934. That fruits symbolize the good works that a person does out of love or charity is, indeed, something known without confirmation from the Word, for no one who reads the Word interprets fruits to mean anything else.

Fruits symbolize the goods of love or charity because a person is likened to a tree and is also called a tree (nos. 89, 400).

That fruits symbolize the goods of love or charity, which in common speech are called good works, may be seen from the following passages:

...the ax is laid to the root of the tree. Every tree... which does not bear good fruit shall be cut down and thrown into the fire. (Matthew 3:10, cf. 7:16-20)

Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree rotten and its fruit rotten; ...a tree is known by its fruit. (Matthew 12:33, cf. Luke 6:43-44)

Every branch... that does not bear fruit (shall be taken away); and every branch that bears fruit (shall be pruned), that it may bear more fruit... He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit... (John 15:2-8).

...bear fruits worthy of repentance... (Matthew 3:8)

He who received seed on the good ground is someone who hears the Word and heeds it (and) bears fruit... (Matthew 13:23)

(Jesus said to His disciples,) ."..I chose you... that you should... bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain... (John 15:16)

A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; he came seeking fruit on it and found none. He said to the keeper of his vineyard, ."..Cut it down; why should it render the ground fruitless?" (Luke 13:6-9)

...a certain householder... leased (his vineyard) to husbandmen..., that (he) might receive its fruit. But the husbandmen (killed) his servants (that he sent to them)..., and last of all... his son... (Therefore he) will lease his vineyard to (others) who will render to him the fruits in their seasons... Therefore... the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it. (Matthew 21:33-35, 37-39, 41, 43)

And so on in many other places.

912. And the city was pure gold, like clear glass. This symbolically means that everything connected with the New Church therefore embodies the goodness of love flowing in together with light out of heaven from the Lord.

The city, that is, Jerusalem, means the Lord's New Church in respect to everything in it or within its wall. Gold symbolizes the goodness of love from the Lord, as will be seen next. Being like clear glass symbolizes its having Divine wisdom shining clearly through; and because that wisdom appears in heaven as light and flows in from the Lord as the sun, being like pure glass symbolizes its flowing in together with light out of heaven from the Lord.

In no. 908 above we showed that everything connected with heaven and the church springs from the goodness of love, and that the goodness of love comes from the Lord. Now we say here that the city's looking as though it were pure gold means, symbolically, that everything connected with the New Church, the New Jerusalem, embodies the goodness of love from the Lord. Yet because the goodness of love does not exist by itself, divorced from the truths of wisdom, but for it to be the goodness of love must take form and does take form through truths of wisdom, therefore the city is said here to be pure gold, like clear glass. For the goodness of love without truths of wisdom does not have any character, because it lacks form. Its form accords with the truths it has flowing in in their order and connection together with the goodness of love from the Lord, thus in accord with its reception in a person. We say, in a person, but we mean not that the truths are a person's, but that they are the Lord's in him.

It is apparent from this now that the city's being pure gold, like clear glass, symbolically means that everything connected with the New Church therefore embodies the goodness of love flowing in with light out of heaven from the Lord.