Hands in the Bible represent power, the force with which things are put into action. To be specific, they represent the power of spiritual good -- which is the love of others and serving others -- expressed through spiritual truth -- which is an understanding and knowledge of what it is to love and serve others. This is in contrast to the feet, which represent power on the natural level, and a “rod,” which represents the power of the hand passed down into external or natural ideas. In a few cases in the Bible, hands also represent communication and a drawing together. This is true when people lift their hands to heaven or to Jehovah, and also when the Lord touches children or touches people to heal them.

6. I need to explain briefly what "Jerusalem" means in the spiritual meaning of the Word. "Jerusalem" means the essential church, with a focus on its body of teaching. This is because there in the land of Canaan and nowhere else were the Temple and the altar, there and nowhere else were sacrifices offered and consequently was actual worship of God performed. That is why the three annual festivals ¹ were held there, and every male in the whole land was obliged to attend. That is why Jerusalem now, spiritually understood, means the church in regard to its worship or to its body of teaching-which amounts to the same thing, because its worship is defined by its body of teaching and performed as that body of teaching prescribes.

The reason it says "the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven" is that in the spiritual meaning of the Word "a city" means a body of teaching, and "a holy city" means a body of teaching based on divine truth. This is because divine truth is what the Word refers to as "holy. " It says "the New Jerusalem" for much the same reason that it refers to the earth as new. That is, as just noted [§5], "the earth" means the church and Jerusalem means that church in regard to its body of teaching. It is described as coming down from God out of heaven because all the divine truth that gives rise to a body of teaching comes down out of heaven from God.

It is obvious that "Jerusalem" does not mean a city (even though it looked like a city), because it says that its height was the same as its length and breadth, twelve thousand stadia (verse 16); that the measure of its wall, one hundred and forty-four cubits, was the measure of a human being, that is, of an angel (verse 17); that it was prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (verse 2); and that later "The angel said, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. ' And he showed me the holy city Jerusalem" (verses 9, 10). It is the church that is called the Lord's bride and wife in the Word, his "bride" before they have been joined together and his "wife" afterward-see Secrets of Heaven 3103, 3105, 3164, 3165, 3207, 7022, 9182.

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