4. Things which must shortly take place. This symbolically means that they must surely come to pass to keep the church from perishing.

"Which must shortly take place" does not mean that the things predicted in the book of Revelation are going to happen immediately or quickly, but that they will happen surely, and that unless they come to pass, the church will perish.

In the Divine view, and so in the spiritual sense, time does not exist, but instead of time, state. And because "shortly" has to do with time, it symbolically means certainty and that something will happen before its time. For the book of Revelation was written in the first century, and seventeen centuries have now gone by, from which it is apparent that "shortly" means, symbolically, what corresponds to it, which is certainty.

[2] Something quite similar is involved in these words of the Lord:

Unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened. (Matthew 24:22)

This, too, means that unless the church should be ended before its time, it would perish entirely. That chapter has as its subject the end of the age and the Lord's advent, and by the end of the age is meant the last state of the old church, and by the Lord's advent, the first state of a new church.

[3] We said that in the Divine view there is no time, but the presence of everything that has happened and will happen. Accordingly we are told in the Psalms,

...a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday... (Psalms 90:4)

And in the same book:

I will declare the decree: Jehovah has said to Me, "You are My Son, today I have begotten You." (Psalms 2:7)

"Today" is the presence of the Lord's advent.

For this reason, too, a whole period in the Word is called a day, its first state being called dawn and morning, and its last state evening and night.

2880. Nothing else seems to a person to be that person's, that is, to be properly his own, except that which flows from freedom. The reason is that all affection that exists within love constitutes his inner life itself; and when someone acts from affection he does so from his life, that is, from himself and so from what is his, that is, properly his own. In order therefore that a person may receive a heavenly proprium such as angels in heaven have, he is maintained in freedom, and by means of the freedom is introduced into it in the way described already. Anyone may see that when worshipping the Lord in freedom one seems to do so from oneself, that is, from what is properly one's own, but when worshipping under compulsion one is not doing so from oneself but from some outside influence or from some other source that forces one to do it. Thus anyone may see that worship offered in freedom is worship itself, but worship offered under compulsion is not worship at all.