And the Word of Jehovah was to me, saying, So says Jehovah of Hosts: I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous for her with great wrath. So says Jehovah: I have returned to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem shall be called a City of Truth, and the mountain of Jehovah of Hosts, the Holy Mountain. So says Jehovah of Hosts: There shall yet be old men and old women sitting in the streets of Jerusalem; and each man with his staff in his hand because of their many days. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. So says Jehovah of Hosts: If it is marvellous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be marvellous in My eyes? says Jehovah of Hosts. So says Jehovah of Hosts: Behold, I will save My people from the rising sun and from the land of the setting sun. And I will bring them, and they shall live in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be for a people to Me, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness. So says Jehovah of Hosts: Let your hands be made strong, you who hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, that in the day the house of Jehovah of Hosts is founded… (Zechariah 8:1-9)

And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God with men! And He will tabernacle with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. (Revelation 21:3)

In the Word ‘city’ never means a city but something doctrinal or else something heretical. For angels are totally ignorant of what a city is or what the name of any city is. They never do nor can have any city in mind, for their ideas are of spiritual and celestial things, as shown already. Their perception is solely of what is meant spiritually by cities, and the names of them. For example, by the Holy City, which is also called the Holy Jerusalem, they understand nothing other than the Lord’s kingdom in general, or as it exists with each individual who has the Lord’s kingdom within him. And the city of Zion or Mount Zion they understand in a similar way, the latter being the celestial degree of faith, the former the spiritual. (Arcana Coelestia 402)

[The New Jerusalem’ is the Lord’s kingdom which because it is being described as regards good and truth is described by walls, gates, and streets. By the last of these -‘the streets’ – are meant all avenues of truth which lead to good, that is, all those of faith which lead to love and charity. (Arcana Coelestia 2336{2})

The New Jerusalem is a symbol of what living the spiritual life produces within a person. The phrase “Jehovah says” or a variation of it occurs in these eight verses some seven times. It is a common phrase in the Word and it means that it is so. For what the Lord says, simply is. The opening phrase reads…

And the Word of Jehovah is coming to me saying…

The first thing we need to remind ourselves of when we hear this is that in a spiritual context, or in regard to your own spiritual life, this is to be understood in terms of what the Word of the Lord is always declaring to those who are open to hearing it. Whenever we come across this kind of statement in the Word we are reminded that the Word is not just words on a page but that on a deeper level it is the very laws breathed into our being. Prophets like Zechariah actually represent the Lord in respect the to the Word because they teach what the Lord is saying as the Word. And because they give an explanation of what it is the Word is communicating, they also represent doctrine drawn from the Word, or spiritual teachings that we can come to understand and apply to our life. For this reason, every spiritual teaching that is genuine is really an embodiment of the Lord’s mercy. The Lord’s provision of the Word is thus an act of His mercy for it shows that He is ever mindful of us and our states of life. Something of this is captured in the meaning of Zechariah’s name which means, “Jehovah has remembered.”

The Lord is in constant remembrance of every human being, every spirit and every angel as His Divine Providence is continually over all. The provision of the Word and the doctrines drawn from it for a Spiritual Christianity, are the supreme form of the Divine Providence in action because these address the inner spiritual states of people in a way that looks to their regeneration and salvation.

So what this passage from Zechariah is saying is that when we live from the Word and heed what it is saying, then certain things will take place within the life of our affections and thoughts that will bring about an inner transformation in which our sensitivity to spiritual realities can be heightened. We read that the Lord of Hosts is jealous for Zion and that He is jealous for her with great wrath.

If we are to understand this we need to know what Zion represents in the Word in relation to the human mind. Zion and Jerusalem are often mentioned together in the Word. Jerusalem we know is a city and as a city is a structure in which people live their lives, therefore it spiritually represents the structure of spiritual beliefs or thoughts drawn from the Word that people live in internally, for we all live in the external world on the one hand and in our states of mind on the other. So in the Word, Jerusalem can refer to either a genuine or corrupt structure of thinking in relation of spiritual things, depending on the context in which it is mentioned.

For example, as a genuine form of spiritual thought it is referred to as a city descending from God out of heaven in the book of Revelation (Rev 21:2), whereas it is clearly used to represent a corruption of spiritual thought in Revelation11:8 where it says of the two witnesses that their…

..bodies will be on the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom, and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified.

and in Ezekiel Chapter 16 where it says of Jerusalem…

you have trusted in your beauty, and have played the harlot because of your renown, so that you have poured out your fornications on everyone that passed by.

