Selection from New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Man is not born of his parents into spiritual life, but into natural life. Spiritual life consists in loving God above all things, and in loving his neighbor as himself, and this according to the precepts of faith, which the Lord has taught in the Word. But natural life consists in loving ourselves and the world more than the neighbor, yea, more than God Himself.Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except anyone be begotten again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (3:3).
Every man is born of his parents into the evils of the love of self and of the world. Every evil, which by habit has acquired as it were a nature, is derived into the offspring; thus it descends successively from parents, from grandfathers, and from great-grandfathers, in a long series backwards; whence the derivation of evil at length becomes so great, that the whole of man's own life is nothing else but evil. This continual derivation of evil is not broken and altered, except by the life of faith and charity from the Lord.
Man continually inclines to, and lapses into, what he derives from heredity: hence he confirms with himself that evil, and also superadds more from himself. These evils are altogether contrary to spiritual life; they destroy it; wherefore, unless man receives new life, which is spiritual life, from the Lord, thus unless he is conceived anew, is born anew, is educated anew, that is, is created anew, he is damned; for he wills nothing else, and thence thinks nothing else, but what is of self and the world, in like manner as they do in hell.
No man can be regenerated unless he knows such things as are of the new life, that is, of spiritual life. The things which are of the new life, or which are of the spiritual life, are truths which are to be believed and goods which are to be done; the former are of faith, the latter of charity. These things no one can know from himself, for man apprehends only those things which are obvious to the senses, from which he procures to himself a light which is called natural light, from which he sees nothing else than what relates to the world and to self, but not the things which relate to heaven and to God. These he must learn from revelation. As that the Lord, who is God from eternity, came into the world to save the human race; that He has all power in heaven and in earth; that the all of faith and the all of charity, thus all truth and good, is from Him; that there is a heaven, and a hell; and that man is to live to eternity, in heaven if he has done well, in hell if he has done evil.
These and many other things belong to faith, which the man who is regenerating ought to know; for he who knows them, may think them, afterwards will them, and lastly do them, and so have new life. Whilst he who does not know that the Lord is the Savior of the human race, cannot have faith in Him, love Him, and thus do good for the sake of Him. He who does not know that all good is from Him, cannot think that his own salvation is from Him, still less can he will it to be so, thus he cannot live from Him. He who does not know that there is a hell and a heaven, nor that there is eternal life, cannot even think about the life of heaven, nor apply himself to receive it, and so in other cases.
Everyone has an internal man and an external man; the internal is what is called the spiritual man, and the external is what is called the natural man, and each is to be regenerated, that the man may be regenerated. With the man who is not regenerated, the external or natural man rules, and the internal serves; but with the man who is regenerated, the internal or spiritual man rules, and the external serves. Whence it is manifest that the order of life is inverted with man from his birth, namely, that serves which ought to rule, and that rules which ought to serve. In order that man may be saved, this order must be inverted; and this inversion can by no means exist, but by regeneration from the Lord.
What it is for the internal man to rule and the external to serve, and vice versa, may be illustrated by this: If a man places all his good in pleasure, in gain, and in pride, and has delight in hatred and revenge, and inwardly in himself seeks for reasons which confirm them, then the external man rules and the internal serves. But when a man perceives good and delight in thinking and willing well, sincerely, and justly, and in outwardly speaking and doing in like manner, then the internal man rules and the external serves.
The internal man is first regenerated by the Lord, and afterwards the external, and the latter by means of the former. For the internal man is regenerated by thinking those things which are of faith and charity, but the external by a life according to them. This is meant by the words of the Lord:
"Water," in the spiritual sense, is the truth of faith, and "the spirit" is a life according to it.Unless anyone be begotten of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5).
The man who is regenerated is, as to his internal man, in heaven, and is an angel there with the angels, among whom he also comes after death; he is then able to live the life of heaven, to love the Lord, to love the neighbor, to understand truth, to relish good, and to perceive the happiness thence derived.
(New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 173-182)