4
The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high; its streams ran round about his plantation, and it sent out its rivulets unto all the trees of the field.
Ezekiel 31:4
The Word
Consider the beautiful but cryptic statements of John 1:1:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
God's love has always been and will always be infinite and perfect. That means the expression of God's love -- His truth -- has also always been and will always be infinite and perfect.
The Lord has shared this truth with us in various ways since the beginning of humanity. The earliest people received truth directly, flowing into the inner parts of their minds from heaven. Later, people understood it through nature seeing the Lord's love expressed in mountains, trees, rivers, and the sun, moon and stars. By using natural language as a container for spiritual language, the Lord expressed truth within the Bible inside its stories, laws and prophecies. When humanity reached its lowest point, God took on a human form and walked among us as Jesus. In this way, the Lord brought us Divine truths in an accessible and tangible way. By accepting and loving the Lord as Jesus we can open ourselves to His love.
Finally, the Heavenly Doctrine received through the pen of Emanuel Swedenborg are themselves a container for Divine Truth, both in speaking plainly about heaven and by unlocking the truth as it is contained in the Bible.
The Word itself is Divine Truth; the Lord's expression of love has and never will change.
Length
'Length' symbolizes the goodness of the church for the same reason that 'breadth' symbolizes truth. This is because 'length' indicates the sweep of heaven from east to west, and 'breadth' means the sweep of heaven from south to north. Angels who dwell in the eastern and western zones in heaven are in the goodness of love, while angels who dwell in the southern and northern zones in heaven are in truths of wisdom. The same is true with the church on earth, for everyone who is in the church's goods and truths from the Word is associated with angels in heaven, and each person dwells with them in the interiors of their mind -- people in the goodness of love in the eastern and western zones of heaven, and people who are in truths of wisdom in the southern and northern zones of heaven. No one is aware of this, but everyone goes to his place after death.
(Odkazy: Apocalypse Revealed 906)
