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以西结书 23:20

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20 贪恋情人身壮精足,如

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Jerusalem

  

Jerusalem, on Mount Zion, signifies the doctrine of love to the Lord, and how it governs your life. Jerusalem first comes to our attention in 2 Samuel 5, when King David takes the city from the Jebusites and makes it his capital. In the next chapter he brings the Ark of the Covenant there, and later it is where Solomon builds the temple, and his own palace. From then on Jerusalem is the center of worship of the Israelitish church. It is the place where the Lord was presented in the temple as a baby, where He tarried to talk to the priests at age twelve, where He cleansed the temple, had the last supper, was crucified and then rose. It is a central place in both the old and new Testaments. The city was built on Mount Zion, the highest point of the mountains of Judea. A city, in the Word, represents doctrine, the organized knowledge of the truths of the church. Mountains represent love of the Lord and the consequent worship. If you put those things together, Jerusalem on Mount Zion signifies the doctrine of love to the Lord, and how it governs your life. This is why David was led to make Jerusalem the most important city of the land, and why all worship was conducted there. And this is also why Jeroboam was condemned for introducing idol worship in Samaria. In the Book of Revelation, John's vision of the city New Jerusalem descending from God is a prophecy of a new dispensation of doctrine coming from the Lord.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 4539, 8938; The Apocalypse Explained 365 [35-38])

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Arcana Coelestia # 9632

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9632. 'And a covering from the skins of badgers above that' means outside that [another mantle], a mantle consisting of truths derived from external good. This is clear from the meaning of 'a covering' as a mantle, as just above in 9630; from the meaning of 'skins' as external truths, dealt with in 9471; and from the meaning of 'badgers' as forms of good, also dealt with in 9471.

Any further explanation of the things which have been stated so far regarding the dwelling-place, the tent over it, and the two coverings over that, can be dispensed with, since they are such as would be scarcely intelligible owing to the lack of proper knowledge. For where that knowledge is lacking there is blindness; thus there is no reception of light nor consequently any concept of the matter. Few if any people know that heaven is represented and thereby described by the dwelling-place, and the external part of it by the tent and its two coverings. The reason why there is no proper knowledge of these things is that scarcely anyone is aware of the fact that heavenly realities are meant by all that is written in the Word, thus that there is an inner meaning or spiritual sense within every detail there. Scarcely anyone knows either that this sense is not apparent in the letter, only from the letter to those who, having learned about correspondences, receive light from the Lord when they read the Word.

[2] Indeed scarcely anyone is aware of the fact that a person governed by the good of love and faith is heaven in the smallest form this can take, or that such a person in respect both of the more internal aspects of his being and of the more external corresponds to heaven, 9276. If these things had been known the learned in the Christian world who have acquired some knowledge regarding the parts of the human body could have received some light of understanding and therefore have had some concept of heaven. They could have discerned which particular realities in heaven are represented by the ark, its mercy-seat, and the cherubs above it; which particular realities by the table on which the loaves of the Presence were laid, the lampstand, and the gold altar for incense; also which particular ones are represented by the dwelling-place, its curtains, boards, and bases, and lastly by the tent and the two coverings over it. For similar things are met with in the human being, in the things with him that are internal and those that are external. They also present themselves in material form in his body; and to these [material parts of his body] the internal things have an exact correspondence. For unless the external things, which belong to the body, had an exact correspondence with the internal ones, which belong to the understanding and the will, there would not be any life in the body, nor thus any actions in accord with them.

[3] Similar things are said to be met with in the tabernacle as in the human being because representatives on the natural level resemble the human form and have the same meaning as the parts of it they resemble, 9496. External things within the human being provide four coverings which surround and enclose all that is more internal; these coverings are what animal skins and actual skins of the body refer to. See what has been mentioned from experience in 5552-5559, 8980, regarding the correspondence of the latter to internal things. The coverings which constituted the roof and sides of the tabernacle provided a similar representation. From all this the understanding may gain some light regarding the forms that heaven takes. Nevertheless that light will be snuffed out with all who have no definite knowledge regarding the things that exist within the human body and at the same time no definite knowledge regarding the spiritual realities belonging to faith and the celestial realities belonging to love, to which those things in the body correspond. Since most people are in the dark, indeed in thick darkness, so far as those realities and human physiology are concerned, owing not only to their lack of knowledge but also to their lack of belief, any further explanation of them has been dispensed with; for as stated above, they would be unintelligible because there is no light of understanding in such matters.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.