197. Revelation 21 gives the following description of the New Jerusalem: In it there was a light like a highly precious stone, such as a jasper stone, that looked like a dazzling crystal. The New Jerusalem had a wall that was great and high and had twelve gates and twelve angels by the gates, and the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel were written there. The wall was 144 cubits high, which is the measure of a human being, that is, of an angel. The construction of the wall was of jasper, and its foundation was made of every precious stone: jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, and amethyst. The gates were twelve pearls. The city itself was pure gold, like clear glass. It was square. Its length, width, and height were equal: twelve thousand stadia. And so on.

All these details need to be understood spiritually, as we can see from the fact that the New Jerusalem means a new church that is going to be established by the Lord, as I showed in Revelation Unveiled 880.

Since "Jerusalem" here means a church, it follows that all the things that are said about it as a city - about its gates, wall, foundations under the wall, and their measurements - contain a spiritual meaning, since the attributes of a church are spiritual.

In Revelation Unveiled 896-925 I have shown what these things mean. It is unnecessary, therefore, to demonstrate their meaning once more. It is enough for us to know that there is a spiritual meaning within all the details of this description like a soul within a body. Without that meaning we would understand nothing about the church from the details written here: for example, the city being made of pure gold; its gates, of pearls; its wall, of jasper; the foundations of its wall, of precious stones; the wall being 144 cubits high, which is the measure of a human being, that is, of an angel; and the city being twelve thousand stadia in length, width, and height; and so on.

People who know correspondences and who therefore recognize the spiritual meaning understand these details. For example, the wall and its foundations mean the teachings of that church that are based on the literal meaning of the Word; and the numbers 12, 144, and 12,000 mean everything about that church, that is, all that is good and true in it combined.

572. Unless We Are Born Again and Created Anew, So to Speak, We Cannot Enter the Kingdom of God

The Lord teaches in John that if we are not born again we cannot enter the kingdom of God: "Jesus said to Nicodemus, 'Truly, truly I say to you, unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom of God'" (John 3:3). And again, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless you have been born of water and the spirit you cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit" (John 3:5-6). The kingdom of God here means both heaven and the church, because the church is the kingdom of God on earth. The same is true in other passages in the Word where the kingdom of God is mentioned; see, for example, Matthew 11:12; 12:28; 21:43; Luke 4:43; 6:20; 8:1, 10; 9:11, 60, 62; 17:21; and elsewhere. To be born of water and the spirit means to be born of truths related to faith and of a life lived by those truths. For truth as the meaning of water, see Revelation Unveiled 50, 614, 615, 685, 932. The fact that spirit means living our lives by divine truths is clear from the Lord's words in John 6:63. Truly, truly means that this is the truth. Because the Lord was truth itself, Scripture frequently says Amen [or Truly]. The Lord himself is called Amen (Revelation 3:14). In the Word, those who are regenerated are referred to as children of God and those born of God; and regeneration is expressed as our having a new heart and a new spirit.