Apocalypse Revealed # 782
782. 18:14 "The fruits that your soul longed for have gone from you, and all things rich and splendid have gone from you, and you shall find them no more at all." This symbolically means that all the blessings and felicities of heaven, including the external ones they wish for, will altogether fly away and be seen no longer, because these Roman Catholics do not have in them any celestial or spiritual affections for goodness and truth.
Fruits that the soul longs for symbolize nothing else than the blessings and felicities of heaven, because those are the fruits of everything having to do with the doctrine and worship that are the subject here, and because they are what people desire when they are dying, and also what they continue to desire when they first come into the spiritual world.
Things rich and splendid symbolize celestial and spiritual affections for goodness and truth - rich things affections for goodness, as we will show below, and splendid things affections for truth, which are called splendid because they develop in response to the light of heaven and its splendor in human minds, giving rise to an understanding of goodness and truth and so to wisdom.
To go and not be found anymore means symbolically that the blessings and felicities of heaven will fly away and be seen no longer, because the people here do not have any celestial or spiritual goodness and truth. Moreover, the blessings and felicities that they long for are called external, because the only blessings and felicities and affections that they long for are carnal and worldly ones, and consequently they are incapable of knowing the nature and character of the blessings and felicities that are called celestial and spiritual.
[2] But we will illustrate this by disclosing the lot of those people after death. When people impelled by a love of dominion from a love of self and so by a love of the world come from that religion into the spiritual world, as they do immediately after death, they all yearn for nothing else than dominion and the pleasures of the heart resulting from that dominion, and the pleasures of the body resulting from wealth. For a person's reigning love with its affections or lusts and desires awaits everyone after death. However, because a love of exercising dominion, springing from a love of self, over the sanctities of the church and heaven, all of which are Divine and the Lord's, is diabolical, therefore after a period of time these people are separated from their companions and cast down into various hells.
But even so, because in consequence of their religion they have participated in an external worship of God, they are first taught the nature and character of heaven, and the nature and character of the happiness of eternal life, that its blessings are pure blessings flowing in from the Lord into everyone in heaven in accordance with the character of the heavenly affection for goodness and truth in them. Yet because they have not turned to the Lord and so have not been conjoined with Him, and also lack any such affection for goodness and truth, they reject that instruction and turn away, and long for the pleasures of the love of self and the world then, which are merely natural and carnal. But because it is inherent in those pleasures to do evil, especially to people who worship the Lord, thus to angels in heaven, therefore they are deprived of those pleasures also and are thrust among their comrades in infernal workhouses in a contemptible and wretched state.
Still, these events befall them to the degree of their love of dominion over things that are Divine and the Lord's, which is the degree to which they rejected the Lord.
[3] It can now be seen from this that "the fruits that your soul longed for have gone from you, and all things rich and splendid have gone from you, and you shall find them no more at all," symbolically means that all the blessings and felicities of heaven, including the external ones they wish for, will altogether fly away and be seen no longer, because these Roman Catholics do not have in them any affections for goodness and truth.
That rich things 1 symbolize heavenly goods, and also affections for those goods and the delights of those affections, can be seen from the following passages:
Listen... to Me, eat what is good, that your soul may delight itself in richness. (Isaiah 55:2)
I will fill the soul of the priests with richness, and My people shall be satisfied with... goodness... (Jeremiah 31:14)
My soul shall be satisfied... with fatness and richness, and my mouth shall praise with singing lips. (Psalms 63:5)
They are filled with the richness of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your delights. (Psalms 36:8)
On this mountain Jehovah... will make for all people a feast of rich food..., of rich food full of marrow... (Isaiah 25:6)
They shall still have produce in old age; they shall be rich and green, to declare that Jehovah is upright. (Psalms 92:14-15)
(In the feast that Jehovah will make) you shall eat rich food till you are full, and drink blood till you are drunk... (Ezekiel 39:19)
(Jehovah) will regard your burnt offering as rich. (Psalms 20:3)
Because richness of fat symbolizes heavenly goodness, it was therefore a statute in Israel that all the fat of sacrificial animals should be burnt on the altar (Exodus 29:13, 22; Leviticus 1:8; 3:3-16; 4:8-35; 7:3-4, 30-31; 17:6).
In an opposite sense, the richness of fat symbolizes people who are nauseated at goodness, and who, because it is just too much, scorn it and reject it (Deuteronomy 32:15; Jeremiah 5:28; 50:11; Psalms 17:10; 20:3; 78:31; 119:70; and elsewhere).
Poznámky pod čarou:
1. Literally, "fat things." The original words in Hebrew and Greek, translated here as "rich" or "richness," mean literally "fat" or "fatness," but metaphorically "rich" or "richness."
Jeremiah 5
1
"Run back and forth through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places of it, if you can find a man, if there are any who does justly, who seeks truth; and I will pardon her.
2
Though they say, 'As Yahweh lives;' surely they swear falsely."
3
O Yahweh, don't your eyes look on truth? You have stricken them, but they were not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock. They have refused to return.
4
Then I said, "Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don't know the way of Yahweh, nor the law of their God.
5
I will go to the great men, and will speak to them; for they know the way of Yahweh, and the law of their God." But these with one accord have broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
6
Therefore a lion out of the forest shall kill them, a wolf of the evenings shall destroy them, a leopard shall watch against their cities; everyone who goes out there shall be torn in pieces; because their transgressions are many, [and] their backsliding is increased.
7
"How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and sworn by what are no gods. When I had fed them to the full, they committed adultery, and assembled themselves in troops at the prostitutes' houses.
8
They were as fed horses roaming at large: everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife.
9
Shouldn't I punish them for these things?" says Yahweh; "and shouldn't my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
10
"Go up on her walls, and destroy; but don't make a full end. Take away her branches; for they are not Yahweh's.
11
For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me," says Yahweh.
12
They have denied Yahweh, and said, "It is not he; neither shall evil come on us; neither shall we see sword nor famine.
13
The prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them."
14
Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Armies, "Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.
15
Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far, house of Israel," says Yahweh. "It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don't know, neither understand what they say.
16
Their quiver is an open tomb, they are all mighty men.
17
They shall eat up your harvest, and your bread, [which] your sons and your daughters should eat. They shall eat up your flocks and your herds. They shall eat up your vines and your fig trees. They shall beat down your fortified cities, in which you trust, with the sword.
18
"But even in those days," says Yahweh, "I will not make a full end with you.
19
It will happen, when you say, 'Why has Yahweh our God done all these things to us?' Then you shall say to them, 'Just like you have forsaken me, and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve strangers in a land that is not yours.'
20
"Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying,
21
'Hear now this, foolish people, and without understanding; who have eyes, and don't see; who have ears, and don't Hear:
22
Don't you fear me?' says Yahweh 'Won't you tremble at my presence, who have placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree, that it can't pass it? and though its waves toss themselves, yet they can't prevail; though they roar, yet they can't pass over it.'
23
"But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart; they have revolted and gone.
24
Neither do they say in their heart, 'Let us now fear Yahweh our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season; who preserves to us the appointed weeks of the harvest.'
25
"Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good from you.
26
For among my people are found wicked men. They watch, as fowlers lie in wait. They set a trap. They catch men.
27
As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they have become great, and grew rich.
28
They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excell in deeds of wickedness. They don't plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don't judge the right of the needy.
29
"Shall I not punish for these things?" says Yahweh. "Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
30
"An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land.
31
The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?
