40. Everything That Was Foretold in the Book of Revelation Has Been Fulfilled at the Present Time
No one can know the meaning and implications of everything contained in the Book of Revelation who does not know about the inner or spiritual meaning of the Word. This is because everything that is written there is written in the same style as that of the prophetic books of the Old Testament, in which every word means something spiritual that is not visible in the literal sense. Then too, the contents of the Book of Revelation cannot be explained in their spiritual meaning except by someone who knows what actually happened to the church, including how it came to an end. This can be known only in heaven, and this is what the Book of Revelation contains. The spiritual meaning throughout the Word concerns the spiritual world-that is, the state of the church both in the heavens and on earth. That is what makes the Word spiritual and divine. That state is what is set forth in the Book of Revelation in its own order. This shows that there is no way the contents of the Book of Revelation can be explained except by someone to whom the sequential states of the church in heaven have been revealed. (There is in fact a church in the heavens just as there is on earth, and we will be talking about that some more in what follows.)
