A company might have executives setting policy and strategy, engineers designing products, managers handling personnel and others handling various functions. They all do different things -- but if they're doing them with a shared underlying purpose, the company -- and the individuals in it -- will likely be successful. The Lord wants all human society to function in a similar way. We have different skills and individual loves, but if we all share a mutual love -- a love of serving others -- then society will function as one, will be a reflection of heaven and will be a good receptacle for the Lord's love. This can also happen within each of us, as we unify our talents and ideas around a central love. And in an abstract sense, it illustrates how a wide collection of varying ideas can be unified around a shared good intention. That is the kind of love pictured when “one” is used in the Bible, either as a specific number or in the sense of several people or objects “being one.” In more casual references -- when used to identify a specific person or object -- the meaning is relatively literal, and is connected to that person or object.

273. Then He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. (5:7) This symbolically means that the Lord in respect to His Divine humanity embodies the Word, and this from His Divinity within Him, and therefore He will execute judgment based on His Divine humanity.

It is clearly apparent here that the Lamb and He who sat on the throne are the same person, and that He who sat on the throne means His Divinity from which all else comes, while the Lamb is His Divine humanity; for we are told in the preceding verse that John saw the Lamb standing in the midst of the throne, and now that He took the book from Him who sat on the throne.

That the Lord was to execute judgment based on His Divine humanity, because He embodies the Word, is clear from the following passages:

Then (they will see) the sign of the Son of Man... and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and... glory. (Matthew 24:30)

...when the Son of Man sits on (His) throne..., (He will judge) the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matthew 19:28)

...the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father..., and then He will reward each according to his works. (Matthew 16:27)

Watch... always that you may be counted worthy... to stand before the Son of Man. (Luke 21:36)

...the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. (Matthew 24:44)

...the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son..., because He is the Son of Man. (John 5:22, 27)

The Son of Man is the Lord in respect to His Divine humanity, and this is the Word that was God and became flesh (John 1:1, 14).