So context is important when working with meanings of things in the Word. In general however, Jerusalem as an internal reality, as an aspect of the human mind, relates to its intellectual things. Zion on the other hand represents the things of love. This representation is taken from the fact that Zion is an elevated area in Jerusalem and in spiritual terms what is higher always represents what is more internal. Ideas and concepts that belong to the intellectual faculty form around the things belonging to the will or the affections of the heart. In other words, the things belonging to our affections are more interior than those belonging to the thought. The doctrines for Spiritual Christianity teach that it is our loves that drive and direct our thoughts. So Zion takes its correspondence to the deeper things of the mind or love from it being a Mountain or something more elevated.

Spiritual thought structures, or those ideas, concepts and beliefs represented by Jerusalem can take a corrupt or genuine form. What determines the form these things have within the human mind is the underlying motive or love that organises them into a reflection of itself. Zion represents that love and like Jerusalem can also have a positive or negative spiritual representation depending on the context we find it mentioned in the Text. But Zion, in the case of our reading today, is something the Lord is passionate about, so we ask what is it that the Lord is passionate about in regard to our own life? The Lord is passionate about our spiritual well being, our sense of fulfilment and our eternal happiness. The Lord desires to bring everyone into states of peace, joy, love and happiness. He doesn’t want us to be anxious, or depressed or miserable, and so He has provided everything He possibly can to empower us so that we leave these negative states of life behind and enter into higher states of heavenly life – now, if we really want to.

So the Lord has a passion to see that our life is centred on heavenly loves, affections and desires represented here by Zion. Why? Because ultimately it is only when our life is centred on what is heavenly that we can be truly at peace and fulfilled. If the loves and desires of heaven aren’t what form our life and thought then the only alternative is the loves of self and the world. These loves are described in the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity as diabolical and when they dominate our life we become slaves to destructive negative emotions and passions that can only bring misery into our experience of life.

The Lord offers us another way – new loves, new desires, that are filled with what is of heaven. These are given to people by no other means than through a conscious effort to live from the truths that the Word teaches. Our states of life, that is, how we feel and think, reflect where we are at at any given moment of our lives and this in turn is a product of our beliefs and desires and how close these come to reflecting a heavenly form. The closer the structure of our mind approaches what makes for a heavenly pattern, the greater our capacity to receive the love and wisdom of heaven. It is in our willingness to do the work of building up our minds on those truths that we acknowledge to be from the Lord, that establishes our sense of self in higher things.

Zion is representative of these higher things in relation to love for it represents love to the Lord and love to the neighbour. To love the Lord is to love what is good and to love the neighbour is to love what is true. Good and truth, or love and wisdom, is the Lord, and because the Word is nothing but what is good and true, to love the Word is to love the Lord. How do we love the Word? We work with it so that we can govern the life of our affections, thoughts and activities so that we live from it on every level of our life. If we love the Word then we will be actively seeking to understand it better, we will have a desire to read it often and we will make the effort to apply the principles of Spiritual Christianity to our inner and outer life.

It is this process that leads to the reformation of our thinking and the regeneration of our will. It is this kind of work that brings us into touch with what is of heaven. The rational light that the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity provides us with offers us all that we need to take the steps in developing a spiritual dimension to our lives. Therefore the Lord says in the Gospels…

Yet a little while the Light is with you. Walk while you have the Light, that darkness not overtake you. And the one walking in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the Light, believe into the Light, that you may become sons of Light. (John 12:35-36)

And also a similar meaning is expressed in Matthew 13:19

When anyone hears the Word of the kingdom and does not give heed to it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.

This has to do with our response to the light of truth that we are given and we must use it while we can, for if we neglect to take our opportunities to work spiritually we may end up loosing the desire to do so.

When we work in response to truth so the Lord is said to return to Zion. This means that we are strengthened in spiritual loves or our desire for spiritual things. As we are strengthened in our desire for spiritual things so we find that the Text becomes more alive for us. What was once obscure begins to shine more and more fully and we find our conviction grows as to how it is that the Word is the Lord with us. As this conviction grows so we see that He dwells in the midst of those truths we have had worked into our lives as a result of having made an effort to live from them. These truths being what is called Jerusalem, a name that means “teaching of peace.” This then is why it is said to be called, “a city of truth” in verse 3. For truth leads to good and those who dwell in good or love are those who know the true peace the Lord gives. This peace is what arises from the Lord in a mind that has been restructured around truths, for a mind structured according to spiritual truths is undivided and whole for all things within it exist in there proper relationship to Divine laws.

Such a mind is filled with the wisdom of love that orders all things within it. Its levels are consistent, so much so that what is lower corresponds to what is higher giving it a unity of purpose throughout. The depth of love and wisdom means that it is called the mountain of Jehovah of Hosts, the Holy Mountain. A truly elevated state of mind is one in which the Lord dwells. As Jehovah of Hosts, the Lord as the Word when its truths are loved, is able to stand against all that opposes what is heavenly within a person. This is because when a person freely takes up their responsibility to work on themselves spiritually, the truths that they have worked with become real and living in their experience.

