15. О возрождении

173. Кто не воспринимает духовной жизни, то есть кто не возрождается Господом, тот не может придти на небо; сему учит Господь у Иоанна:

Аминь, аминь говорю тебе, если кто не родится свыше, не может увидеть Царства Божия Ин. III.3.

174. Человек не рождается своими родителями в жизнь духовную, но в жизнь естественную. Жизнь духовная есть всепревышающая любовь к Богу и любовь к ближнему, как к самому себе, согласно предписаниям веры, данным Господом в Слове; жизнь же естественная есть себялюбие и любовь к миру, превышающие любовь к ближнему и даже к Самому Богу.

175. Каждый человек родится своими родителями во зло себялюбия и любви к миру. Всякое зло, которое чрез навык обращается как бы в природу, переходит в потомство; и так постепенно от родителей, дедов, прадедов в обратном порядке. Поэтому постепенно переносимое зло, наконец, становится столь многочисленным, что вся жизнь собственного в человеке становится ничем иным, как злом. Это непрерывное перенесение не прерывается и не изменяется ничем иным, как жизнью веры и благолюбия, происходящих от Господа.

176. Человек непрестанно увлекается в то, что он получил по наследству, благодаря чему он утверждает в себе это зло и из себя к нему прибавляет новое. Это зло совершенно противоположно жизни духовной и разрушает ее. Поэтому если человек не воспримет от Господа новой жизни, которая есть жизнь духовная, то есть если не зачнется, не родится и не воспитается снова, другими словами, не будет снова сотворен, то будет осужден; ибо он - подобно тому, как поступают в аду - ничего другого не хочет и не думает, как только то, что относится к нему самому и миру.

177. Никто не может возродиться, если он не знает того, что принадлежит новой жизни, то есть жизни духовной. Принадлежащее духовной жизни есть истина, в которую должно верить, и добро, которое должно делать; первое принадлежит вере, а последнее - благолюбию. Знать эти предметы никто не может из самого себя, ибо человек понимает только то, что открывается его чувствам; из них он почерпает себе свет, называемый естественным, и из него он ничего другого не видит, как только то, что принадлежит миру и ему самому, а не то, что принадлежит небу и Богу. Последнему он научается из Откровения; так, например: что Господь, который есть Бог от вечности, пришел в мир для спасения рода человеческого; что Он имеет всю власть на небе и на земле; что всё веры и благолюбия, таким образом, всё истинное и доброе происходит от Него; что есть небо и ад; что человек будет жить вечно на небе, если поступал хорошо, и в аду, если поступал худо.

178. Это и многое другое принадлежит вере, и возрождающийся человек должен это знать, ибо кто знает, тот может об этом думать, затем хотеть и, наконец, делать, - и таким образом обрести новую жизнь. Кто не знает, что Господь есть Спаситель рода человеческого, не может иметь веры в Него, любить Его и, таким образом, делать добро ради Него. Кто не знает, что все добро происходит от Господа, не может думать, что его спасение - от Него, еще менее может желать того, чтобы это было так, вследствие чего не может и жить из Него. Кто не знает, что есть ад и что есть небо, ни того, что есть вечная жизнь, тот не может и думать о небесной жизни, ни приуготовлять себя к приятию ее. Подобное видно и во всем остальном.

179. В каждом есть человек внутренний и человек внешний. Внутренний есть тот, который называется духовным человеком, а внешний - тот, который называется естественным. Для того, чтобы человек возродился, как тот, так и другой должны быть возрождены. У невозрожденного человека внешний или естественный человек господствует, а внутренний служит; у человека же возрожденного внутренний или духовный человек господствует, а внешний служит. Из этого ясно, что у человека от рождения порядок жизни извращен, а именно: то, что должно господствовать - служит, а что должно служить - господствует. Дабы человек мог спастись, этот порядок должен быть изменен. Это изменение не может произойти иначе, как чрез возрождение от Господа.

180. Что означает господствование внутреннего человека и служение внешнего, и наоборот, можно показать следующим образом: если человек все свое благо видит в наслаждении, в корысти, в гордости, и находит усладу в ненависти и лицемерии, и внутренне подыскивает в себе обоснование всему этому, тогда внешний человек господствует, а внутренний служит. Когда же человек воспринимает добро и усладу в благом, искреннем и справедливом мышлении и хотении, и внешне - в соответствующем говорении и делании, тогда внутренний человек господствует, а внешний служит.

