Joel Chapter 1, the Internal Sense.

(From Swedenborg's work, "The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms")

(Verse 1) The Word has been perverted by false worship,

(2) when instead the Word should have been obeyed by everyone in the Church,

(3) and communicated to everyone who holds false beliefs that arise from evil loves.

(4) Instead, the spiritual things of the Church have been destroyed by sensualism.

(5) Now, remorse should be awakened, because of this loss of faith,

(6) a faith which has been destroyed by the lust of worshipping false gods,

(7) depriving the Church of spiritual truth and good.

(8) The Church should return to the Lord

(9) with inward mourning and contrition

(10) over the loss of good and truth in the natural and spiritual man -

(11) especially people who seek the good of the Church and who desire its genuine doctrine: for the Church is about to perish.

(12) Spiritual truth, its good, its knowledge, and its delights, which constitute the Church, are perverted.

(13) Only by repentance can communion with the Lord be renewed.

(14) The Church can only remove the evil and falsity by acknowledging and worshipping the Lord,

(15) for the end of the Church is near, when it will be judged.

(16) Good works are not being done, nor are there any people who delight in spiritual things.

(17) Natural good has been subordinated to evil, and the truth and good of the Word are rejected.

(18) Wherefore there is no good in the Church,

(19) and our hearts must be turned again to the Lord: for the love of self has corrupted all things in the church.

(20) Although truth is desired, it has been misappropriated to ourselves.

599. So as to even make fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of men. This symbolizes assertions that their falsities are truths from heaven, that people who accept them are saved, and that people who do not accept them perish.

This is the symbolism of these words, because the greatest signs were produced by fire from heaven. It was therefore a common expression of assurance among the ancients that, when bearing witness to some truth, they could rain down fire from heaven to attest to it. And this symbolically meant that they could attest to it to such a degree of certainty.

That fire from heaven also did attest to truth is apparent from the fact that the burnt offering offered by Aaron was consumed by fire from heaven (Leviticus 9:24). So, too, the burnt offering offered by Elijah (1 Kings 18:38).

[2] In an opposite sense, fire from heaven was a sign attesting that the people were caught up in evils and the accompanying falsities, and so would perish. But that fire was a consuming fire, such as the fire from heaven that consumed Aaron's two sons in Leviticus 10:1-6; that consumed the two hundred and fifty men in Numbers 26:10; that consumed the outskirts of the camp in Numbers 11:1-3; and that twice consumed the fifty men sent by the king to Elisha in 2 Kings 1:10, 12. Such also was the fire and brimstone rained down from heaven on Sodom in Genesis 19:24, 25; and the fire from heaven that consumed the people who surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city in Revelation 20:9. Once, when incensed at some impenitent people, the disciples said to Jesus, "Do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" (Luke 9:54).

We cite these instances to show that fire from heaven symbolizes an attestation, indeed an assurance, that truth is true, and in an opposite sense, that falsity is true, as in the present instance.

Fire also symbolizes a heavenly love and so a zeal for truth, and in an opposite sense a hellish love and so a zeal for falsity (nos. 468, 494).