637. In those early times, all who were then part of the Christian world acknowledged that the Lord Jesus Christ was God and that he had all power in heaven and on earth and power over all flesh, as he himself says (Matthew 28:18; John 17:2). In obedience to his command from God the Father, they believed in him (John 3:15-16, 36; 6:40; 11:25-26). The truth of this is obvious from the fact that when Arius and his followers began denying the divinity of our Lord and Savior who was born from the Virgin Mary, the emperor Constantine the Great called together all the bishops in order to convict and condemn that position, using Sacred Scripture. The bishops did indeed accomplish this, but to avoid a wolf they stumbled onto a lion, or as the saying goes, the one who tried to avoid Charybdis fell upon Scylla: They invented a Son of God from eternity, who descended and took on a human nature. They believed that by doing this they had rescued and restored the Lord's divinity. They did not realize that God himself, the Creator of the universe, had come down in order to become the Redeemer and therefore to be the Creator once again, according to the following clear statements in the Old Testament: Isaiah 25:9; 40:3, 5, 10-11; 43:14; 44:6, 24; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7, 26; 60:16; 63:16; Jeremiah 50:34; Hosea 13:4; Psalms 19:14.

'A temple' represents heaven and the church. The sacred place where the ark was, represents the inmost, or third heaven, and the church among people in the inmost principle, called the celestial church. The temple outside the sacred place represents the middle, or second heaven, and the church with people in similar principles, called the internal spiritual church. The inner court represents the outermost or first heaven, also the church with people in outer degrees, called the internal natural church. The outer court represents entrance into heaven.

'Temple,' as in Revelation 15:8, signifies divine truth, or the Word in the natural sense, in light and power from the divine truth in the spiritual sense.

'I saw no temple in it,' as in Revelation 21:22, does not mean that in the new church, which is New Jerusalem, there will be no temple, but that externals will not be separated from internals. This is because 'a temple' signifies the church regarding worship, and in the highest sense, the Lord Himself regarding the divine humanity, who should be worshiped. Because the whole church is from the Lord, it says, 'for the Lord God Omnipotent and the Lamb is the temple thereof,' which signifies the Lord in His divine humanity.

'Temple,' as in Luke 21:5-7, signifies the church at this day, in which there is no truth left remaining, and as a result, is at an end.

'Temple' signifies the higher heavens.

'Temple' signifies the Lord's divine human with respect to divine truth.

'The temple of His body,' as in John 2:21, signifies the divine truth from the divine good.

(Odkazy: Apocalypse Explained 630)