This kind of work means that they pass through many states of life as they are lifted out of the selfishness of their proprium and through this process have their sense of self replanted in what is of the Lord. All this experience translates into wisdom and a rich understanding of doctrine, not as a thing heady and intellectual but as something lived as their spiritual life. A doctrine from and for their life. The wisdom that comes from living truths through the many states of life that the process of regeneration takes a person through, is what is described in verse 4 as,

…old men and old women sitting in the streets of Jerusalem; and each man with his staff in his hand because of their many days…

Old men and old women in the Word don’t mean the elderly, rather, and particularly in this context, they correspond spiritually to the wisdom of those who having lived a life of self examination and repentance. They have an experiential understanding of the truths of the Word and doctrine of Spiritual Christianity born from practice . Such a life sees the growth of innocence, of a wisdom that looks to the spiritual welfare of all and seeks to do no harm. This innocence, the innocence of wisdom, arises from a willingness to be led by the Word alone and is found in the midst of the truths a person uses in life. Here in this part of the Scriptures, this innocence found in truths lived, is symbolically described as…

…the streets of the city…full of boys and girls playing in its streets.

Boys and girls in the Word correspond to innocence and streets to doctrines or spiritual teachings that form spiritual paths. All these things describe what is meant by the New Jerusalem. Above all else we see that the Lord has a passion for our spiritual welfare and has provides all that is needed for us to enter into the fullness of the the life He offers us…He says in verses 7 and 8…

Behold, I will save my people from the rising sun (that is the love of self) and from the land of the setting sun (the absence of love). And I will bring them, and they shall live in the midst of Jerusalem (wisdom from love). And they shall be for a people to Me, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness.

The Lord in His second coming makes this possible for us, we only need to embrace the life He offers as our own. So…

Let your hands be made strong, you who hear in these day these words by the mouth of the prophets, that in that day the house of Jehovah of Hosts is founded…

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea no longer is. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, having been prepared as a bride, having been adorned for her Husband. And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God with men! And He will tabernacle with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death shall be no longer, nor mourning, nor outcry, nor will there be pain any more; for the first things passed away. And the One sitting on the throne said, Behold! I make all things new. And He says to me, Write, because these Words are faithful and true. (Revelation 21:1-5)

‘Prepared as a bride [adorned] for her husband’ signifies the Church conjoined to the Lord by means of the Word….By ‘prepared’ is signified attired for betrothal; and the Church is equipped for betrothal and afterwards for conjunction or marriage…by means of the Word, for this is the only medium of conjunction or marriage, because the Word is from the Lord and concerning the Lord, and thus is the Lord…Indeed the Word has been given for the sake of that end…by the ‘husband’ is understood the Lord is plain from vers. 9 and 10 of this chapter, where Jerusalem is called ‘the bride the Lamb’s wife’…From these considerations it can be established that by ‘Jerusalem prepared as a bride for her husband’ is signified the Church conjoined with the Lord by means of the Word. (Apocalypse Revealed 881)

The word Church is used…to mean that which constitutes the Church in a person, for a person is a Church when goodness and truth are present in him; and groups of such people make up the Church in general. (Arcana Coelestia 6113)

…they have the Church within them who have an affection for truth for its own sake and an affection for good for its own sake, thus who are governed by love towards the neighbour and love to God. For good and truth are the neighbour, and so is God since good and truth are God’s and so are God as He exists with such people. (Arcana Coelestia 10310)

The New Jerusalem is described as a city and as we saw last time, this description is symbolic of something spiritual. For when we talk of something spiritual we don’t mean something vague or vaporous – the spiritual realm is the very real realm of our thoughts, belief, affections and desires. While we can’t see mental phenomena with our physical senses we know their reality in our experience. We are able to detect that we have feelings and thoughts because we have inner spiritual senses that are designed for that very function.

In order for the activities of our spirit, which we experience as our thoughts and affections, to be real, they must have a structure to them. They must have substance and form. And we can know this because when we reflect on these activities we see that they have a quality to them, and for a thing to have qualities it must exist, and for anything to exist it must have substance and form. Now we may not think too much about our inner life in terms of its substance, form and qualities but in the very fact that we can reflect and detect the things of this inner world, means that they do exist as something substantial. I can’t see your thoughts and feelings, you can’t see mine; does this mean they are not real? Of course not, the way we feel and think, the beliefs and values we hold, the love we have for others – these things are more real in terms of our quality of life than any material possession could ever be. We know this is true if we care to reflect on it.

