In ordinary life, we tend to think of "peace" as essentially "a lack of conflict." As a nation, if we're not at war, it's a time of peace. On a spiritual level, though, peace is something much more powerful, and much more active. Rather than looking at it as the "lack of conflict," in fact, you could look at it as "the active effect of non-conflict," a force drawing things together and unifying them. Ultimately, of course, that force is the Lord Himself, and the unity formed by His perfect love and His perfect wisdom. We feel it when we allow ourselves to be drawn to Him, described in the works of Swedenborg this way: "peace in the heavens is the divine nature intimately affecting everything good there with blessedness." We also feel it when what we want in our hearts is aligned with what we know to be right -- a state we achieve ever more fully as we move toward the Lord and toward heaven. These things are meant when the Bible talks about peace: the one-ness of purpose in the Lord, and the harmony we experience when our desires align with His loves and our thoughts align with His wisdom.

269. A Lamb standing as though slain. This symbolizes the Lord in respect to His humanity not acknowledged in the church as Divine.

A lamb in the book of Revelation means the Lord in respect to His Divine humanity, and a lamb as though slain His humanity not acknowledged in the church as Divine - much as in chapter 1:18, where we are told, "[I] was put to death, and behold, I am alive forevermore," which means that the Lord was disregarded in the church and His humanity not acknowledged as Divine (no. 59). The reality of this may be seen in no. 294 below.

Therefore, since the Lamb means the Lord in respect to His Divine humanity, and it is said of the Lamb that it took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne, and afterward that it opened it and loosed its seven seals, and since no mortal could have done this, but God alone, it follows that the Lamb means the Lord in respect to His Divine humanity, and that being slain means that He was not acknowledged as God in respect to His humanity.