Regeneration

Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 10057

[3] This cycle is the cycle of a person's life, and therefore when someone is being regeneratedhis regeneration proceeds in accord with that same cycle; and when he has been regeneratedhis life and actions proceed in accord with it. Consequently, while a person is being regenerated the truths which will compose his faith are instilled through hearing and sight; they are implanted in the memory belonging to his natural man. Then they are transferred from the memory into thought belonging to the understanding, and those which the person loves become part of his will. To the extent that they become part of his will they become part of his life, since a person's will constitutes his actual life; and to the extent that they become part of his life they become part of his affection, and so of charity in his will and of faith in his understanding. That life, which consists of charity and faith, then becomes the source of the person's words and actions. Out of the charity which occupies his will come the words he speaks with his mouth as well as the actions he performs with his body; and both come by way of his understanding, thus by way of his faith. From all this it is clear that the cycle of a person's regeneration is akin to the cycle of his life in general, and that it is in like manner started off in the will by an influx coming from heaven and beginning in the Lord.

Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 5398

5398. THE INTERNAL SENSE

This chapter and the ones that follow it concerning Jacob's sons and Joseph deal in the internal sense with the regeneration of the natural so far as the truths and goods of the Church are concerned - such regeneration being effected not by means of factual knowledge but by an influx from the Divine. Those who belong to the Church at the present day know so little about regeneration as to know virtually nothing at all about it. They do not even know that regeneration is a process that takes place throughout the whole course of the life of someone who is being regenerated and continues in the next life. Nor do they know that the arcana of regeneration are so countless that hardly the smallest fraction can be known even by angels, or that those which angels do know are what constitute the intelligence and wisdom they possess. Those belonging to the Church at the present day know so little about regeneration because they talk so much about the forgiveness of sins and justification, believing that sins can be forgiven instantaneously. Some believe that sins are washed away like dirt from the body by the use of water, and that a person is justified or made righteous by means of faith alone, that is, by means of trust of only a moment's duration. The reason people within the Church believe the way they do is that they do not know what sin or evil is. If they did possess such knowledge they would know that no one's sins can by any means at all be washed away, but that these are separated or cast away to the sides to prevent them from rising up, when the Lord maintains the presence of good within that person. They would also know that this cannot be accomplished unless evil is being cast out all the time, which is done by means that are numerically without limit and for the most part beyond description.

[2] In the next life people who have brought with them the notion that a person is made righteous by faith in an instant and completely cleansed from sins are dumbfounded when they learn that regeneration is effected by means that are numerically without limit and beyond description. They laugh at their own ignorance, which they also call madness, that is, at the ideas they held to in the world regarding instantaneous forgiveness of sins and justification. Sometimes they are told that the Lord forgives the sins of everyone who in his heart desires forgiveness; but this does not mean that they are separated from the devil's crew, to whom they are bound through the evils which go along with the life which they bring with them in its entirety. After this they learn from experience that being separated from the hells is being separated from one's sins, and that this cannot possibly be accomplished except by thousands of ways known to the Lord alone, a process which, if you can believe it, continues for ever one stage after another. For the human being is so full of evil that he cannot ever be released from even one sin. But solely by the Lord's mercy, if he will accept that mercy, he is withheld from sin and maintained in good.

[3] The way therefore in which a person receives new life and is regenerated is contained in the sanctuary of the Word, that is, in its internal sense. The primary reason why the internal sense contains that information is that when the Word is being read by man, it causes the angels to be aware of the bliss that wisdom brings them and at the same time to take delight in serving as means. The subject in the highest sense of this chapter and those that follow it, where the narrative concerns Joseph's brothers, is the glorification of the Lord's natural, and in the representative sense the regeneration by the Lord of man's natural, in this chapter so far as the truths of the Church are concerned.

Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 8891

(A)ngels do not see the literal meaning of the Word but what lies within it, that is, spiritual and celestial realities, and Divine ones within these. When the first chapter of Genesis is read they perceive no other creation than the new creation of a human being, which is called regeneration. This is what is described there, 'paradise' being the wisdom of a person created anew. 'The two trees in the middle of it' are the two mental powers of that person, which are a will desiring good, meant by 'the tree of life', and an understanding seeing truth, meant by 'the tree of knowledge'. And the reason why they were forbidden to eat from this tree was that a person who has been regenerated or created anew ought no longer to be led by an understanding that sees truth but by a will desiring good, or else his newness of life is destroyed.

Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 977

977. THE INTERNAL SENSE

The subject here being the regenerate person, let a brief discussion follow of the nature of a person who is regenerate in contrast to someone who is not. From this contrast the nature of each one may be known. With the regenerate person there is a conscience concerning what is good and true. From conscience he does what is good and from conscience thinks what is true. The good he does is the good of charity, and the truth he thinks is the truth of faith. With one who is not regenerate there is no conscience. If there is any it is not a conscience about doing good stemming from charity or for thinking truth deriving from faith. Instead it derives from some love involving self or the world, and is therefore a conscience that is false, or not genuine. With the regenerate person there is joy in performing anything according to conscience but anxiety when compelled to perform or think anything contrary to it, which is not the case with someone who is not regenerate. Most people do not know what conscience is, still less what performing anything according to conscience or contrary to conscience is. They know only of performing it in accordance with things favouring their own loves, which for them is the source of joy, while acting contrary to those things brings them anxiety.

[2] With the regenerate person there is a new will and a new understanding. This new will and new understanding are his conscience - that is, they comprise his conscience, by means of which the Lord works the good that stems from charity, and the truth of faith. With someone who is not regenerate there is no will but instead evil desire, and a resulting inclination towards all that is evil. Nor is there any understanding, only reasoning and a resulting decline into all that is false. With the regenerate person there is celestial and spiritual life, but with someone who is not regenerate only bodily and worldly life. Man's ability to think and to understand what good and truth are comes from the Lord's life by way of remnants, mentioned previously. And this also gives him the ability to reflect.

[3] With the regenerate person the internal man is master and the external the servant, but with someone who is not regenerate the external man is master, and the internal remains quiescent as though non-existent. The regenerate person knows, or is capable of knowing if he reflects on the matter, what the internal man is and what the external, whereas someone who is not regenerate is totally ignorant on the subject. Nor is he capable of knowing even if he did reflect on the matter, for he does not know what the good and truth of faith deriving from charity are. These contrasts show the nature of a person who is regenerate and of someone who is not, and that the difference between them is like that of summer and winter, or of bright light and thick darkness. Consequently the regenerate is a living man, while the unregenerate is a dead man.

Divine Providence (Dole) n. 83

83. The reason no one can enter heaven without being born again is that we are involved in all kinds of evil through what we inherit from our parents; we also inherit an ability to become spiritual by the removal of those evils. Unless we do become spiritual, we cannot enter heaven; and changing from being earthly to being spiritual is being reborn or regenerated.
If we are to understand how we are regenerated, though, we need to keep three things in mind, namely, the nature of our first state, a state of damnation; the nature of our second state, a state of reformation; and the nature of our third state, a state of regeneration.
[2] Our first state, the state of damnation, is the one we get from our parents by heredity. Each of us is born with a predilection to love ourselves and the world, and subject to all kinds of evil that have these forms of love as their wellspring. It is the pleasures of these loves that guide us; and they render us unaware of our involvement in evils. This is because every pleasure that stems from love simply feels good to us. Unless we are regenerated, then, all we know is that loving ourselves and the world more than anything else is goodness itself, and dominating others and possessing all their wealth is the greatest good there is.
This, too, is where all evil comes from, since we do not focus on anyone but ourselves out of love. If we do focus on someone else out of love, it is the way one demon focuses on another or one thief on another when they are cooperating.
[3] If we justify these loves within ourselves and the evils that spring from them because of the pleasure they give us, then we remain bound by the material world and become imprisoned in our physical senses. In our own thinking, the thinking of our spirits, we are insane. As long as we are in this world, though, we can talk and act rationally and wisely, because we are human and therefore have rationality and freedom. However, we are doing all this out of our love for ourselves and the world.
After death, when we become spirits, we are capable of no pleasure except that which we felt in our spirits in this world. This is the pleasure of hellish love, which turns into the profound and agonizing pain that the Word refers to as the torment and fire of hell. We can see from this that our first state is one of damnation, and that we are in this state if we do not let ourselves be regenerated.
[4] Our second state, the state of reformation, starts when we begin to think about heaven in terms of its joy and therefore to think about God as the one who gives us heavenly joy. At first our thinking is prompted by the pleasure we find in self-love, and heavenly joy is that kind of pleasure for us. As long as the pleasure from that love and the pleasure we find in the evils that arise from it are in control, though, we can only think that we get to heaven by pouring out prayers, listening to sermons, taking communion, giving to the poor and helping the needy, contributing to churches, supporting hospices, and the like. In this state, all we know is that salvation comes by thinking about what our religion teaches us, whether that is what we call faith or whether it is what we call faith and charity.
The reason we are totally convinced that thinking about these things saves us is that we are not thinking about the evils that give us pleasure, and as long as these pleasures are with us, so are the evils themselves. Their pleasures come from our impulses toward them, impulses that constantly crave them and make them happen whenever some fear does not prevent it.
[5] As long as these evils stay in the compulsions of our love and their pleasures, the only faith or charity or devotion or worship we have is on the surface. They seem to the world to be real, but they are not. We might compare them to waters from a polluted spring, waters that are undrinkable.
As long as our nature leads us to think about heaven and God as matters of religion and not to think at all about evils as sins, we are still in the first state. We reach the second state, the state of reformation, when we begin to think that there is such a thing as a sin, and especially when we identify some particular thing as a sin, and when we look into it in ourselves, even briefly, and do not want to do it.
[6] Our third state, the state of regeneration, picks up on this prior state and carries the process further. It begins when we stop doing wrong things because they are sins, advances as we abstain from them, and becomes complete as we fight against them. Then, as we overcome in the Lord's strength, we are regenerated.
When we are regenerated, the whole pattern of our life is inverted. We become spiritual instead of earthly, since what is earthly is contrary to the divine design when it is separated from what is spiritual, and what is spiritual is in keeping with the divine design. The result is that when we have been regenerated, we act out of thoughtfulness and make the elements of that thoughtfulness part of our faith.
Still, we are spiritual only to the extent that we are attentive to what is true, since everyone is regenerated by means of truths and through living by them. It is truths that enable us to know what life is, and life that enables us to practice truths. This is how goodness and truth are united in the spiritual marriage where we find heaven.

