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Jerusalem

  

Jerusalem, on Mount Zion, signifies the doctrine of love to the Lord, and how it governs your life. Jerusalem first comes to our attention in 2 Samuel 5, when King David takes the city from the Jebusites and makes it his capital. In the next chapter he brings the Ark of the Covenant there, and later it is where Solomon builds the temple, and his own palace. From then on Jerusalem is the center of worship of the Israelitish church. It is the place where the Lord was presented in the temple as a baby, where He tarried to talk to the priests at age twelve, where He cleansed the temple, had the last supper, was crucified and then rose. It is a central place in both the old and new Testaments. The city was built on Mount Zion, the highest point of the mountains of Judea. A city, in the Word, represents doctrine, the organized knowledge of the truths of the church. Mountains represent love of the Lord and the consequent worship. If you put those things together, Jerusalem on Mount Zion signifies the doctrine of love to the Lord, and how it governs your life. This is why David was led to make Jerusalem the most important city of the land, and why all worship was conducted there. And this is also why Jeroboam was condemned for introducing idol worship in Samaria. In the Book of Revelation, John's vision of the city New Jerusalem descending from God is a prophecy of a new dispensation of doctrine coming from the Lord.

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 4539, 8938; The Apocalypse Explained 365 [35-38])

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Apocalypse Explained # 164

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164. And those that commit adultery with her into great affliction, signifies grievous temptations for those who addict themselves to the falsities of such. This is evident from the signification of "committing adultery," as being to falsify truths (See above, n. 141 therefore "to commit adultery with Jezebel" is to surrender oneself to the falsities of those signified by "Jezebel;" and from the signification of "affliction," as being the infestation of truth by falsities (See above, n. 47), here temptation, since temptation with man is nothing else but infestation of truth by falsities (See The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 188, 196, 197); therefore "casting those who commit adultery with her into great affliction" signifies the grievous temptations of those who addict themselves to the falsities of such.

Here those are treated of with whom the spiritual or internal man is not so closed, because they are in some spiritual affection of truth, and yet they suffer themselves to be seduced by those who are in the doctrine of falsities (See above, n. 162). As these receive falsities into the memory of their natural man, with which falsities the internal spiritual man cannot agree, for this receives nothing but truths, a combat arises between the spiritual and the natural man. This combat is temptation, and this is signified by "great affliction." (That temptation is the combat between the spiritual and natural man, see in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 190, 194, 197, 199)

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.