181. Господом возрождается сперва внутренний человек, а потом внешний, и этот последний посредством первого, ибо внутренний человек возрождается чрез мышление о том, что принадлежит вере и благолюбию, внешний же - чрез жизнь согласно им. Это разумеется в словах Господа:

Если кто не родится от воды и Духа, не может войти в Царствие Божие Ин III.5.

Вода в духовном смысле есть истина веры, а дух - жизнь согласно ей.

182. Человек возрожденный, по отношению к своему внутреннему человеку, находится на небе, и там он ангел среди ангелов, к которым он вступает после смерти. Тогда он может жить жизнью небесною, любить Господа и ближнего, понимать истину, разуметь добро и воспринимать проистекающее от сего блаженство.

183. From the Heavenly Arcana.

184. Who is being regenerated?
A man cannot be regenerated before he has been instructed in the truths of faith and in the goods of charity, 677, 679, 711, 8635, 8638-8640, 10729.
Those who are only in truths, and not in good, cannot be regenerated, 6567, 8725.
No one is being regenerated unless he is possessed of charity, 989.
Only those can be regenerated who have conscience, 2689, 5470.
Every one is regenerated according to his faculty of receiving the good of love to the Lord, and of charity towards the neighbour, through the truths of faith from the doctrine of the Church, which is drawn out of the Word, 2967, 2975.
Who else can be regenerated, and who cannot, 2689.
Those who live a life of faith and charity, and are not being regenerated in the world, are regenerated in the other life, 989, 2490.

185. Regeneration is wrought by the Lord alone.
The Lord alone regenerates man, and it is not done at all either by man or by an angel, 10067.
Man's regeneration is an image of the Lord's glorification; that is, just as the Lord made His Human Divine, so He makes spiritual the man whom He regenerates, 3043, 3138, 3212, 3296, 3490, 4402, 5688, 10057, 10076.
The Lord wills to have the whole of the man whom He regenerates, and not only a part of him, 6138.

186. Additional statements concerning Regeneration.
A man is regenerated through the truths of faith, and a life according thereto, 1904, 2046, 9088, 9959, 10028.
This is meant by the Lord's words:

Unless a man is born through water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God John iii. 5,

water signifies the truth of faith, and spirit, a life according thereto, 10240.
By water, in the Word, is signified the truth of faith, 2702, 3058, 5668, 8568, 10238.
Through the truths of faith also there is wrought that spiritual purification, which cleanses from evils and falsities, 2799, 5954, 7044, 7918, 9088, 10229, 10237.
When a man is being regenerated, truths are inseminated and implanted in good, that they may become matters of life, 880, 2189, 2574, 2697.
What must be the quality of truths in order that they may be implanted in good, 8725.
In regeneration truth is initiated into, and conjoined with, good, and good reciprocally with truth, 5365, 8516.
How this reciprocal initiation and conjunction is effected, 3155, 10067.
Truth is implanted in good when it becomes a subject of the will, because then it becomes a subject of the love, 10367.
A man who is being regenerated has two states: the first state is, when through truth he is led to good; the second state when he acts from good, and from good sees truth, 7992, 7993, 8505, 8506, 8510, 8512, 8516, 8643, 8648, 8658, 8685, 8690, 8701, 8772, 9227, 9230, 9274, 9509, 10048, 10057, 10058, 10076.
The quality of a man's state when truth is in the first place, and good in the second, 3610.
From this it is evident that while a man is being regenerated, he looks from truth to good but that after he has been regenerated, he looks from good to truth, 6247.
A sort of inversion thus takes place, in that the state of a man is being turned about, 6507.
It is to be borne in mind, however, that the case is so, that when a man is being regenerated, truth is in the first place and good in the second not actually, but only apparently; but that after a man has been regenerated, good is actually and perceptibly in the first place, and truth in the second, 3324, 3563, 3570, 3576, 3325, 3330, 3336, 3494, 3539, 3548, 3556, 3563, 4925, 4926, 4928, 4930, 4977, 5351, 6256, 6269, 6273, 8516, 10110.
Good, consequently, is the first and the last of regeneration, 9337.
Since during a man's regeneration, or what is the same thing, while he is becoming a Church, truth appears to be in the first place, and good in the second, on account of this appearance it was a controverted point among the ancients, whether the truth of faith or the good of charity was the first-born of the Church, 367, 2435.
The good of charity is actually the first-born of the Church, and the truth of faith only apparently, 3325, 3494, 4925, 4926, 4928, 4930, 8042, 8080.
By the first-born, in the Word, there is also signified the first thing of the Church, to which belongs priority and superiority, 3325.
Wherefore, the Lord is called the First-born, because in Him and from Him is all the good of love, charity, and faith, 3325.
From the latter state which prevails when truth is regarded from good, a man ought not to return to the former state, in which good is regarded from truth; the reasons, why, 2454, 3650-3651, 5895, 5897, 7857, 7923, 8505, 8506, 8510, 8512, 8516, 9274, 10184.