Divine Providence (Dole) n. 83

83. The reason no one can enter heaven without being born again is that we are involved in all kinds of evil through what we inherit from our parents; we also inherit an ability to become spiritual by the removal of those evils. Unless we do become spiritual, we cannot enter heaven; and changing from being earthly to being spiritual is being reborn or regenerated.
If we are to understand how we are regenerated, though, we need to keep three things in mind, namely, the nature of our first state, a state of damnation; the nature of our second state, a state of reformation; and the nature of our third state, a state of regeneration.
[2] Our first state, the state of damnation, is the one we get from our parents by heredity. Each of us is born with a predilection to love ourselves and the world, and subject to all kinds of evil that have these forms of love as their wellspring. It is the pleasures of these loves that guide us; and they render us unaware of our involvement in evils. This is because every pleasure that stems from love simply feels good to us. Unless we are regenerated, then, all we know is that loving ourselves and the world more than anything else is goodness itself, and dominating others and possessing all their wealth is the greatest good there is.
This, too, is where all evil comes from, since we do not focus on anyone but ourselves out of love. If we do focus on someone else out of love, it is the way one demon focuses on another or one thief on another when they are cooperating.
[3] If we justify these loves within ourselves and the evils that spring from them because of the pleasure they give us, then we remain bound by the material world and become imprisoned in our physical senses. In our own thinking, the thinking of our spirits, we are insane. As long as we are in this world, though, we can talk and act rationally and wisely, because we are human and therefore have rationality and freedom. However, we are doing all this out of our love for ourselves and the world.
After death, when we become spirits, we are capable of no pleasure except that which we felt in our spirits in this world. This is the pleasure of hellish love, which turns into the profound and agonizing pain that the Word refers to as the torment and fire of hell. We can see from this that our first state is one of damnation, and that we are in this state if we do not let ourselves be regenerated.
[4] Our second state, the state of reformation, starts when we begin to think about heaven in terms of its joy and therefore to think about God as the one who gives us heavenly joy. At first our thinking is prompted by the pleasure we find in self-love, and heavenly joy is that kind of pleasure for us. As long as the pleasure from that love and the pleasure we find in the evils that arise from it are in control, though, we can only think that we get to heaven by pouring out prayers, listening to sermons, taking communion, giving to the poor and helping the needy, contributing to churches, supporting hospices, and the like. In this state, all we know is that salvation comes by thinking about what our religion teaches us, whether that is what we call faith or whether it is what we call faith and charity.
The reason we are totally convinced that thinking about these things saves us is that we are not thinking about the evils that give us pleasure, and as long as these pleasures are with us, so are the evils themselves. Their pleasures come from our impulses toward them, impulses that constantly crave them and make them happen whenever some fear does not prevent it.
[5] As long as these evils stay in the compulsions of our love and their pleasures, the only faith or charity or devotion or worship we have is on the surface. They seem to the world to be real, but they are not. We might compare them to waters from a polluted spring, waters that are undrinkable.
As long as our nature leads us to think about heaven and God as matters of religion and not to think at all about evils as sins, we are still in the first state. We reach the second state, the state of reformation, when we begin to think that there is such a thing as a sin, and especially when we identify some particular thing as a sin, and when we look into it in ourselves, even briefly, and do not want to do it.
[6] Our third state, the state of regeneration, picks up on this prior state and carries the process further. It begins when we stop doing wrong things because they are sins, advances as we abstain from them, and becomes complete as we fight against them. Then, as we overcome in the Lord's strength, we are regenerated.
When we are regenerated, the whole pattern of our life is inverted. We become spiritual instead of earthly, since what is earthly is contrary to the divine design when it is separated from what is spiritual, and what is spiritual is in keeping with the divine design. The result is that when we have been regenerated, we act out of thoughtfulness and make the elements of that thoughtfulness part of our faith.
Still, we are spiritual only to the extent that we are attentive to what is true, since everyone is regenerated by means of truths and through living by them. It is truths that enable us to know what life is, and life that enables us to practice truths. This is how goodness and truth are united in the spiritual marriage where we find heaven.

