Apocalypse Revealed # 321
321. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hell followed with him. This symbolizes the extinction of spiritual life and thus damnation.
Death here symbolizes spiritual death, which is the extinction of spiritual life. And Hell symbolizes damnation, which results from that death.
Everyone from creation and so from birth has, indeed, spiritual life, but that life is extinguished when the person denies God, the sanctity of the Word, and eternal life. He extinguishes it in his will, but it remains in his intellect, or rather, in his ability to understand. This is what distinguishes the human being from animals.
Since death symbolizes the extinction of spiritual life, and hell the resulting damnation, therefore death and hell are mentioned together in several places, as in the following:
From the hand of hell I will redeem them; I will free them from death. O death, I will be your plague! O hell, I will be your destruction! (Hosea 13:14)
The cords of death surrounded me... The cords of hell surrounded me; the snares of death came to meet me. (Psalms 18:4-5, cf. 116:3)
Like sheep they are set for hell; death shall be their shepherd...; hell shall be their home. But God will redeem my soul from the hand of hell... (Psalms 49:14-15)
I have the keys of hell and death. (Revelation 1:18)
Heart
The heart means love. A good heart means love to the Lord and to the neighbor, while a hard or stony heart means the love of self or the world -- riches and things. When the psalmist asks the Lord to search his heart, he wants the Lord to see what it is that he loves. And we are what we love. What we eat may form our earthly body, but it's only temporary, what we love forms our spiritual body, beautiful or ugly as we have chosen. It's interesting to note that the first multi-cellular motion of our embryo is the pulsating that starts in a twist of blood vessel that is to become our heart, and the last motion of our natural body is our heartbeat. It is there for all of our natural life. And of course there is a beating heart in our spiritual bodies when we come to put them on.