I hope you can see that spiritual things, the things of our mental world, are substantial and as such must have a structure to them. We can’t see spiritual structures with our physical eyes or natural thought but we would be hard pressed to convince anyone that the feelings they feel or the thoughts they experience are non-existent. Spiritual things are real but because they are a degree above the detectable level of our physical senses, we need to have something to lift our perception above the merely sensual level of life in order to see them. For in order to see what is spiritual we have to develop our rational faculty as spiritual things are seen not in the eyes of the senses but in the eyes of the understanding. To teach us about spiritual realities the Word uses natural imagery: objects from the natural world, historical people, natural events, things we are all familiar with. But if we are to read these things as something that might apply to our spiritual life, then we must think about them in a different way. This takes some effort because we are so used to thinking naturally. To think spiritually in relation to what the Word has to say, we need to be able to see that everything in it applies to the inner mental life.

So as we saw last time, the city of the New Jerusalem is not to be thought of as a physical structure but that the idea of a city has an inner application and as such represents a structure of thought and belief that is spiritual in nature and so belongs to the world of the mind. Today I want us to consider the idea of this city being something prepared as a bride, having been adorned for her Husband.

But first let’s clarify this idea of the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. This tells us that the structure of thinking that the city the New Jerusalem represents, is from God and it descends from out of heaven. And again, as we saw last time, this city can be seen as the works that make up the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity because they offer a new way of thinking about how the content of the Word can be applied to the life of the human mind. These teachings are found in volumes of books, yet as books that just sit on the shelf – they are ineffective and dead. The ideas they contain only become living when they are freely taken into the human mind and become the basis for our life, for they are designed to build a new rational faculty within us from which we can see what is spiritual. The doctrines for Spiritual Christianity enable us to grasp the inner truths of the Word and of how its stories relate to our inner life and the path of spiritual transformation, and as such they form the means by which what is heavenly can become more grounded in the reality of our lives.

The teachings for Spiritual Christianity exist on the physical plane as words printed on the page. Taken together, these words form ideas and concepts in natural language about spiritual things. But before they became printed words on a page they always existed as the spiritual sense within the literal sense of the Word. The spiritual meaning within, is not actually in the printed words of the Old and New Testaments. The inner meaning is spiritual and so exists in the minds of people, or comes to light when they acknowledge the Lord as the Word through a willingness to live from its truths. This acknowledgement took place in Emanuel Swedenborg and the result was the publishing of his collective works which teach why, and show how, the Word is Divine and thus offer us the principles upon which a new Spiritual Christianity can be founded within each of us.

These works concerning the spiritual life, were drawn out of the literal sense of the Word as it was read by Emanuel Swedenborg. He was able to record the insights he received from the Lord through the heavens, showing in wonderful detail what the Word teaches concerning the nature of God, the nature of human kind, the nature of life after death and heaven and hell. These revelations have the power to restructure the minds of human beings into a heavenly form for they have descended from out of God through the heavens for this very purpose – so that human beings might be more completely and fully connected with the Divine life. And because they have the power to bring about this transformation they are called the holy city the New Jerusalem…prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

Everything that comes forth from God has one end in view; the eternal happiness of every human being. The Lord is Divine Love and Wisdom itself, and the Love He is seeks only the welfare of all under His care. Therefore the Divine Wisdom works tirelessly to bring this about, attending to every detail of life to hold open the possibility for people to realise that God wants them to be intimately connected to Himself, not for His sake but for theirs. We call this Divine care and attention the Lord’s Divine Providence. Love by means of wisdom presents itself to human consciousness in the form of spiritual teachings. It doesn’t force itself on us, but by means of ideas that look very human, at least on the surface, we have opened to us a possibility – a possibility for spiritual life. The doctrines for Spiritual Christianity are here, the Divine leaves us in complete freedom to pick them up and explore them, or leave them aside.

To the natural mind, the claim that the Divine reveals itself in the form of ideas and concepts through a human agent may seem unbelievable. So be it, but for those who are willing to lay aside their preconceptions and consider the possibility of a life in accordance with spiritual principles, these teachings offer to empower them to resist self-centred patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving and open up a new way of life where they are brought into a deeper sense of connection with the Divine.

This is why these teachings are described as something prepared as a bride adorned for her Husband. Although, it is not us who are to be joined to God, we are not the prepared bride, the teachings are the bride. Our sense of connection to the Divine is made possible through these teachings drawn from the Word and accommodated to human comprehension. When we take the truths that they offer into our life, we have a sense of connection with the Lord because He is in these truths of the Word within us.

The works that make up the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity are designed to restructure our thinking in regard to the Word. They carry within them new ideas, new concepts and the possibility for a new belief structure which can form something in the human mind into which Divine can flow and enlighten us. This enlightenment draws our sense of self into the reality of what is spiritual as we look to the Word for our life. The teachings adorn the Word through giving us a new understanding of it in which the beauty of the Divine can be seen. The word translated from the Greek as “adorn” means to put things in their proper order. When we receive truths into the mind from the Word and understand them in the light of what the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity teach, we receive the holy city of the New Jerusalem as that which is descending from God out of heaven.

