(SS) - Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture

SS 10

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10. In Revelation, chapter 21, the Holy Jerusalem is thus described:
That there was a light in her like unto a stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear as crystal; that she had a wall great and high, having twelve gates, and over the gates twelve angels, and the name written thereon of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel; that the wall was a hundred and forty-four cubits, which is the measure of a man, that is, of an angel; and that the structure of the wall was of jasper, and its foundations of every precious stone, of jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, and amethyst; that the twelve gates were twelve pearls; that the city itself was pure gold, like unto pure glass; and that it was foursquare; and that the length, the breadth, and the height thereof were equal, twelve thousand furlongs; with many other particulars (Rev. 21).
That all these things are to be understood spiritually is evident from the fact that by the Holy Jerusalem is meant a New Church which is to be set up by the Lord, as has been shown in Doctrine of the Lord (n. 62-65). And as the church is here signified by Jerusalem, it follows that all the things said of it as a city - concerning its gates, its wall, the foundations of its wall, and their measures - contain a spiritual sense; for the things that are of the church are spiritual. But what the several things signify has been explained in New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine, published in London in the year 1758 (n. 1). I therefore refrain from a further explanation of them here. It is sufficient that it be known from that source that there is a spiritual sense in each several particular of the description, like a soul in its body; and that without this sense nothing of the church would be understood in the things there written; such as that the city was of pure gold; that its gates were of pearls; its wall of jasper; the foundations of its wall of precious stones; that its wall was of a hundred and forty-four cubits, which is the measure of a man, that is, of an angel; and that the city itself was twelve thousand furlongs in length, breadth, and height; and so on. But whoever, from a knowledge of correspondences, has come to know the spiritual sense will understand these particulars; as that the wall and its foundations signify doctrine from the literal sense of the Word; and that the numbers twelve, one hundred and forty-four, and twelve thousand, signify like things, namely, all the truths and goods of the church in one complex.

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