862. We have said that the nations' surrounding the camp of the saints and the beloved city means, symbolically, that these people attempted to destroy everything connected with the New Church, both its truths and goods and its fundamental doctrine regarding the Lord and life, as stated in the preceding number. This is the symbolic meaning because the camp of the saints symbolizes all the truths and goods of the church which is the New Jerusalem.

That a camp in the spiritual sense symbolizes everything connected with the church with respect to its truths and goods can be seen from the following passages:

The sun and moon grew dark, and the stars diminished their brightness. Jehovah uttered His voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for numberless are those who obey His Word. (Joel 2:10-11)

I will encamp for My house some of the army... (Zechariah 9:8)

...God has scattered the bones of them who encamp against you..., because God has rejected them. (Psalms 53:5)

The angel of Jehovah encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them. (Psalms 34:7)

(An angel of God met Jacob, and said to Jacob,) "This is God's camp." Therefore he called the name of that place Mahanaim (Two Camps). (Genesis 32:1-2)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 29:3, Ezekiel 1:24, Psalms 27:3.

That an army or host in the Word symbolizes the church's truths and goods, and also its falsities and evils, may be seen in nos. 447, 826, 833; and so, too, does a camp.

[2] Since the children of Israel and their twelve tribes symbolize the church in respect to all its truths and goods (nos. 349, 350), they were therefore called the armies or hosts of Jehovah (Exodus 7:4; 12:41, 51), and the places where they stopped and assembled were called camps, as in Leviticus 4:12; 8:17; 13:46; 14:8; 16:26, 28; 24:14, 23; Numbers 1; 2; 3; 4:5 ff., 5:2-4; 9:17-23; 10:1-10, 11-28; 11:31-32; 12:14-15; 21:10-15; 33:1-49; Deuteronomy 23:9-14; Amos 4:10.

It is apparent from this now that the nations' surrounding the camp of the saints and the beloved city means, symbolically, that these people tried to destroy all the truths and goods of the New Church, which is the New Jerusalem, and also its doctrine regarding the Lord and life.

The same symbolism is found in these verses in Luke:

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near... (At length) Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (Luke 21:20, 24)

This is said in reference to the end of the age, which is the final period of the church. Jerusalem here also symbolizes the church.

That Gog and Magog, that is, people who engage in external worship divorced from any internal worship, will then invade the church and try to destroy it, is something we are told also in Ezekiel 38:8-9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 39:2, and that the New Church will then be established by the Lord, Ezekiel 39:17-29.

825. 19:13 He was clothed with a garment stained with blood, and His name is called "The Word of God." This symbolizes Divine truth in its outmost sense, or the Word in its letter, to which violence has been done.

A garment symbolizes truth that clothes good (nos. 166, 212, 328), and when referring to the Word it symbolizes the Word in its literal sense, for the literal sense is a kind of covering that clothes the Word's spiritual and celestial senses. The blood symbolizes the violence done to the Lord's Divinity and to the Word (nos. 327, 684). It symbolizes this because blood symbolizes the Lord's Divine truth in the Word (nos. 379, 653). Consequently to shed blood means, symbolically, to do violence to the Lord's Divinity and to the Word. The Word of God symbolizes here the Word in its literal sense, for it is to this that violence has been done, but not to the Word in its spiritual sense, because this sense has not been known, and if it had been known, it would have had violence done to it as well. Therefore that sense was not revealed until after the Last Judgment was over and the Lord was about to establish a new church. Nor is it revealed to anyone now unless he possesses Divine truths from the Lord, as may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture 26.

[2] That violence has been done to the Lord's Divinity and to the Word is clearly apparent from the Roman Catholic religion and from the faith-alone religion of the Protestant Reformed. The Roman Catholic religion teaches that the Lord's humanity is not Divine, and so they have transferred everything that is the Lord's to themselves. They also maintain that it is for them alone to interpret the Word, and their interpretation is everywhere contrary to the Word's Divine truth, as we showed in the exposition of the preceding chapter 18. It is apparent, therefore, that violence has been done to the Word by that religion.

It is apparent likewise from the faith-alone religion among the Protestant Reformed. This, too, does not make the Lord's humanity Divine, and it founds its theology on a single saying of Paul falsely interpreted. ¹ Therefore it takes no account of everything the Lord taught regarding love and charity and good works, even though those teachings are so obvious that anyone may see them if only he has the eyes to do so.

[3] Jews treated the Word similarly. Their religion taught that the Word was written only for them, so that only they are meant in it, and that the Messiah to come would exalt them over all others in the whole world. By these notions and many others they falsified and adulterated everything in the Word. This is the meaning of the following declaration in Isaiah:

Who is this who comes from Edom, with spattered garments from Bozrah... Why is your apparel red, and your garments like those of one who treads in the winepress... ...(Because) their victory is spattered upon My garments, and I have befouled my whole garment. (Isaiah 63:1-3)

Garments here, too, symbolize the Word's Divine truths. Edom means red, here the redness of blood. It is apparent, therefore, that His being clothed with a garment stained with blood and His name called "The Word of God," symbolizes Divine truth in the outmost sense, or the Word in its letter, to which violence has been done.

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