215. "'As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.'" (3:19) This symbolically means that those of them who do so are loved by the Lord, and it must be that they are then introduced into temptations or trials, so that they battle against themselves.

It is apparent that this is what this statement means, for it says, "as many as I love," which means those people who "buy from the Lord gold refined in the fire" and who "anoint their eyes with eye salve, that they may see." It says "I rebuke and chasten them," which means temptation or trial as regards falsities and evils - to rebuke meaning temptation or trial as regards falsities, and to chasten, temptation or trial as regards evils.

The people who are the subject here have to be introduced into temptations or trials, since without these, denials of Divine truths and arguments against them cannot be rooted out.

Temptations or trials are spiritual battles against the falsities and evils in oneself, thus battles against oneself.

The origin of temptations or trials, furthermore, and what good they do, may be seen in the book The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine, published in London in 1758, nos. 187-201.

187. Crises of the Spirit

Only people who are being regenerated experience spiritual crises, because spiritual crises are times of mental anguish for people whose lives are devoted to goodness and truth. These crises are brought about by evil spirits. When they stir up the evils in us, an anxiety wells up inside that is a symptom of our spiritual crisis. We are not aware, however, of where the anxiety is coming from because we do not realize that a spiritual crisis is its source.