we are still only working up to the highest standard, although we have reached the sixth stage of regeneration, and although we may properly be called spiritual men, we are only images of Him. When we reach the highest state and come fully under his influences—are filled indeed with his life and love, then we become likenesses of Him. So while, indeed, it is here said, "Let us create man in our image after our likeness," it is added, referring to the work of the sixth state, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." Man does not really become a likeness of God until his seventh and highest stage of regeneration.
But it is added, "Male and female created he them." The literal meaning of this I pass without comment. But in its spiritual meaning, it is to be observed that every man, and woman too, is, in regeneration, created male and female. That is to say, in the mind of each person there exists the masculine and feminine element. The masculine element of the mind is intellect or understanding; the feminine is affection or will. In the male, there is, or ought to be, no lack of affection, but reason or intellect should be the ruling principle. In the woman there is, or ought to be, no lack of intellect, but love or affection should be the ruling principle. It is not always so, perhaps, but so it will be where the person of either sex is in just order of mind.
So each one of all mankind is, in a certain sense, male and female. Each has intellect and affection. And in each both of these sides of the nature are to be regenerated. When, therefore, it is said, "In the image of God created he him, male and female created he them," the words are to be understood in this symbolic or spiritual sense. In this sixth stage of regeneration we have been, what we had not been before, created into the image of God. But this creation is not a partial one; it is of the masculine and the feminine elements of our nature alike. That is to say, our reason and understanding are advanced to that stage wherein we perceive all things of life spiritually, or see its spiritual meaning in its every phase; and our affections are advanced to that stage where they are placed upon the Lord and spiritual things. True, life in the world compels them to go forth to natural things; but now they do it in a spiritual manner only, and for the sake of spiritual ends. Thus the masculine element of the nature, the intellect, views all things in the Lord's light, and the feminine element, the affection, loves all things from spiritual and eternal considerations.
It is said, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it." Construing this spiritually, it is to be understood thus: that when at last the mind comes into the image of genuine manhood, its understandings of spiritual truth will indefinitely multiply, and its love of good will become wonderfully fruitful in spiritual works. In the beginnings of regeneration the mind's understandings of the truths concerning God, heaven, and eternal life, are feeble indeed and few. In its outcomes they multiply and grow strong beyond any thing that lower states can conceive of. In the beginnings of regeneration, the spiritual love is but feebly fruitful. In its outcomes, its fruit of good works and of ability to accomplish them has developed beyond all calculation. It is not the man, as a physical being, who is commanded to be fruitful and multiply, but it is the spiritual manhood of the mind. It is also commanded to "replenish the earth." To replenish is to fill again. The earth still typifies the mind. In the course of regeneration, the latter has cast out its false opinions and ignoble loves. It is to be replenished with spiritual ideas and heavenly loves. The command also goes forth to man to "subdue" the earth. This means that the new manhood is to subdue all its lower principles and desires, and to bring all portions of the mind into due subjection to its high behests.
And now man is commanded to 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. The regenerated understanding and will, the intellect and affection, which have now become an image of God, are, at this stage of regeneration, to assume the dominion. It was the lower nature which previously ruled. It was self and the world—vanity, ambition, greed of power, lust of gain, desire of approbation, sensuous pleasure, or whatever the main spring of action might have been, which had hitherto borne rule. But now it is MAN—perfected manhood—manhood regenerated both as to intellect and affection, regenerated in both its masculine and feminine phases, which is to rule the whole realm of the mind.
The true man is the regenerated nature. This is to have dominion over whatever in the mind is symbolized by the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, the cattle, all the earth, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth. The fish of the sea are the knowledges in the memory, the fowl of the air the thoughts which float through the atmosphere of the mind, the cattle the affections of the heart, all the earth the entire realm of mind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, the instincts and ideas that lay close to the earth in the very natural duties and pleasures which a life in the world compel us to perform and enjoy. These are the things over which the man, the regenerated manhood, are to have and hold dominion. Once these things, in their unregenerate phases, ruled him. Now, he is to rule them.
To carry the idea a step higher; in the fully regenerated state, the whole nature is under the dominion of the Lord, who is, par excellence, THE MAN! It may also be said that the whole mind, with whatever is within it, is under the dominion of the regenerate nature, in which the Lord resides and of which He has gained control. The individual, however, is still left in perfect freedom, notwithstanding this control of the Lord. But it is a freedom in which the soul has, voluntarily and forever, chosen the Lord as his law, his love, his guide to all things good.
The concluding words of the chapter refer to the food which the Lord has provided for man and beast. The symbolism never halts or fails. The herb and the tree are symbols of the Lord's truth. This is the food of the spiritual nature. "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Truth feeds the mind of the spiritual man. The herb yielding seed is the truth that yields abundant harvests of use and good. The tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed is the same in a higher sense. But to every beast and fowl and creeping thing, every green herb was given for meat. All the affections and thoughts, and even the lower phases of duty which lie near our earthly work, are fed also by the Lord. The green herb is a lower form of food than the herb yielding seed. The term green conveys the idea of unripeness and lack of maturity. All phases of mind and life and duty have their food, their sustaining truths suited to their form and kind. The higher the phase the more spiritually mature the food, the lower the phase, the more spiritually crude.
Well, we have come to the end of the description of the sixth state of regeneration, as set forth in the parable of creation. The regenerating individual has developed into a true spiritual manhood. The Lord has done the work all the way through; the man has only co-operated. Therefore the expression "And God made" is always used. The idea is not difficult to gain. It is like the case of a diligent gardener. He knows that it is the sun and rain which really causes his plants to come to perfection. Yet he digs, and weeds, and prunes, and trains, and waters. Without his co-operation the garden would have remained in a sorry state indeed. He recognizes that his co-operative work is necessary; but he does not pretend to claim that he has made the plants grow, when he knows so well, that the sun and rain and dew performed the work.
Thus it is with man. As a cultivator of the garden of his own mind, he must weed out his propensities to evil, loosen the soil of his naturally hard spirit, prune his bad habits, train into upward growth his vines of desire and thought, and water every heart plant with the truths of God's own Word. Yet he knows, and the more he progresses the more certainly he feels, and in the end he fully realizes, that it was the Lord by his shedding forth of light and love upon the mind, that it was the Lord by the softening influences of the rains and dews of his gentle Spirit, who really wrought the wondrous change. Yes; it it is the Lord above who has really lifted the man up, from the voidness and darkness of his merely natural state, into this condition of living, loving, God-like manhood, which is the very image of Himself.
This elevated state may be far above the place whereon we stand. Our conceptions of it may be dreamy and dim. To our consciousness, it may seem more like a fairy land of imagination than a state we can veritably realize and enjoy. The mists of a worldly life may hide or render hazy and obscured its mountain tops. Yet it is well to look up. It is well to have even indistinct visions of lovely things. He who aims low hits no higher than the level of his mark. Even a dim dream of more elevated things is better than to rest in the sensuous valleys of worldly life, unconscious of a higher hope. A dream of wakeful hours is a thought idealized. It is at least a quickening sign. And that dream, by dwelling on it, may become a recognized want. And a want once felt may develop into a fixed purpose. And every fixed purpose ends, in spiritual things, at least, in the possession of that which we fain would have.
The Lord by quiet methods guides us through all the mazy ways of life. He only asks a fixed purpose and a faithful walk in the paths that He sets before us. No matter how rough or uncongenial they may be, work on, toil on, do the nearest good at hand and do it well. Believing, trusting, loving, and yet, it may be, ignorant, amid the bustle of this weary world, of just where we spiritually stand; dying, we may find that we have reached the summits of celestial manhood in the better world to come.