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 594

594
Our regeneration is portrayed in Ezekiel as the dry bones on which sinews were placed; then flesh, and skin, and spirit was breathed into them, and they came to life (Ezekiel 37:1-14). The following words in that story make it obvious that it represents regeneration: "These bones are the whole house of Israel" (Ezekiel 37:11). There is also a comparison there involving graves. We read that God will open graves and cause bones to rise up out of them, and he will put spirit in them and place them in the land of Israel (Ezekiel 37:12, 13, 14). The land of Israel here and elsewhere means the church. Bones and graves were used to represent regeneration because people who have not been regenerated are called the dead, and people who have been regenerated are called the living. The former are spiritually dead, but the latter are spiritually alive.

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 606

606
From the above we can conclude that when we have not been regenerated, we see ghosts at night, so to speak, and think they are real people. When we are being regenerated, we become aware first thing in the morning that what was seen in the night was unreal. When we have been regenerated and are in broad daylight, we realize that our visions in the night were a form of madness.
People who have not been regenerated are dreaming; people who have been regenerated are awake. In fact, in the Word our earthly life is compared to a sleep and our spiritual life to wakefulness.
People who have not been regenerated are meant by the foolish young women who had lamps but no oil. People who have been regenerated are meant by the prudent young women who had lamps and also oil [Matthew 25:4]. The lamps mean things that belong to our intellect; the oil means things that belong to our love.
People who have been regenerated are like the oil lamps on the lampstand in the tabernacle. They are also like the showbread and the incense on the table and the altar there. They are the people in Daniel 12:3 who are as radiant as the brightness of the firmament and who shine like the stars for an age and forever.
[2] People who have not been regenerated are in the Garden of Eden, so to speak, but they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and are thrown out of the garden; in fact they are that tree. People who have been regenerated are also in that garden but they eat from the tree of life. The Book of Revelation makes clear that it is possible to eat from the tree of life: "To those who overcome I will give [food] to eat from the tree of life, which is in the middle of the paradise of God" (Revelation 2:7). The Garden of Eden means a spiritual understanding that arises from a love for truth; see Revelation Unveiled 90.
Briefly put, someone who has not been regenerated is a child of the evil one; someone who has been regenerated is a child of the kingdom (Matthew 13:38). A child of the evil one in this passage means a child of the Devil, and a child of the kingdom means a child of the Lord.

True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 687

[2] In the world, the process of being regenerated is represented by various things. For example, by the flowering of all things on earth in springtime and the ensuing stages of growth to the point of bearing fruit. Likewise, by the stages of development that every type of tree, bush, and flower goes through from the first to the last warm month.
The process of being regenerated is also represented by the development of fruits of all kinds from initial stem to ripe fruit. It is represented by the morning and evening rains and the falling dew that cause flowers to open, as they also close themselves to the darkness of night. It is represented by the fragrances of gardens and fields; and by the rainbow in the cloud (Genesis 9:14-17). It is also represented by the radiant colors of sunrise.
The process of being regenerated is also represented in a general way by the constant renewal of all things in the body by chyle and animal spirits and then blood. Blood is constantly being purified of worn-out elements and renewed and in a sense regenerated.
[3] If we look even to the lowliest creatures on earth, we see an image of the process of regeneration in the miraculous transformation of silkworms, and of many other grubs and caterpillars into nymphs and butterflies, and of other creatures that in time are embellished with wings.
To these we might add a lighter example: the desire of some songbirds to splash in the water in order to wash and cleanse themselves before returning to their singing.
In brief, the whole world on every level of existence is full of symbols and emblems of regeneration.