Swedenborg Arcana Caelestia Vol. I (1750)

The progression of faith in those who are created anew is as follows: at first, they have no life, for there is no life in evil and falsity, but only in Good and Truth. Then they receive life from the Lord through faith—first through the "faith of the memory," which is scientific faith; then through "faith of the understanding," which is intellectual faith; and finally through "faith of the heart," which is the faith of love, or saving faith. Scientific and intellectual faith were represented from verse 3 to verse 13 by inanimate things. However, faith vivified by love is represented from verse 20 to verse 25 by animate things. Therefore, here for the first time, we deal with love and the resulting faith, which are called the "lights." Love is the great light that rules the day; faith from love is the lesser light that rules the night. Because they make one, it is said of them in the singular, "let there be" (or "let it be"), and not "let them be" lights.

Love and faith exist in man just as heat and light do in the external body; thus, the former are represented by the latter. Therefore, the lights are said to be placed in the "expanse of the heavens," or in the internal man—the great light in his will, and the lesser in his intellect—but they appear only in the will and intellect as the light of the sun appears in objects. It is the Lord’s mercy alone that affects the will with love and the intellect with truth or faith.

31. That the great lights signify love and faith, and are also named as sun, moon, and stars, is evident throughout the prophets. As in Ezekiel: "I will cover, when I have extinguished you, the heavens, and I will darken their stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not make its light to shine. All the lights of light in the heavens I will darken over you, and I will set darkness over your land" (32:7, 8). This concerns Pharaoh and Egypt, by whom are understood in the Word the sensual and the scientific; here, it means that they extinguished love and faith through sensual and scientific things. In Isaiah: "The day of Jehovah comes to lay the land in desolation, for the stars of the heavens and their constellations shall not make their light to shine; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not make its light to shine" (13:9, 10). In Joel: "The day of Jehovah comes, a day of darkness and gloominess. Before Him the earth trembles, the heavens are moved, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining" (2:2, 10). In Isaiah, where the coming of the Lord and the illumination of the nations is discussed—thus, the new Church, and particularly those who are in darkness and receive light and are regenerated: "Arise, shine, for your light has come! For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but Jehovah shall arise over you, and the nations shall walk to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Jehovah shall be to you a light of eternity; your sun shall no longer go down, nor shall your moon be withdrawn, for Jehovah shall be to you a light of eternity" (60:1, 2, 3, 19, 20). In David: "Jehovah makes the heavens in intelligence, expands the earth above the waters, makes the great lights, the sun to rule in the day, and the moon and stars to rule in the night" (Psalm 136:5–9). And in the same: "Praise Jehovah, sun and moon; praise Him, all you stars of light; praise Him, you heavens of heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens" (Psalm 148:3, 4). In all these places, the lights signify love and faith.