1361. Idolatry turned the church into a representative religion, but no one can see this without knowing what it means to be representative. What was represented in the Jewish religion and what is represented in the Word are the Lord and his kingdom and therefore the heavenly qualities of love and the spiritual properties of faith. These and many other things related to them are what is being represented, as is everything having to do with religion.
The things that represent them are either people or various objects that exist in the world or on earth — in short, everything that is perceptible to the senses. In fact there is hardly any perceptible thing that cannot serve a representative role.
A general rule of representation, however, is that it implies nothing about the person or thing that does the representing, only about the phenomenon represented.
[2] For example, every monarch, no matter who it was — in Judah or Israel, even in Egypt and elsewhere — was able to represent the Lord. The monarchy itself of these people was representative. So the Lord could be represented by the worst sovereign of all, such as the pharaoh who set Joseph up over the land of Egypt, or Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon (Daniel 2:37-38), or Saul, or the other monarchs of Judah and Israel, whatever they were like. Their actual anointing (because of which they were referred to as "Jehovah's anointed") involved this representation. 1
All the priests without exception similarly represented the Lord. Priesthood itself is representative. Priests who were evil and impure represented the Lord as well, because with representative roles there is no implication concerning the character of the actual person.
Not only people played a representative role but animals too, such as all the sacrificial ones. Lambs and sheep represented heavenly qualities; pigeons and turtledoves represented spiritual ones. Rams, he-goats, young cattle, and adult cattle did too, but the heavenly and spiritual qualities they represented were of a lower order.
[3] What is more, not only animate beings played a representative role, as noted, but inanimate objects too. Examples are the altar and even the altar stones, the ark and the tabernacle with all that was in it, the Temple with all that was in it as well (as anyone can recognize), and so the lamps, the loaves of bread, and Aaron's garments. 2
And not only were these items representative but all the rituals of the Jewish religion were too.
In the ancient churches, [which were steeped in symbolism,] symbolic items 3
included all the objects of the senses, such as mountains and hills; valleys, plains, rivers, brooks, springs, and wells; groves of trees; trees in general; and every tree in particular, to the point where each individual tree meant something specific. Later, when the symbolic church ended, such objects became representative. These remarks show what "representative objects" means.
Again, not only humans — without regard to their identity or character — but also animals and inanimate objects were capable of representing heavenly and spiritual attributes (that is, attributes of the Lord's kingdom in the heavens and of the Lord's kingdom on earth). And from this, one can deduce what a representative church is.
[4] Because of the way the representative relationship worked, any activity that met the requirements laid down for ritual appeared holy in the eyes of spirits and angels. This was true, for instance, when the high priest washed with water, wore the priestly garb as he ministered, and stood in front of the burning lamps. It did not matter what he was like, even if he was extremely impure and an idolater at heart. The same was true for the other priests as well. To repeat, when it comes to representative items, they imply nothing about the actual person, only about the quality itself that is being represented, in complete isolation from the person. The quality is just as separate from the person as it was from the adult cattle, young cattle, and lambs that were sacrificed, or from the blood that was poured out around the altar, or from the altar itself, and so on.
[5] This representative religion was established after all inward worship had died out and become not merely shallow but even idolatrous. It was established in order to maintain some connection between heaven and earth, or rather between the Lord and humankind through heaven. This occurred after the bond created by the deeper elements of worship had broken. However, the nature of this connection created only by representative elements will be told later [§§3478-3480, 4311, 8588:5-6, 8788, 9457, 9481, 10500], by the Lord's divine mercy.
Representative meanings do not start till the next chapter, but each and every detail from there on is purely representative. The present verse deals with the circumstances of the forefathers before some of them (and their descendants) came to serve representative roles. The fact that they practiced idolatrous worship is shown above [§1358].
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