63. Verse 13. And in the midst of the seven lampstands one like unto the Son of man, signifies the Lord, from whom is the All of heaven and of the church. This is evident from the signification of "in the midst," as being in the inmost (See Arcana Coelestia., n. 1074, 2940, 2973); and as all things proceed from the inmost, as light proceeds from the center to the circumferences, so "in the midst" signifies from whom; also from the signification of "the seven lampstands," as being the new heaven and the new church (of which just above, n. 62; and from the signification of "the Son of man," as being the Lord in respect to the Divine Human, and also in respect to Divine truth, because Divine truth proceeds from His Divine Human. From this it can be seen why the Lord appeared "in the midst of seven lampstands," namely, because from Him the All of heaven and the church proceeds; for it is the good of love and of faith that makes heaven and the church, and that this good is from the Divine is known in the Christian world, and as it is from the Divine, it is from the Lord, for the Lord is the God of heaven, and the Divine of the Lord makes heaven (See the work on Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell 2-6, 7-12 that this is His Divine Human, 78-86).

[2] That the Son of man is the Lord in respect to the Divine Human, and also in respect to Divine truth, because Divine truth proceeds from His Divine Human, is evident from those passages in the Word where the Son of man is mentioned. Thus in John:

The multitude said to Jesus, How sayest Thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man? Jesus answered thee, Yet a little while is the light with you; walk while ye have the light, lest darkness overtake you. While ye have the light believe in the light, that ye may be sons of light (John 12:34-36).

From these words it is clear that "the Son of man" and "Light" have a like signification; for when the people asked, Who is the Son of man? the Lord answered that He was the Light in which they should believe. (That "light" is the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord's Divine Human, see in the work on Heaven and Hell 126-140; and in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 49; thus also the Son of man. )

[3] In Luke:

Blessed are ye when men shall hate you for the Son of man's sake (Luke 6:22).

"For the Son of man's sake" is for the sake of Divine truth that proceeds from the Lord. Divine truth is the All of faith in and of love to the Lord. Because the evil deny these things, and those who deny also hate them, while the good acknowledge them, therefore it is said that the good are blessed.

[4] In the same:

The days will come when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, but ye shall not see it. Then they shall say to you, Lo here, or Lo there. Go not away, nor pursue after (Luke 17:22-23).

"To desire [to see] one of the days of the Son of man," is to desire Divine truth, which is genuine truth, as to something thereof; the end of the church is here meant, when there will no longer be any faith, because there will be no charity, at which time all Divine truth will perish; and because Divine truth is signified by "the Son of man," it is said, "Then shall they say, Lo here, or Lo there; pursue not after."

[5] In the same:

When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith upon the earth? (Luke 18:8);

which means that when Divine truth shall be revealed out of heaven it will not be believed. Here also, "the Son of man" is the Lord in respect to Divine truth; the coming of the Lord is the revelation of Divine truth at the end of the church (See Arcana Coelestia 3900, 4060).

[6] In Matthew:

As the lightning cometh forth from the east, and is seen even unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth lament, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and glory (Matthew 24:27, 30).

That by "the coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven" is here signified the revelation of Divine truth at the end of the church, see above n. 36.

[7] In the same:

I say unto you, Henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven (Matthew 26:64).

And in Luke:

From henceforth shall the Son of man be seated at the right hand of the power of God (Luke 22:69).

"The Son of man" is the Lord in respect to the Divine Human, and in respect to Divine truth proceeding from Him; "to sit at the right hand of power" means that He has omnipotence; its being said that they were now about to see this means that Divine truth was in its omnipotence when the Lord in the world had conquered the hells and reduced to order all things there and in the heavens, and that thus those who received Him in faith and love could be saved (See Arcana Coelestia 9715. That to "sit at the right hand" means omnipotence, see Arcana Coelestia 3387, 4592, 4933, 7518, 8281, 9193; that all the power of good is by means of truth, n. 6344, 6423, 8304, 9327, 9410, 9639, 9643. That Divine power itself is by means of Divine truth proceeding from the Lord's Divine Human, see n. 6948; that the "clouds" in which the Son of man is to come are the Word in the letter, which is Divine truth in the ultimate of order, see the preface to chapter 18 of Genesis, n. 4060, 4391, 5922, 6343, 6752, 8443, 8781; and that "glory" is Divine truth itself, such as it is in the internal sense of the Word, see n. 4809, 5922, 8267, 9429).

