912. Verse 16. And He that sat upon the cloud cast the sickle upon the earth, and the earth was reaped, signifies the collection of the good and their separation from the evil, and that thus the church was laid waste. This is evident from the signification of "Him who sat upon the cloud," as being the Lord as to the Word, which is the Divine truth; from which and according to the reception of which judgment is effected; also from the signification of "the earth," as being the church (See above, n. 29, 304, 417, 697, 741, 752, 876); also from the signification of "the earth was reaped," as being that the church was laid waste. For "harvest" signifies the last state of the church, as has been shown above n. 911, therefore "the earth was reaped" signifies that there is no church, or that it has been laid waste, because there is no longer any good or any truth therefrom, which are signified by the grain of the harvest. It is here said that "the earth was reaped" by Him who sat upon the cloud, but the meaning is that this is done by man; as in many other passages where devastation is attributed to the Lord, when yet it is wrought by man; for man from his first idea can see it in no other way, and the Word in the sense of the letter is written according to that idea.

[2] That the separation of the good and the evil was thus effected when the Last Judgment was at hand can be seen from what has been said above on this subject, namely, that when the good were separated from those who were inwardly evil, but had been able to live outwardly a moral life like the Christian life, and had therefore made for themselves seeming heavens in the world of spirits, these, as soon as the bond that held them to the good was broken, came into their own evils which deeply concealed they had inwardly cherished; and thus the church, which was merely maintained in externals, was laid waste with them; for they had been able to live a moral life like the Christian life in externals, solely because of their conjunction with the good and the closing up for the time of their interiors which are of their will. But on this subject see what has been said in the work on The Last Judgment, as well as in several passages above, and what will be said specifically in the appendix to this work; for unless these things were explained in their series they could not fall into the understanding except in an obscure way.