The Lord's words in Matthew (xxiv. 18), are there explained "Let him who is in the field not return back to take his clothes;" also, Luke (xvii. 31, 32), "Whosoever then shall be in the field, let him not return to those things which are behind him. Remember Lot's wife;" for by these words are signified the above things.

How the process of man's regeneration is accomplished; a description of this process, 1555, 2343, 2490, 2657, 2979, 3057, 3286, 3310, 3316, 3332, 3470, 3701, 4353, 5122, 5126, 5270, 5280, 5342, 6717, 8772, 8773, 9043 9103, 10021, 10057, 10367.
The arcana of regeneration are innumerable, since regeneration continues throughout the whole of a man's life, 2679, 3179, 3584, 3665, 3690, 3701, 4377, 4551, 4552, 5122, 5126, 5398, 5912, 6751, 9103, 9258, 9296, 9297, 9334.
Scarcely anything of these arcana reaches a man's knowledge and perception, 3179, 9336.

This is what is meant by the Lord's words in John (iii. 8), "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

The process of the regeneration of the man of the spiritual Church, 2675, 2678, 2679, 2682.
And the process of the regeneration of the man of the celestial Church; what difference there is between them, 5113, 10124.
The case with a man when he is being regenerated, is like that of a child, in that he first learns how to speak, then how to think, afterwards how to lead a good life, until all these things flow, as it were, of their own accord, 3203, 9296, 9297.
He who is being regenerated is thus first led by the Lord as a child, afterwards as a youth, and lastly as an adult, 3665, 3690, 4377-4379, 6751.
When a man is being regenerated by the Lord, he is first in a state of external innocence, which is the state of his infancy, afterwards he is successively led into a state of internal innocence, which is the state of his wisdom, 9334, 9335, 10021, 10210.
What the innocence of infancy is, and what its quality; and what the innocence of wisdom is, and what its quality, 1616, 2305, 2306, 3494, 4563, 4797, 5608, 9301, 10021.
A comparison between the regeneration of man, and the conception and formation of the embryo in the womb, 3570, 4931, 9258.
On this account, generations and births in the Word signify spiritual generations and births, that is, the things which belong to regeneration, 613, 1145, 1255, 2020, 2584, 3860, 3868, 4070, 4668, 6239, 10204.
Man's regeneration is illustrated by the germinations in the vegetable kingdom, 5115, 5116.
Man's regeneration is represented in the rainbow, 1042, 1043, 1053.
Both the internal or spiritual man, and the external or natural man, have to be regenerated, and the one by means of the other, 3868, 3870, 3872, 3876, 3877, 3882.
The internal man has to be regenerated before the external, because the internal man is in the light of heaven, and the external man in the light of the world, 3221, 3325, 3469, 3493, 4353, 8746, 9325.
The external or natural man is regenerated through the internal or spiritual man, 3286, 3288, 3321.
A man is not regenerate before his external or natural man has been regenerated, 8742-8747, 9043, 9046, 9061, 9325, 9334.
The spiritual man is closed up unless the natural man is regenerated, 6299.
And with respect to the truths and goods of faith and love, it is, as it were, blind, 3493, 3969, 4353, 4588.
When the natural man has been regenerated, the whole man is regenerate, 7442, 7443.
This is signified by the washing of the disciples' feet, and by these words of the Lord (John xiii. 9, 10): "He that is washed needeth, not save to wash his feet, and is wholly clean," 10243.
Washing, in the Word, signifies spiritual washing, which is purification from evils and falsities, 3147, 10237, 10241.
And the feet signify those things which belong to the natural man, 2162, 3761, 3986, 4280, 4938-4952.
Wherefore washing the feet means purifying the natural man, 3147, 10241.
How the natural man is regenerated, 3502, 3508, 3509, 3518, 3573, 3576, 3579, 3616, 3762, 3786, 5373, 5647, 5650, 5651, 5660.
The quality of the natural man after it has been regenerated, and its quality when it is not regenerated, 8744, 8745.
So far as the natural man does not combat with the spiritual man, so far a man has been regenerated, 3286.
When a man has been regenerated, the natural man by means of influx, perceives spiritual things, 5651.
The Sensual which is the last or ultimate part of the natural man is not regenerated at the present day, but the man is elevated above it, 7442.
