Apocalypse Revealed # 501
501. And their bodies will lie in the street of the great city. (11:8) This symbolically means that these two essential elements of the New Church have been utterly rejected by people inwardly caught up in the doctrinal falsities connected with justification by faith alone.
The bodies of the two witnesses symbolize the two essential elements of the New Church, namely, an acknowledgment of the Lord as the only God of heaven and earth, and conjunction with Him by a life in accordance with the Ten Commandments (nos. 490ff.). The street of the great city symbolizes doctrinal falsity connected with justification by faith alone - the street symbolizing falsity, as we shall see next, and the city symbolizing doctrine (no. 194). It is called a great city because the doctrine is the prevailing doctrine throughout the Protestant Reformed Christian world among the clergy, though not in the same way among the laity.
Streets in the Word have almost the same symbolic meaning as ways, because streets are a city's ways. Still, streets symbolize doctrinal truths or falsities, because a city symbolizes doctrine (no. 194), while ways symbolize a church's truths or falsities, because the earth symbolizes the church (no. 285).
[2] That streets symbolize doctrinal truths or falsities can be seen from the following passages:
Justice has been rejected, and righteousness stands afar off, for truth has stumbled in the street, and rectitude cannot enter. (Isaiah 59:14)
The chariots raced madly in the streets, they rushed in every direction in the town squares. (Nahum 2:4)
In the days of Jael, the ways were deserted... The town squares were deserted... in Israel... (Judges 5:6-7)
How the glorious city is forsaken...! Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets... (Jeremiah 49:25-26, cf. 50:30)
Those who ate delicacies are devastated in the streets... Darker than black is the appearance (of the Nazirites); they go unrecognized in the streets... They wandered blind in the streets... They tracked our steps so that we could not go into our streets. (Lamentations 4:5, 8, 14, 18)
I will cut off nations, their corners will be devastated; I will make their streets desolate... (Zephaniah 3:6)
(After) sixty-two weeks, the street (of Jerusalem) shall be built again..., but in distressful times. (Daniel 9:25)
...the street of the city (New Jerusalem) was pure gold, like transparent glass. (Revelation 21:21)
In the middle of its street... on this side and that, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits... (Revelation 22:1-2)
And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 15:3; 24:10-11; 51:20.
As streets symbolize the church's doctrinal truths, therefore they taught in the streets (2 Samuel 1:20). And we are told,
We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets. (Luke 13:26)
For this reason also hypocrites prayed on street corners (Matthew 6:2, 5). And for this reason the master of the house in Luke 14:21 ordered his servants to go out into the streets and squares and bring people in.
For the same reason, too, anything false or falsified is called mire, filth and excrement in the streets (Isaiah 5:25; 10:6, Micah 7:10, Psalms 18:42).
Prophets who prophesied falsely were cast out into the streets of Jerusalem, and no one buried them (Jeremiah 14:16).
Isaiah 59
1
Behold, Yahweh's hand is not shortened, that it can't save; neither his ear heavy, that it can't hear:
2
but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
3
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness.
4
None sues in righteousness, and none pleads in truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
5
They hatch adders' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he who eats of their eggs dies; and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper.
6
Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.
7
Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths.
8
The way of peace they don't know; and there is no justice in their goings: they have made them crooked paths; whoever goes therein does not know peace.
9
Therefore is justice far from us, neither does righteousness overtake us: we look for light, but, behold, darkness; for brightness, but we walk in obscurity.
10
We grope for the wall like the blind; yes, we grope as those who have no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the twilight; among those who are lusty we are as dead men.
11
We roar all like bears, and moan bitterly like doves: we look for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.
12
For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them:
13
transgressing and denying Yahweh, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
14
Justice is turned away backward, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and uprightness can't enter.
15
Yes, truth is lacking; and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Yahweh saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.
16
He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his own arm brought salvation to him; and his righteousness, it upheld him.
17
He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; and he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a mantle.
18
According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay, wrath to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompense.
19
So shall they fear the name of Yahweh from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come as a rushing stream, which the breath of Yahweh drives.
20
"A Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from disobedience in Jacob," says Yahweh.
21
"As for me, this is my covenant with them," says Yahweh. "My Spirit who is on you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your seed, nor out of the mouth of your seed's seed," says Yahweh, "from henceforth and forever."
