176. "'See, I have set before you an open door.'" (3:8) This symbolically means that to those who are governed by truths springing from goodness derived from the Lord, heaven is opened.

An open door clearly symbolizes an entryway. The door is said to be open for people who belong to the church in Philadelphia because people governed by truths springing from goodness derived from the Lord are meant by that church, and to them the Lord opens heaven.

But on this subject we will say something previously not known: The Lord alone is God of heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18), ¹ and consequently people who do not go to Him directly do not see the way to heaven and therefore do not find the door. If by chance they are permitted to approach it, it is closed, and if someone knocks, it is not opened.

In the spiritual world there are actually paths that lead to heaven, and here and there one finds gates. People who are being led by the Lord to heaven go along paths that lead to it, and they enter through the gates. The existence of paths in that world may be seen in the book Heaven and Hell, nos. 479 534, 590, and also gates, nos. 429, 430, 583, 584. For everything seen in the heavens is a correspondent form, and so, too, are paths and gates. Paths, indeed, correspond to truths and consequently symbolize them, and gates correspond to an entryway and so symbolize it.

[2] Since the Lord alone leads a person to heaven and opens the door, therefore He calls Himself the way and also the door - the way in John,

I am the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6)

And in the same gospel the door,

I am the door of the sheep... If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved... (John 10:7, 9)

Since both ways and doors exist in the spiritual world, and angelic spirits actually travel along those ways or paths and enter through doors when they enter into heaven, therefore doors and gates are often mentioned in the Word, and they symbolize an entryway, as in the following passages:

Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you doors of the world! That the King of glory may come in. (Psalms 24:7, 9)

Open the gates, that the righteous nation which exercises faithfulness may enter in. (Isaiah 26:2)

(The five wise virgins) went in... to the wedding, and the door was shut. (Then the five foolish virgins came and knocked, but it was not opened.) (Matthew 25:10-12)

(Jesus said,) "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many... will seek to enter and will not be able. (Luke 13:24-25)

And so also elsewhere.

Because a door symbolizes an entryway, and the New Jerusalem symbolizes a church formed of people who are governed by truths springing from goodness derived from the Lord, therefore the New Jerusalem is described also in respect to its gates, with angels upon them, and they are said to be not shut (Revelation 21:12-13, 25).

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429. In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them. (9:6) This symbolically means that those people caught up in the doctrine of faith alone wish the intellect to be closed and the will stopped up in matters of faith, and thus that they be without any spiritual light and life; but that still the Lord has provided that the intellect be not closed or the will stopped up, to keep the spiritual light and life in a person from being extinguished.

"In those days" symbolizes the last state of the church, when the doctrine of faith alone has been universally accepted. "Men will seek death" means, symbolically, that they wish the intellect to be closed in matters of faith. "And will not find it" means, symbolically, that the Lord has provided that this not happen. "They will desire to die" means, symbolically, that they also wish the will in them to be stopped up. "And death will flee from them" means, symbolically, that the Lord has provided that this not happen either. For in that case spiritual light and life would be extinguished, and the person would spiritually die. Seeking is said in application to the intellect, and desiring to the will, and death is said in application to both.

It is apparent that this is the symbolic meaning of these words. Otherwise what would it mean that men in those days will seek death and not find it, or desire to die and have death flee from them? For the only death meant by death here is spiritual death, which is induced when the intellect is banished from tenets to be believed; for a person then does not know whether he is thinking and putting into practice truth or falsity, thus whether he is thinking and acting in concert with angels in heaven or in concert with devils in hell.