504. Where also our Lord was crucified. This symbolizes a failure to acknowledge the Lord's Divine humanity, and thus a state in which He is rejected.

It is a saying in the church that people who blaspheme the Lord, crucify Him, and that so, too, do those who, like the Jews, deny that He is the Son of God.

People who deny that the Lord's humanity is Divine are like Jews because everyone views the Lord as a person, and anyone who views His humanity as on par with the humanity of any other person is incapable then of thinking of His Divinity, no matter how often this is called the Son of God, born from eternity, coequal with the Divinity of the Father. When he is told this or hears it read, it penetrates his hearing, indeed, but not at the same time his belief, since he thinks of the Lord as being a material person like any other man, retaining the same properties of the flesh. And because he then sets the Lord's Divinity aside and pays it no attention, he is therefore in the same state as he would be if he denied it; for he denies that the Lord's humanity is the Son of God, even as the Jews did also, for which reason they crucified Him. That the Lord's humanity is nevertheless the Son of God is something plainly said in Luke 1:32, 35, Matthew 3:16-17, and elsewhere.

[2] It is apparent from this why people in the church turn directly to God the Father, and many also to the Holy Spirit, and rarely anyone directly to the Lord.

Since the Jews crucified the Lord owing to their denial that He was the Messiah, the Son of God, therefore their Jerusalem is also called Sodom (Isaiah 3:9, Jeremiah 23:14, Ezekiel 16:46, 48). And the Lord says,

On the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:29-30)

What the fire and brimstone are may be seen in no. 452, 494.

452. And out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone. This symbolically means that interiorly regarded, their thoughts and discourses contained nothing else, and issuing from them was nothing but a love of self and the world, which is a characteristic trait of the will, a conceit in their own intelligence, which is a characteristic trait of the intellect, and the lusts attendant on evil and falsity, which are a characteristic trait flowing from them both.

Out of their mouths means from their thoughts and discourses. Fire symbolizes a love of self and the world, which is a characteristic trait of the will (nos. 450, 468, 494). Smoke symbolizes a conceit in one's own intelligence, which is a characteristic trait of the intellect, emanating from the love of self and the world like smoke from a fire (no. 422). And brimstone symbolizes the lusts attendant on evil and falsity, which are a characteristic trait flowing from them both.

This is not, however, apparent from these people's discourses in public in the world. But it is clearly apparent to angels in heaven. Consequently we say that their thoughts and discourses, interiorly regarded, are of this character.

Fire symbolizes hellish love, and brimstone the lusts flowing from that love through a conceit in one's own intelligence, in the following places:

I will rain down on him... fire and brimstone. (Ezekiel 38:22)

Upon the wicked (Jehovah) will rain... fire and brimstone... (Psalms 11:6)

...the day of Jehovah's vengeance... Its streams shall be turned into pitch, and its dust into brimstone...; its smoke shall ascend forever. (Isaiah 34:8-10)

On the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone... Even so will it be in the day the Son of Man is revealed. (Luke 17:29-30. Cf. Genesis 19:24)

If anyone worships the beast and his image..., he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone... (Revelation 14:9.10)

The beast, the false prophet, and the devil were cast into the lake of fire and brimstone (Revelation 19:20; 20:10; 21:8).

The breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, shall kindle (the pyre). (Isaiah 30:33)

The whole land is brimstone, salt, and burning; it shall not be sown, nor shall it sprout..., like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah... (Deuteronomy 29:22-23)

Brimstone is scattered on the habitation (of the wicked). (Job 18:15)