3. Which God gave Him to show His servants. This symbolically means, for people who have faith arising from charity, or truths of wisdom arising from the goodness of love.

To show means, symbolically, to make evident, and servants here symbolize people who have faith arising from charity. The following things are made evident to them because they understand and accept.

Servants mean, in the spiritual sense, people who are governed by truths; and because truths spring from goodness, servants mean people who are governed by truths arising from goodness, thus also people governed by wisdom arising from love, because wisdom has to do with truth, and love with goodness. They also are people who have faith arising from charity, because faith, too, has to do with truth, and charity with goodness. And because the spiritual sense in reality is abstracted from person, therefore servants in that sense symbolize truths.

Now because truths, by teaching goodness, serve it, therefore in general, and properly speaking, by a servant in the Word is meant something serving, or someone or something that serves. In this sense not only were prophets called servants of God, but so, too, was the Lord in respect to His humanity.

That prophets were called servants of God is evident from the following passages:

Jehovah has sent to you all His servants the prophets... (Jeremiah 25:4)

...He has revealed His secret to His servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7)

...He has set before us by the hand of His servants the prophets. (Daniel 9:10)

Moses, too, is called a servant of Jehovah (Malachi 4:4). That is because a prophet, in the spiritual sense, means doctrinal truth, as discussed below.

[2] Moreover, because the Lord was the very embodiment of Divine truth, which also is the Word, and for that reason was called the prophet, and because He served in the world and serves all people to eternity by teaching, therefore He, too, is here and there called the servant of Jehovah, as in the following passages:

Of the labor of His soul He shall see; He shall be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many... (Isaiah 53:11)

Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. (Isaiah 52:13)

Behold! My Servant on whom I rest, My Elect. My soul has good pleasure! I have put My Spirit upon Him... (Isaiah 42:1, 19)

These things are said of the Lord. David is spoken of similarly, where by him is meant the Lord, as in the following:

I, Jehovah, will be their God, and My servant David a prince among them... (Ezekiel 34:24)

David My servant shall be king over them, so that they all have one shepherd... (Ezekiel 37:24)

I will protect this city to save it, for My sake and for My servant David's sake. (Isaiah 37:35)

So, too, Psalms 78:70-72; 89:3-4, 20. (That by David in these places is meant the Lord, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, nos. 43, 44.)

The Lord Himself speaks similarly of Himself:

...whoever desires to become great among you must be your attendant, and whoever desires to be first among you must be your servant, even as the Son of Man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister... (Matthew 20:25-28. Cf. Mark 10:42-45, Luke 22:27. So, too, Luke 12:37)

The Lord says this, because by a servant and attendant are meant one who serves and ministers by teaching, and abstractly from person, Divine truth, which He embodied.

[3] Since a servant therefore means someone who teaches Divine truth, it is apparent that servants in this place in the book of Revelation mean people who possess truths arising from goodness, or faith arising from charity, because they are able to teach from the Lord, that is to say, because the Lord is able to teach and minister through them.

It is in this sense that they are called servants in Matthew:

(At the end of the age,) who... is the faithful and prudent servant, whom his lord set over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his lord, when he comes, will find so doing. (Matthew 24:45-46)

And in Luke:

Blessed are those servants whom the lord, when he comes, will find watching. Truly I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will (himself) come and attend to them. (Luke 12:37)

In heaven, all people in the Lord's spiritual kingdom are called His servants, while those in His celestial kingdom are called His ministers. That is because people in His spiritual kingdom are governed by wisdom derived from Divine truth, and those in the celestial kingdom by love derived from Divine good. And good ministers, while truth serves.

In an opposite sense, however, by servants are meant people who serve the devil. These are in a real state of servitude, whereas people who serve the Lord are in a state of freedom - as the Lord also teaches in John 8:31-36. ¹

Poznámky pod čarou:

1050. 'And with every living soul in all flesh' means the entire human race. This is clear from the meaning of 'living soul in all flesh'. Every individual is called 'a living soul' from that which is living within him. No one can possibly live, let alone as a human being, if he does not have something living within him, that is, if he does not have some measure of 'innocence, charity, and mercy, or from these something of a similar or comparable nature. This measure of innocence, charity, and mercy a person receives from the Lord when he is an infant and during childhood, as becomes clear from the state of infants and also from that of childhood. What a person receives at that time is preserved within him, and the things that are preserved are in the Word called 'remnants', which are the Lord's alone with a person. These remnants that are being preserved are what make it possible for someone when he becomes adult to be a human being. Regarding these remnants, see what appears in 468, 530, 560-563, 576.

[2] That the states of innocence, charity, and mercy that have been his in infancy and in childhood years enable a person to be human is quite clear from the fact that man is not born as animals are, ready to perform any of life's activities, but has to learn how to do every single one. The things he learns to do then become through the performance of them habitual and so to speak natural to him. Man is not even able to walk, or to talk, until he learns how to do so; and the same applies to everything else. Through usage these activities become so to speak natural to him. The situation is the same with regard to the states of innocence, charity, and mercy with which likewise he is endowed from infancy. But for these states man would be far inferior to any animal. These states however are not states that man acquires by learning but ones which he receives as a free gift from the Lord, and which the Lord preserves within him. These, together with truths of faith, are what are also called remnants and are the Lord's alone. To the extent that a person in adult life destroys these states, he becomes a dead man. When a person is being regenerated these states are the principal agents of regeneration, and he is brought into these states, for, as stated already, the Lord works by means of remnants.

[3] These remnants present with everybody are what are here called 'the living soul in all flesh'. That 'all flesh' means everybody and so the entire human race becomes clear from the meaning of 'flesh' in many places in the Word - see what has been shown in 574 - as in Matthew,

Unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved. Matthew 24:22; Mark 13:20.

In John,

Jesus said, Father, glorify Your Son, as You have given Him power over all flesh. John 17:1-2.

In Isaiah,

The glory of Jehovah will be revealed, and all flesh will see it. Isaiah 40:5.

In the same prophet,

All flesh will know that I am Jehovah your Saviour. Isaiah 49:26.