[8] From this it can now be seen what is signified by these words in Revelation:

I saw, and behold, a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown (Revelation 14:14).

And in Daniel:

I saw in the night visions, and behold, there came with the clouds of the heavens one like unto the Son of man (Daniel 7:13).

Because all judgment is executed according to truth, therefore it is said, that it was given to the Lord:

To execute judgment, because He is the Son of man (John 5:27); and that:

The Son of man shall render unto every man according to his deeds (Matthew 16:27);

and that:

When the Son of man shall come, He shall sit on the throne of His glory, and shall judge (Matthew 25:31).

[9] In Matthew:

He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man, the field is the world, the seed are the sons of the kingdom, the tares are the sons of the evil one (Matthew 13:37-38).

"Good seed" is Divine truth; it is therefore said that the Son of man soweth it; "the sons of the kingdom" are Divine truths in heaven and the church; for "son" is truth (See Arcana Coelestia 489, 491, 533, 1147, 2623), and, in the contrary sense, falsity, which also is "the son of the evil one."

[10] In the same:

The Son of man hath not where to lay His head (Matthew 8:20);

by which is meant that Divine truth had no place anywhere, that is, with any man at that time. That the Son of man was about to suffer and be put to death (Matthew 17:12, 22-23; 26:2, 24, 45; Mark 8:31; 9:12, 31) signifies that thus they were about to treat Divine truth, consequently the Lord, who was Divine truth itself. This He also teaches in Luke:

But first must the Son of man suffer, and be rejected of this generation (Luke 17:25).

[11] In Jeremiah:

No man [vir] shall dwell there; neither shall a son of man [hominis] sojourn there (Jeremiah 49:18, 33).

And in the same:

In the cities no man [vir] shall dwell, nor shall a son of man [hominis] pass through them (Jeremiah 51:43).

He who does not know the spiritual sense of the Word believes that by "cities" here are meant cities, and that by "man," and "son of man," are meant a man and a son; and that the cities were to be so desolated that no one should be in them, but it is the state of the church in respect to the doctrine of truth that is described by these words; for "cities" are the doctrinals of the church (See Arcana Coelestia 402, 2449, 3216, 492, 4493); and "man" is its very truth conjoined with good (See n. 3134, 7716, 9007); therefore a "son of man" is truth.

[12] As Divine truth proceeding from the Lord was signified by "the Son of man," therefore the prophets by whom it was revealed were called "sons of man" (as Daniel 8:17; and Ezekiel 2:1, 3, 6, 8; 3:1, 3-4, 10, 17, 25; 4:1, 16; 8:5-6, 8, 12, 15; 12:2, 3, 9, 18, 22, 27). As most things in the Word have also a contrary sense, so "son of man" has a contrary signification, which is the falsity opposite to truth. Thus in Isaiah:

What art thou, that thou art afraid of man, that dies; and of the son of man, who shall be as grass (Isaiah 51:12).

And in David:

Put not your trust in princes, in the son of man, with whom there is no salvation (Psalms 146:3).

"Princes" are primary truths (See Arcana Coelestia 2089, 5044); so, in the contrary sense, primary falsities; and "the son of man" is falsity itself.

The very first people on earth to have some spiritual awareness were part of what Swedenborg refers to as "The Most Ancient Church," represented in the Bible by Adam. It existed in the land of Canaan. These people were in a state from the Lord in which their internal love was love of the Lord, with loves of marriage, of children, and of one another flowing from that love. From love of the Lord they also had great wisdom; rather than learning about the world and other people and figuring out how to serve them, they could simply feel love and from love instantly understand right and wrong down to the smallest details. Indeed, in looking at the natural world they barely saw it; what they saw was the greater reality of the spiritual world reflected in all the details of the natural world.

