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])

449. And thus I saw the horses in the vision and those who sat on them. (9:17) This symbolizes the discovery then that the reasonings of the interiors of their minds concerning faith alone were fanciful and illusory, and that they themselves were insane because of them.

To see means, symbolically, to perceive their character. The horses symbolize the reasonings of the interiors of their minds concerning faith alone - here their fanciful and illusory reasonings, because we are told that John saw them in vision. People sitting on horses symbolize people who are intelligent owing to their understanding of the Word - here people who are insane because of their fanciful and illusory reasonings contrary to the Word.

[2] Because the interiors of these people's minds appeared in such guises, guises which symbolize fanciful and illusory reasonings concerning faith alone, we should disclose some of them that I took from their own mouths. As for example:

"After the so grievous fall of man, was faith alone not made the one means of salvation? How can we appear before God apart from that means? Is it not the only means? Are we not born in sin? Is our nature not utterly corrupted by Adam's transgression? Is there any other means of healing than faith alone? What shall our works contribute to this? Who can do any good work of himself? Who can purify himself, absolve himself, or justify and save himself? Do not merit-seeking and self-righteousness lie concealed in every little work that a person does of himself? And if perchance we were to do something that is good, could we do it all and fulfill the law? Furthermore, if one sins again one precept, one sins against them all, because they are bound up together.

"Why did the Lord come into the world and so grievously suffer the cross except to take away from us the condemnation and curse of the law, to propitiate God the Father, to become Himself alone merit and righteousness, which are imputed to a person through faith? Otherwise what good or for what good purpose was His advent?

"So, then, since Christ suffered for us and fulfilled the law for us, and took away its power to condemn, can evil in that case any longer condemn us? Or goodness save us? Consequently we who have faith are at complete liberty to think, will, speak and do whatever we please, provided we do not suffer any loss of reputation, esteem, or material gain, or incur the penalties of civil law, which would bring infamy and disgrace."

Some of these people who wandered about further north said that good works done for the sake of salvation are hurtful, destructive, and cursed. Among them were also some church elders.

[3] This much I heard; but they kept prattling on and muttering about more, which I did not hear.

They spoke, moreover, shamelessly, without constraint, and behaved wantonly in both word and deed, free of any fear over any wickedness except to keep up pretenses in order to appear respectable.

Such are the interior workings of the minds, and so the outer actions of the bodies, of people who make the whole of religion faith alone.

All of this that they told me collapses, however, if one turns to the Lord directly as Savior, believing in Him and doing good, both of these for the sake of salvation, and this by the person as if of himself, yet believing that it is the Lord's doing. Unless a person does this as if of himself, no faith is possible, and no charity, and thus no religion and so no salvation.