In terms of time, the descent of the holy city occurred in the publishing of these spiritual ideas so that they had permanence in the material world. Now anyone can pick them up and begin to examine what they have to say. If in the course of that examination a person sees their truth and begins to use them to better understand what the Word teaches concerning how to acknowledge the Lord as God, and from that acknowledgement have their inner and outer life reordered, so what was in print now becomes something in the mind into which the Divine Life can present itself and be alive for us. This living presence then becomes the New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven in the reality of our personal experience. When the Word speaks of something descending or of a movement from what is higher to what is lower, it spiritually refers to what is of a higher spiritual quality finding expression on a lower level or what is more internal becoming manifest on a more external level of life. This sense of the Lord’s presence with people in the truths they have had worked into their lives is what is described in verse 3 where we read…

And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God with men! And He will tabernacle with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea no longer is. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, having been prepared as a bride, having been adorned for her Husband. And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God with men! And He will tabernacle with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death shall be no longer, nor mourning, nor outcry, nor will there be pain any more; for the first things passed away. And the One sitting on the throne said, Behold! I make all things new. And He says to me, Write, because these Words are faithful and true. (Revelation 21:1-5)

The foundations of the wall of the city, the new Jerusalem, were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. Rev. 21:19, 20. These precious stones mean the Church’s truths, which are God’s truths. This is clear from the meaning of ‘the city, the new Jerusalem’, ‘the wall of it’, and ‘the foundations of the wall’. ‘The new Jerusalem’ means a new Church which will take the place of the one that is ours at the present day; for the Book of Revelation deals with the state of the Church that exists now, through to its end, and then with a new Church, which is the holy Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. ‘The wall of it’ means the truths of faith that serve to defend it, and ‘the foundations’ truths that spring from good. Those actual truths in their proper order are specified by the precious stones mentioned by name there. Anyone may see that no Jerusalem is going to come down out of heaven or that anything else mentioned there is literally going to take place, but that this description in every detail means such things as have to do with the Church. The fact that the truths of faith are meant by the foundations of its wall is clear from the consideration that they are the things which guard the Church from every attack, as walls do a city. (Arcana Coelestia 9863)

In our look last time at this passage of Scripture we focused on the change of state represented by the passing away of the first heaven and earth and the establishment of a new heaven and earth in its place. Essentially heaven and earth are terms that refer to the internal and external man and in the context of our regeneration, the goal of course is to come into states of life in which we feel with the loves of heaven and think in accordance with those loves which is what it means to think from what is true. The first heaven and earth refers to the human mind when it has yet to undergo a spiritual transformation in which our sense of our self is removed from the lower loves of the natural man, belonging to self and the world, to drawing its life from heavenly loves, love to the Lord and love to the neighbour.

This transformation cannot occur without our obeying the injunctions of the Word to continual daily self-examination and repentance. If we want to do this then we need to take the opportunity to create for ourselves conditions which can remind us to do this work, because without conscious effort we won’t do it, and if we don’t do it our spiritual affection for truth will inevitably lose force. In a way we end up falling asleep, spiritually speaking, forgetting our purpose and reason for being here in the world. For it is the truths which we find in the Word that empowers us to do this spiritual work. They empower us because when we know what is true we are able to choose what is good through resisting our evils as they present themselves in the feelings, thoughts and behaviours which have self interest at their centre. The Word has this power, because the Word is the Lord. And this is where the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity differs from the traditional Christianity which places it focus is on the historical personage of Jesus Christ or the First Advent. The doctrines for Spiritual Christianity by contrast take their reference point from the Lord’s Second Advent, which is not a second coming of Jesus in person but a coming of the Lord in and through the opening of the spiritual sense of the Word.

This is what these words describing the descent of the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation illustrate. These words were never meant to be taken literally; they are clearly symbolic and as such represent spiritual realities that belong to the inner spiritual life of people. In one sense these words have been brought to their fulfilment in that have already occurred in time but in another sense, they are continually being fulfilled as they find their expression within the minds of all those who are being regenerated by the Word. In terms of the spiritual history of the human race, the descent of the New Jerusalem began when the possibility was being created for a new heaven and a new earth to come into being. This heaven and earth describes the human mind and it becomes possible with the introduction of new concepts and ideas that have the power of opening up a new spiritual consciousness or a new way of feeling and thinking about spiritual realities found in the Word. This is what is meant by a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and earth being a mind fixed in natural and worldly concepts in regard to spiritual realities that has to pass away if a person is to think from a spiritual base in regard to spiritual things.

We can illustrate this from this very text. Natural thought about spiritual realities presents itself when we read words like these and get stuck in their literally meaning, which is the same as not being able to see their spiritual meaning. To think naturally about spiritual things in this case would be to view them as describing an actual city that will descend from on high at some point in the future. But the Word, as a spiritual text, is first and foremost concerned with spiritual things and such things are those of the mind, or what belongs to the will and the understanding of a person. We know this from the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity for they teach that everything in the Word is representative of the inner mental states of people in relation to the Divine Life and that the things mentioned in the Word should not be read as referring to things belonging to the outer, physical world.

