Apocalypse Revealed # 49
49. His feet were like fine brass, as though fired in a furnace. (1:15) This symbolizes natural Divine good.
The Lord's feet symbolize His natural Divinity. Fire or being fired symbolizes goodness. And fine brass symbolizes the natural goodness of truth. Consequently the feet of the Son of Man like fine brass, as though fired in a furnace, symbolize natural Divine good.
His feet have this symbolic meaning because of their correspondence.
Present in the Lord, and so emanating from the Lord, are a celestial Divinity, a spiritual Divinity, and a natural Divinity. His celestial Divinity is meant by the head of the Son of Man; His spiritual Divinity by His eyes and by His breast girded with a golden girdle; and His natural Divinity by His feet.
[2] Because these three elements are present in the Lord, therefore the same three are also present in the angelic heaven. The third or highest heaven exists on the celestial Divine level, the second or middle heaven on the spiritual Divine level, and the first or lowest heaven on the natural Divine level. The like is the case with the church on earth. For the whole of heaven is, in the Lord's sight, like a single person, in which those who are governed by the Lord's celestial Divinity form the head, and those who are governed by His spiritual Divinity form the trunk, while those who are governed by His natural Divinity form the feet.
For this reason, too, every person, having been created in the image of God, has in him the same three degrees, and as they are opened he becomes an angel either of the third heaven, or of the second, or of the last.
It is owing to this also that the Word contains three levels of meaning - a celestial one, a spiritual one, and a natural one.
The reality of this may be seen in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, particularly in Part Three, in which we discussed these three degrees.
To be shown that feet, the soles of the feet, and heels correspond to natural attributes in people, and that in the Word, therefore, they symbolize natural attributes, see in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), published in London, nos. 2162 and 4938-4952.
[3] Natural Divine good is also symbolically meant by feet in the following passages. In Daniel:
I lifted my eyes and looked; behold, a... man clothed in linen garments, whose loins were girded with the gold of Uphaz! And his body was like beryl, and... his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and his feet like the sheen of burnished bronze. (Daniel 10:5-6)
In the book of Revelation:
I saw... an angel coming down from heaven, ...his feet like pillars of fire. (Revelation 10:1)
And in Ezekiel:
(The feet of the cherubim) sparkled like the sheen of burnished bronze. (Ezekiel 1:7)
Angels and cherubim so appeared for the reason that the Lord's Divinity was represented in them.
[4] Since the Lord's church exists below the heavens, thus under the Lord's feet, it is therefore called His footstool in the following places:
The glory of Lebanon shall come to you..., to beautify the place of My sanctuary; ...I will make the place of My feet honorable. And... they shall bow themselves at the soles of your feet. (Isaiah 60:13-14)
Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. (Isaiah 66:1)
(God) does not remember His footstool in the day of His anger. (Lamentations 2:1)
...worship (Jehovah) in the direction of His footstool. (Psalms 99:5)
Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah (Bethlehem).... We will go into His dwelling places, we will bow ourselves at His footstool. (Psalms 132:6-7)
That is why worshipers fell at the Lord's feet (Matthew 28:9, Mark 5:22, Luke 8:41, John 11:32), and why they kissed His feet and wiped them with their hair (Luke 7:37-38, 44-46, John 11:2; 12:3).
[5] Because feet symbolize the natural self, therefore the Lord said to Peter, when He washed Peter's feet,
He who is washed needs only to have his feet washed, and he is completely clean. (John 13:10)
To wash the feet is to purify the natural self. When it has been purified, the whole self also is purified, as we showed many times in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), and in The Doctrines of the New Jerusalem. 1 The natural self, which is also the outer self, is purified when it refrains from the evils which the spiritual or inner self sees to be evils and ones to be shunned.
[6] Now because the feet mean the natural component of a person, and this perverts everything if it is not washed or purified, therefore the Lord says,
If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, rather than to have two feet and be cast into hell, into the unquenchable fire... (Mark 9:45)
The foot here does not mean the foot, but the natural self.
The like is meant by treading down the good pasture with the feet and troubling waters with the feet (Ezekiel 32:2; 34:18-19, Daniel 7:7, 19, and elsewhere).
[7] Since the Son of Man means the Lord in relation to the Word, it is apparent that His feet mean the Word in its natural sense as well, which we dealt with at length in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, and also that the Lord came into the world to fulfill everything in the Word and to become thereby an embodiment of the Word, even in its outmost expressions (The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 98-100). But this is a secret for people who will be in the New Jerusalem.
[8] The Lord's natural Divinity was also symbolized by the bronze serpent that Moses was commanded to set up in the wilderness, so that all who had been bitten by serpents were healed by looking at it (Numbers 21:6, 8-9). That this symbolized the Lord's natural Divinity, and that those people are saved who look to it, the Lord Himself teaches in John:
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:14-15)
The serpent was made of bronze because bronze, like fine brass, symbolizes the natural self in respect to good, as may be seen in no. 775 below.
Poznámky pod čarou:
1. Perhaps The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem, and The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding Faith (Amsterdam, 1763). But perhaps The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine (London, 1758).
Revelation 1
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This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things which must happen soon, which he sent and made known by his angel to his servant, John,
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who testified to God's word, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, about everything that he saw.
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Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written in it, for the time is at hand.
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John, to the seven assemblies that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from God, who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before his throne;
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and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and washed us from our sins by his blood;
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and he made us to be a Kingdom, priests to his God and Father; to him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
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Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, including those who pierced him. All the tribes of the earth will mourn over him. Even so, Amen.
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"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."
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I John, your brother and partner with you in oppression, Kingdom, and perseverance in Christ Jesus, was on the isle that is called Patmos because of God's Word and the testimony of Jesus Christ.
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I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet
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saying, "What you see, write in a book and send to the seven assemblies: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and to Laodicea."
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I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. Having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands.
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And among the lampstands was one like a son of man, clothed with a robe reaching down to his feet, and with a golden sash around his chest.
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His head and his hair were white as white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire.
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His feet were like burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace. His voice was like the voice of many waters.
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He had seven stars in his right hand. Out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining at its brightest.
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When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me, saying, "Don't be afraid. I am the first and the last,
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and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
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Write therefore the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will happen hereafter;
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the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven assemblies. The seven lampstands are seven assemblies.
