664. And after three days and a half.- That this signifies when completed, thus the end of the old church, and the beginning of a new church, is evident from the signification of three days and a half, as denoting fulness or completion at the end of the old church, when there is the beginning of a new church, concerning which see above (n. 658). The reason why it is said, after three days and a half, is, that days, in the Word, signify states, here, the last state of the church. For all times, in the Word, as hours, days, weeks, months, years, and ages, signify states in the Word, as in this case, the last state of the church, when there is no longer any good of love or truth of faith remaining. Because days signify states, and since in the first chapter of Genesis the establishment of the Most Ancient Church is treated of which was accomplished successively from one state to another, therefore it is said there that there was evening and there was morning the first, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, and sixth days, unto the seventh, when it was completed (Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31), and the days there do not mean days, but the successive states of the regeneration of men at that time, and the consequent establishment of the church with them. So also elsewhere in the Word.

59. Unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. That this signifies, specifically, according to reception, is evident from what follows, where those churches are specifically treated of. It is said, according to reception, because the light of intelligence does not constitute the church in man, but the reception of light in heat, that is, the reception of truth in good. It is said, the reception of light in heat, because spiritual light is Divine truth, and spiritual heat is Divine good; and these two, in the spiritual world, are like light and heat in the natural world, that is, in proportion as the vernal and summer heat is added to the light, in the same proportion all things grow and sprout; but in proportion as that heat is not added to the light, in the same proportion all things become torpid and die off. (That light in the spiritual world is Divine truth, and heat Divine good, and that they are circumstanced like the light and heat in the natural world, may be seen in the work, Heaven and Hell 126-140.)