So the phrase “holy city” has nothing to do with a holy city, much less a city that descends from on high called Jerusalem. A little spiritual thought can establish this fairly quickly. The quality of holiness is attributable to the Lord alone. Nothing other than the Lord and what comes forth from Him can be described as holy. The Lord Himself is Divine Love and Wisdom and what comes forth from Him is everything good and true and it is these, and these alone, that are holy. What comes forth from the Lord is His Word and it is the Word that is described here as holy for the Word contains the fullness of the Divine Love and Wisdom, accommodated to angelic and human comprehension.

This city can’t be anything else, for the only thing that comes down from God out of Heaven is Divine Revelation. Without the specific revelation found in the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity we have no way of knowing this, and so our thought would remain weighed down in material thinking which would think that by city is meant something made up of physical structures like cities in the world. But when we see that that the Word is a spiritual text we can then understand that the term city must be a spiritual term that describes something from the Divine that takes its form as a structure, not in the outer material world, but within the human mind, which is what our spirit is. And what resides in the human mind? If we reflect, we see that the human mind holds belief structures made up of ideas and concepts. So this city from God must be heavenly teachings that teach what love and wisdom truly are. Such teachings are call doctrine. And it is this doctrine or spiritual teaching that is meant by the city New Jerusalem.

In historical terms, the giving of this doctrine, that teaches what the Bible has to say as to its inner meaning, descended from God through the heavens by means of a man who was able to see them published and that man happened to be Emanuel Swedenborg. From 1749 with the publishing of the first volume of the work Arcana Coelestia through to the publishing in 1771 of True Christian Religion, the human race was given a new set of spiritual teachings that made it possible to see how the content of the Word can be applied to the life of the human mind. This is what is described in the New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven in a universal historical sense. The works that make up these doctrines for a Spiritual Christianity, have come forth from the Word and now serve as a mirror in which false ideas concerning God can be dispersed and the true nature of the Lord as love and wisdom can be reflected into human consciousness. The doctrines themselves testify or bare witness to themselves that they are the means by which the Lord made His Second Advent in history, and by which He makes His Second Advent to each and every individual who is prepared to acknowledge that they are indeed the Lord in His Divine Human.

What John saw in his vision was a symbolic representation of these works coming into the world. This becomes clear from the quotes from Scripture that precede the work True Christian Religion. Two quotes are given, one from the book of Daniel and the other from the book of Revelation. These quotes are highly significant in the light of what the work True Christian Religion deals with in its contents…

I was watching in the visions of the night, and I saw the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. And to Him were given dominion and glory and the kingdom, and all peoples, nations and tongues will worship Him. His dominion will be a dominion for ever, which will not pass away, and His kingdom one that will not perish. (Daniel 7:13-14)

I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth; and I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. And the angel spoke with me, saying, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in the spirit onto a great and high mountain, and showed me the great, holy city of Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. He that sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, Write, because these words are true and trustworthy. (Revelation 21:1,2,5,9,10)

Both these selections from Scripture are quoted at the beginning of the work True Christian Religion because they refer directly to it. The first statement from Daniel referring to the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven is a direct reference to the Lord coming as to the spiritual sense of the Word contained in the clouds of heaven or its literal sense. When the Word is read literally we read of natural things that involve the history of the Jewish nation and obscure prophecies that have to do with the nations of the world. This all clouds the spiritual content when our focus gets caught up in the literal meaning; hence the literal sense is called the clouds of heaven for it obscures the inner spiritual meaning of the Word. This inner spiritual meaning relates to the activity of the Divine life within our minds.

The clouds of the literal sense of the Word are dispersed when it is understood in accordance with the truths that are contained in the teachings found in the work True Christian Religion. These truths are called the Son of Man in the symbolic language of Scripture. Son’s in the Word spiritually correspond to truths, as daughters spiritually correspond to the affections of the mind and the term Man, more accurately, the term Human, refers, in the case of the Lord, to what is truly Human (love mercy compassion and goodness). Son of Man therefore speaks of truths that teach all about love and wisdom and when we make these the priority in our life then we hand over all glory and dominion to the Lord as the Word and enter into what it truly means to worship Him. This is described in this quote from Daniel as, “all peoples, nations and tongues” coming to worship Him. So the Son of Man is nothing else other than the truths of the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity and we see these coming with the clouds of heaven when we are able to see them shining forth from the Scriptures themselves.

