In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.

88. BRIEF ANALYSIS

That seven chapters of the Revelation treat of the perverted state of the Church among the Reformed, and two chapters of the perverted state of the Church among the Roman Catholics, and that the states of both Churches as existing at the present day are condemned, has been shown in the exposition of this book in a work entitled THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED; and this, not by uncertain conjectures, but with full proofs. By the dragon, treated of in the twelfth chapter, are meant those in the Reformed Churches who make God into three and the Lord into two, and who separate charity from faith by making faith spiritual and saving, not charity; see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 532-565, and the memorable experience adjoined,THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 566. They are further described by the two beasts, one rising out of the sea and the other out of the earth, as related in chapter xiii; see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 567-610, and the memorable experience,THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 611. They are further described by the locusts which came forth out of the pit of the abyss, as mentioned in chapter 9; see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 419-442. This same faith, when confirmed, is meant by the great city which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where the two faithful witnesses were slain, as related in chapter 11; see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 485-530, particularly THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 500-503, and the memorable experience,THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 531. They are also meant by the pit of the abyss out of which issued smoke as from a furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened, and then locusts came forth, as described in chapter 9; see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 421-424.