Those who are being regenerated, are actually raised above sensual things into the light of heaven, 6183, 6454.
What the sensual man is, and what its quality, may be seen in the extracts above, 50.
A man is regenerated through an influx into the knowledges of good and truth, which he possesses, 4096, 4097, 4364.
When a man is being regenerated, he is introduced through intermediate goods and truths into genuine goods and truths, and afterwards the intermediate goods and truths are abandoned, and those which are genuine succeed in their place, 3665, 3686, 3690, 3974, 3982, 4063, 4067, 4145.
Another order is then introduced among the truths and goods, 4250, 4251, 9931, 10303.
They are arranged according to ends, 4104.
Thus according to the uses of spiritual life, 9297.
Those who are being regenerated undergo many states, and are continually being brought more interiorly into heaven, and thus nearer to the Lord, 6645.
He who is regenerate is in the order of heaven, 8512.
His Internal has been opened into heaven, 8512, 8513.
Through regeneration a man comes into angelic wisdom, which however lies concealed in his interiors so long as he lives in the world, but is made manifest in the other life; and then, he enjoys a wisdom similar in kind to that of the angels, 2494, 8747.
The state of those who are being regenerated in respect to enlightenment, 2697, 2701, 2704.
Through regeneration a man receives a new understanding, 2657.
How the case is with respect to the fructification of good and the multiplication of truth, with those who are being regenerated, 984.
Truths from good with one who has been regenerated, through successive derivations, form as it were a star, and continually multiply themselves round about, 5912.
Truths from good with one who has been regenerated, are arranged into such order, that the genuine truths of good, from which, as from parents, the rest proceed, are in the middle, while the rest succeed in order according to their relationship and affinities, down to the last, where there is obscurity, 4129, 4551, 4552, 5134, 5270.
Truths from good, with one who has been regenerated, are arranged in the form of heaven, 3316, 3470, 3584, 4302, 5704, 5709, 6028, 6690, 9931, 10303; and in the work on Heaven and Hell, 200-212; 265-275.
With one who has been regenerated, there is a correspondence between spiritual and natural things, 2850.
With one who has been regenerated, the order of life has been altogether inverted, 3332, 5159, 8995.
The regenerate man is entirely new as to his spirit, 3212.
As to outward things he appears like one who has not been regenerated, but not as to inward things, 5159.
Only through regeneration does a man obtain spiritual good which consists in willing and in doing good from the affection of the love of good, 4538.
Those truths which enter with an affection are also reproduced, 5893.
In proportion as truths are deprived of life from a man's Self, they are conjoined with good and receive spiritual life, 3607, 3610.
In proportion as evils from the love of self and of the world are removed, truths have life, 3610.
The first affection of the truth with a man who is being regenerated is not pure, but it is purified successively, 3089, 8413.
Evils and falsities are removed slowly, not quickly, with a man who is being regenerated, 9334, 9335.
The evils and falsities which belong to a man's Self, nevertheless remain, and are removed only through regeneration, 865, 868, 887, 929, 1581, 2406, 4564, 8206, 8393, 8988, 9014, 9333-9336, 9445, 9447, 9448, 9451-9454, 9938, 10057, 10060.
A man can never be regenerated so far as to be called perfect, 894, 5122, 6648.
Evil spirits do not dare to assault any one who has been regenerated, 1695.
Those who believe the justification taught in the Church, know little about regeneration, 5398.
A man must have freedom, in order that he may be regenerated, 1937, 1947, 2876, 2881, 3145, 3146, 3158, 4031, 8700.
Through regeneration a man is introduced into heavenly freedom, 2874, 2875, 2882, 2892.
Through compulsion there does not exist any conjunction of good and truth, and therefore no regeneration, 2875, 3881, 4031, 8700.
The remaining statements concerning freedom, so far as they have a bearing on Regeneration, may be seen in the Doctrine above, where Freedom is treated of.
He who is being regenerated, must necessarily undergo temptations, 3696, 8403;
because temptations take place for the sake of the conjunction of good and truth, as well as for the sake of the conjunction of the internal and external man, 4248, 4572, 5773.