We tend to think of "fruit" in two ways in natural language. One is as food that grows on trees and vines, sweet and delicious, and able to be eaten without harming the plant in any way. Another is as the things we produce, what our work yields for the betterment of the world. These are obviously connected: we are like trees, producing things that "feed" the world in some way, just as the tree produces fruit that feeds us. It makes sense, then, that the idea of fruit in the Bible is bound closely to the idea of goodness. Fruits that are eaten represent the desire for good and the energy to do what is good; fruit that is produced is the actual good that we go into the world and do.

566. Hellfire and Gnashing of Teeth

Until now, hardly anyone has known the meaning of the eternal fire and gnashing of teeth ascribed to people in hell in the Word. This is because people think materialistically about statements in the Word, in ignorance of its spiritual meaning. So some of them understand the fire to be material fire, some think it is torment in general, some the pangs of conscience, some that it is just words meant to strike a terror of evil into us. Some understand the gnashing of teeth to be a kind of grinding, some only the kind of shudder we feel when we hear this kind of clash of teeth.

Anyone familiar with the spiritual meaning of the Word, though, can realize what eternal fire and gnashing of teeth are, since there is spiritual meaning in every expression and in the meaning of every expression in the Word. At heart, that is, the Word is spiritual, and spiritual meaning can be expressed to us only in natural terms because we are in a natural world and think on the basis of what we encounter in it.

In the following pages, then, I shall explain what the eternal fire and gnashing of teeth are that evil people find after death, or that their spirits experience once they are in the spiritual world.