The second quote from the book of Revelation comes alive when we read this as referring directly to the doctrine given to human race through the agency of Emanuel Swedenborg. Next time we will deal with the idea of the New Jerusalem prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Just hold in mind that this bride is the doctrine itself – what I want to finish on now is the last part of the statement that reads…

He that sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, Write, because these words are true and trustworthy.

There can be no doubt that this quote from the book of Revelation is given to make the point that the contents of True Christian Religion were inspired by the Lord Himself. Through the giving of truths that relate to the inner sense of the Word, the Lord makes all things new for us in regard to our understanding of the Scriptures. The obscure understanding of natural Christianity, as a religion based on tradition and a literal reading of the Scriptures, can be once and for all dispersed as the truths for a Spiritual Christianity shine their light within human minds. Swedenborg saw himself as called to bring these truths into the world in written form and so, the final statement doubles as a command to both John in regard to the book of Revelation and Swedenborg in regard to True Christian Religion, that command is, “Write, because these words are true and trustworthy.” What John saw in symbolic terms, Swedenborg delivers in plain language – that all now might enter into the mysteries of faith with understanding and know the transformative power of the Word to bring into our life the Lord’s love for the sake of others.

For, behold, I create new heavens and new earth. And the former things shall not be recalled, and they shall not go up on the heart. However, be glad and rejoice forever in what I create. For, behold, I create in Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. (Isaiah 65:17-18)

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea no longer is. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, having been prepared as a bride, having been adorned for her Husband And I heard a great voice out of Heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God with men! And He will tabernacle with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death shall be no longer, nor mourning, nor outcry, nor will there be pain any more; for the first things passed away. And the One sitting on the throne said, Behold! I make all things new. And He says to me, Write, because these Words are faithful and true. (Revelation 21:1-5)

Those who do not look beyond the literal sense cannot conceive of anything else than this- that the whole sky together with this planet will be annihilated, and then the dead – for the first time – will rise again and dwell in the new heaven and on the new earth. But these places in the Word should not be understood in that way, as may be recognized from other places in the Word where the heavens and the earth are referred to. Those who have any belief in an internal sense can see plainly that ‘a new heaven’ and ‘a new earth’ are used to mean a new Church which takes over when the previous one passes away, 1733, 1850, 3355 (end), and that ‘heaven’ is the internal aspect of that new Church and ‘earth’ the external aspect of it. (Arcana Coelestia 4535{2})

…everyone who has been regenerated…becomes a member of the Church, that is, becomes the Church. When he has been created anew his internal man is called ‘a new heaven’ and his external ‘a new earth’. (Arcana Coelestia 931)

‘the sea’ means factual knowledge which has the world as the end in view; in this case its ‘waves’ are reasonings that are the product of worldly notions about Divine matters. Consequently ‘being immersed in the sea’ means being immersed so thoroughly in factual knowledge which is the product of worldly and earthly notions that there is no belief whatever in God’s truth… (Arcana Coelestia 9755)

Today we begin a series in which we look at the vision John had of the New Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God found in the Book of Revelation. The spiritual meaning of this vision is expanded on in the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity in some detail in the opening chapter of the work The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine and also in The Apocalypse Revealed. So if you want to get a fuller sense of the background to this series I would encourage you to read what is written there.

The whole book of Revelation is of course a fascinating read. Of all the books that make up the New Testament this one is stands out as being very different in its style and content. It’s what is termed apocalyptic literature and is more in keeping with some of the prophetic books of the Old Testament in its style than those of the New Testament. While it is now, well and truly, accepted as part of the Divine Revelation that constitutes the New Testament this has not always been the case. The very nature of the content of this book has meant that down through the Christian age it has been at the centre of many disagreements as to its meaning and place within the Church.

From the perspective of Spiritual Christianity however, the difficulties are resolved through an emphasis on its spiritual meaning. Many of the difficulties other faiths have with this book are due to the tendency to read the text naturally or in terms of literal events to happen some time in the future. If you are familiar with the book of Revelation you will know that it is rich in symbols, which include fantastic creatures all involved in a battle of good and evil. These were never intended to be taken literally. It’s all symbolic and until we see this, the book remains closed to us. Thankfully, the teachings of Spiritual Christianity are able to serve as a guide to bringing to us its interpretation. When this is combined with a reflective life practice, what can be a murky world of symbols gives way to vivid descriptions of the spiritual processes involved in people’s regeneration.

The book describes the battle that takes place between the natural and the spiritual man within us. In its opening verse we are told that what follows is the revelation of Jesus Christ. This should not be read to mean a revelation belonging to Jesus Christ, but rather the unfolding of Jesus Christ as the Word within the human mind. This is what this book describes in all its symbolic details and so, when we have the key to understanding it, we find that it is a detailed map that can lead and guide those who are consciously engaged in a spiritual practice that is based on the Word.