The Lord knew, however, that this church would eventually fall, so he inspired a group, represented in the Bible by "Enoch," to record the church's knowledge and concepts so they could be passed on. And the Most Ancient Church did fall; people began letting pride and self-reliance creep into their hearts, their loves got corrupted, and with their loves driving their ideas they drowned in a sea of false thinking, represented in the Bible by the great flood.

The Lord responded by making a subtle but significant change in the nature of human beings: He separated our thoughts from our feelings, giving us the ability to want one thing but think another, so that using our minds we could let knowledge and understanding rule our corrupt hearts. He then took a remnant of the Most Ancient Church and gave it the doctrine of "Enoch." This group, the first and noblest of the Ancient Church, is represented in the Bible by Noah.

According to the Writings, the Ancient Church quickly spread throughout the ancient world, all over the Middle East and northern Africa, with different forms of worship represented by Noah's sons and his grandson Canaan. Its peoples had a deep understanding of the nature of the Lord, and knew Him as "Jehovah." They also had vast knowledge of how every detail of the natural world reflected details of the spiritual world, and used those details to guide themselves in their spiritual development.

But the Ancient Church was also doomed to fall, so the Lord inspired a group starting with Eber to create forms of worship based on the relationship between the natural world and the spiritual world. From understanding the meaning of mountains and groves, this group started worshipping on mountains and in groves. From understanding the meaning of grains and domestic animals, this group started sacrificing them as a form of worship. Meanwhile, the rest of the church had turned from worshipping the Lord to worshipping themselves, and people were twisting their understanding of natural things into idolatry and magic. So the Lord cut them off from a true understanding of spiritual things, an event represented by the story of the Tower of Babel, leaving the descendants of Eber – the Hebrews – to preserve the knowledge that had been passed on from the Most Ancience Church.

But the Hebrews were surrounded by the increasingly pagan descendants of the Ancient Church, and were slowly corrupted to the point that almost none of their knowledge remained. So the Lord ordered Abraham to the Land of Canaan – a land full of spiritual meaning because it was home to the Most Ancient Church – and began re-establishing the representative worship of the Hebrews as a purely external thing. It's noteworthy that the Lord had to introduce himself to Abraham as "God Shaddai" because even the name "Jehovah" had been forgotten.

This third version of the Ancient Church preserved representatives of the Holy Land and forms of worship including sacrifice and circumcision, and also established new representatives, particularly through the 12 sons of Jacob and the resulting tribes. Meanwhile, other pieces of the corrupted Ancient Church continued collapsing, the destruction of Sodom being a notable example.

The preserved ideas nearly vanished again as the Hebrews spent 400 years in captivity in Egypt – like Abraham, Moses did not know the name "Jehovah" when he turned aside to see the burning bush – but were restored as external forms as Moses led the Children into the wilderness. There, at the foot of the "mountain of God," the Lord established the ultimate replacement for the Ancient Church: the Jewish or Israelitish Church, which preserved the name "Jehovah," and preserved spiritual representatives through the ark, the Tabernacle, the Ten Commandments and the laws of Moses. This third church did not have any of the internal spiritual knowledge which existed in the Ancient Church, but kept its ideas alive so the meaning could be restored by the Lord when He came on earth as Jesus.

The Writings also tell us that the Ancient Church had a holy scripture of its own, a written collection of the wisdom preserved by "Enoch." It is the source of the first seven chapters of Genesis (up to the flood), and includes the Book of Jasher, referred to in Joshua 10:12-13, and again in 2 Samuel 1:18, and the books of "Oracles" (aka "Pronouncements", or "Annunciations") and the Wars of Jehovah, which are quoted by Moses in Numbers 21:14, 27.