Transparency is needed to sort things out. Before big change happens, God first reveals what’s really going on.

In the Book of Revelation - the last book of the Word - the apostle John describes a series of apocalyptic visions that he experienced during his exile on the Isle of Patmos, in the Aegean Sea.

In one of these visions, he saw four horsemen, the first riding a white horse, the second a red horse, the third a black, and the fourth - named Death - riding a pale horse. These "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" - oft-pictured - are described in Revelation 6:1-8.

What do these horses, and their riders, represent? What do they have to do with us, today? Watch as Curtis Childs and Jonathan Rose explore the hidden Bible meaning of the Four Horsemen in the Book of Revelation, in this video from the Swedenborg and Life Series, from the Swedenborg Foundation.

Plus, to go straight to the source, follow the links below to the places in "Apocalypse Revealed" where Swedenborg explained the inner meaning of this famous Bible story. A good place to start would be Apocalypse Revealed 298.

(참조: Apocalypse Explained 315; Apocalypse Revealed 262-263, 301, 306, 314, 316, 320, 322-323)

118. As for the Lord's actually appearing in heaven as the sun, this is something I have not simply been told by angels but have also been allowed to see a number of times; so I should like at this point to describe briefly what I have heard and seen concerning the Lord as the sun.

The Lord does not appear as a sun in the heavens, but high above them, and not directly overhead but in front of angels at a middle elevation. He appears in two places, in one for the right eye and in another for the left, noticeably far apart. For the right eye he looks just like a sun, with much the same fire and size as our world's sun. For the left eye, though, he does not look like a sun but like a moon, with similar brilliance but more sparkling, and with much the same size as our earth's moon; but he seems to be surrounded by many apparent lesser moonlets, each similarly brilliant and sparkling.

The reason the Lord appears in two places, so differently, is that he appears to people according to their receptiveness. So he looks one way to people who accept him through the good of love and another way to people who accept him through the good of faith. To people who accept him through the good of love, he looks like a sun, fiery and flaming in response to their receptivity. These people are in his heavenly kingdom. To people who accept him through the good of faith, though, he looks like a moon, brilliant and sparkling in response to their receptivity. These people are in his spiritual kingdom. ¹ This is because the good of love corresponds to fire, so that fire, in its spiritual meaning, is love; while the good of faith corresponds to light, so that light, in its spiritual meaning, is faith. ²

The reason he appears to the eyes is that the deeper levels of the mind see through the eyes, looking from the good of love through the right eye and from the good of faith through the left eye. ³ You see, everything on the right side of an angel or one of us corresponds to what is good and yields truth, while everything on the left side corresponds to that truth that comes from what is good. ⁴ "The good of faith" is, essentially, truth that comes from what is good.

각주:

8760. 'And Moses went up to God' means the truth from God which was below heaven joining itself to Divine Truth in heaven. This is clear from the representation of 'Moses' as the truth from God, dealt with in 6771, 6827, 7014, at this point the truth from God which was below heaven, since he now represents the children of Israel as their head, and so represents those belonging to the spiritual Church not yet in heaven because they are not as yet governed by good formed from truths, 8753, 8754; and from the meaning of 'going up' as joining oneself to, for someone who goes up to the Divine joins himself to Him, even as the words 'going up into heaven' mean man's being joined to the Lord, and the words 'coming down from heaven' mean His being joined to man. Divine Truth in heaven, to which the other was joined, is what 'God' is used to mean; for in the Word the Lord is called 'God' by virtue of Divine Truth, and Jehovah' by virtue of Divine Good, 2586, 2769, 2807, 2822, 3921 (end), 4402, 7010, 7268, 7873, 8301. And since the joining of Divine Truth to Divine Good is the subject here, this verse first says 'God', then 'Jehovah' just after, in these words, And Moses went up to God, and Jehovah called to him from the mountain.

[2] The expression Divine Truth in heaven is used, and then Divine Good in heaven, because the Divine Himself is far above the heavens; not only Divine Goodness itself is far above them but also Divine Truth itself which goes forth directly from Divine Good. The reason why they are far above heaven is that in Himself the Divine is the Infinite, and the Infinite cannot be joined to finite beings, thus not even to angels in heaven, unless He puts on some finite clothing and in that way adapts Himself for reception. Also Divine Good as it exists in itself is a flame of infinite intensity or love, a flame which no angel in heaven can bear; for he would be devoured by it, as a person in the world would be if the flame of the sun were to reach him without anything between them to moderate it. The light also from the flame of God's love, which is Divine Truth, would blind all who are in heaven if it were to flow in without abatement of its fiery brightness. All this goes to show what the difference is between Divine Good and Divine Truth that are above the heavens and Divine Good and Divine Truth in the heavens, which are the subject here.