We are beginning at the end of the book. Beginning with the end is useful because it enables us to see what it is the Lord is seeking to achieve, the outcomes connected with all that has gone before. So here, near the end of the book we read in verse 1 of chapter 21 John saying…

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea no longer is.

We read of a change from one state to another. The processes that are involved in our regeneration are designed to move our sense of self from out of what is lower, our proprium or ego, into what is of the Lord so that we can be found planted in what is of a higher heavenly or spiritual quality. Every one of us, from a spiritual perspective, can be viewed as a heaven and an earth where heaven represents a more internal level of being and earth, a more external level of being. Prior to being regenerated our personal heaven and earth is found in what is opposed to living a genuine spiritual life. In fact, the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity state that we are virtually unable to draw a distinction between what is internal and external due to the fact that our sense of self is so immersed in that which is external and that we pretty much live our lives oblivious to internal realities. This state of life, where external things dominate, is called hell, and here in this verse it is referred to as the first heaven and earth that has passed away.

Something we need to grasp to understand this is that the states of life that we experience and identify with as our inner life or how we feel, is nothing more than the effects of the beliefs and desires that make up our minds. This is a very practical, concrete idea that can be very liberating if we can truly get a hold of it. It means that when we give serious attention to spiritual teachings, ideas and concepts and use them of our own free will to reflect on and adjust our thinking and life, we open ourselves up to experiencing life differently. Change in your beliefs will lead to changes in the way you feel, or the states of life you experience.

What or how you feel in yourself at any given time can be regarded as a reflection of the underlying beliefs, expectations and values that your sense of self has identified with as being ‘you’. When we see this, we can then see that we are in fact responsible for how we feel. There is a reluctance that flows from our natural man to accept this, but the spiritual man is well aware that this is the case. It’s too easy for us to just run with how we are feeling and remain unconscious of the negative influences that are active in our mental states. For how we feel is supported by certain beliefs or thought structures that work together and ground themselves in what we experience as our general mood. It is useful to reflect on this; how would I rate my general moods or states of life – are they negative or positive from a spiritual point of view?

Our mood is the effect or manifestation of deeper seated thoughts and affections, and so make up the ground in which these deeper things rest. This ground is called earth in the symbolic language of Scripture. The first heaven and earth refers to our first sense of self that develops prior to being regenerated through engaging in spiritual work. This first sense of self has its roots in the loves of self and the world and this is what must pass away if we are to find a closer connection to spiritual realities. The spiritual life involves having our sense of life shifted from out of bodily and sensual thinking which is based in the delights of that first sense of self, and into states of life that takes delight in spiritual things.

To delight in spiritual things involves things like reading the Word, seeking the Lord within it, being open to receiving insight in what we need to be working on in our life, and disciplining ourselves to act on what is required of us. We should be looking to do this on a daily basis if we want to have an increased sense of the Lord’s presence in our life.

Whatever else the book of Revelation may show us, it certainly shows us that this transition or transformation in our sense of ourselves cannot occur without tremendous upheaval and turmoil being manifest in our lives. Prior to the truths of the Word being established in us, we pretty much live off our lower emotions and are quite unstable in many, many ways, although for the most part we remain unconscious of this fact. This emotional instability is captured in Scripture in the symbol of the sea.

The analogy is that just as the sea can, in a moment, take on a violent change of mood, so too can we. If we have no solid spiritual teachings grounded in our life from a practice of bringing higher things into consciousness in daily life, we find ourselves at the mercy of an underlying sea of negative emotions which we experience as constant shifts in our states of life that we desperately seek to keep a lid on if we can. And indeed some are better at presenting a calm exterior to the world than others but regardless of how things appear on the surface, where there is no grounding in spiritual truths all states of exterior calm are merely a surface veneer that covers over the seething mass of negative emotions found in the proprium beneath.

Through truths we can be led, if we are willing, through a process where the first heaven and earth are able to pass away so that a new heaven and earth can come into being. This new heaven is a new internal man that is born from the truths of the Word that have been worked into our life. And because it is the Word worked into our life that makes heaven within us, it is also the carrier of the Lord’s presence. The new earth is made up of that which is also of the Word but it is the literal sense of the Word that forms the new external man, only here it is the literal sense of the Word seen in a new way due to the revelation of the spiritual meaning within it found in the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity.

This new understanding of the literal sense of the Word forms a firm foundation for life. This new earth is able to ground within us a taste of what is heavenly, states within which the Lord is able to be present with us as a sense of peace, joy and love. It is said that the sea is no longer because when our life becomes grounded in the Word the hellish emotions that make up that sea are no longer able to affect our life. If we truly want heavenly states of life to rule in us then we must be prepared to work to have what obstructs them removed. This work is what every one of us is called to. The Lord has given us everything we need in order to see a new heaven and earth founded within us, the challenge for us is whether we will lay aside the things of external life and make seeking the kingdom of God our highest priority.