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])

5605. 'And we will rise up and go, and we will live and not die' means spiritual life entered into by degrees. This is clear from the meaning of 'rising up' as a raising up to higher or more internal things, and therefore to those that constitute spiritual life, dealt with in 2401, 2785, 2912, 2927, 3171, 4103, 4881; from the meaning of 'going' as living, dealt with in 3335, 3690, 4882, 5493 (and since 'and we will live' follows, 'going' means the earliest stage of spiritual life); from the meaning of 'living' as spiritual life, for no other kind of life is meant in the internal sense of the Word; and from the meaning of 'not dying' as standing condemned no longer, that is, standing outside a state of condemnation, for no other kind of death is meant in the internal sense of the Word than spiritual death, which is condemnation. From all this it is evident that 'we will rise up and go, and we will live and not die' means life entered into by degrees. That is to say, an introductory phase leading into life is meant by 'rising up', the earliest stage of that life by 'going', that life fully under way by 'living', and guidance away from everything alien to that life by 'not dying'.

[2] The idea that living is meant in the internal sense by 'going' will seem strange to one who does not know anything about spiritual life. But much the same is involved here as with the expression 'travelling on', namely an ordered life and a further stage of life, 1293, 4375, 4554, 4585; receiving instruction and leading a life in keeping with it, 1463, 2025, 3672. The reason why 'going', 'travelling on', and 'sojourning' have these meanings can, it is true, be stated; yet it is the kind of reason that makes little sense to those who have no knowledge of the exact nature of people's movements in the next life. Moving about and advancements made by people there are nothing else, since they have no other origin, than changes in their states of life. Such changes present themselves in outward actions as nothing other than advances from one place to another. The truth of this has been proved to me from many an experience I have had in the next life. In my spirit I have walked with and among those there, and have moved through their many dwelling-places; and I have done so even though my body remained all the time in the same place. I have talked to them about how this could be so and have learned that changes in their states of life are what constitute the advances people make in the spiritual world.

[3] The same has also been proved to me by the fact that spirits are able, through changes of state that are effected, to be somewhere high up and then in an instant somewhere deep down, or to be far away in the west and then in an instant in the east, and so on. But, as stated, this is bound to seem strange to someone who does not know anything about life in the spiritual world. For in that world no intervals of space or of time exist, but states of life instead of these. Such states produce externally a visible scene with all the appearance of life involving advances and movement. The scene that appears is so vivid and real that it is an appearance of life itself; that is to say, the appearance is that life exists inherently within us, and so is essentially our own, when in actual fact life flows into us from the Lord, the source from which all life involves much the same, namely and the expression 'sojourning springs, see 2021, 2658, 2706, 2886-2888, 3001, 3318, 3337, 3338, 3484, 3619, 3741-3743, 4151, 4249, 4318-4320, 4417, 4523, 4524, 4882. Because 'going' and 'moving' mean living, the ancients had the saying, In God we move, and live, and have our being. By 'moving' they meant the external degree of life, by 'living' the internal degree, and by 'having one's being' the inmost degree.