136. "'And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.'" (2:21) This symbolically means that those who confirm themselves in that doctrine do not turn back from it, even if they see things contrary to it in the Word.

To turn back from sexual immorality here means, symbolically, to turn back from falsifying the Word. The fact that those people see things contrary to their doctrine is apparent from a thousand places in the Word where we are told that evils are to be abstained from and good deeds done, that people who do good deeds go to heaven and people who do evil deeds go to hell, and that faith without works is lifeless and diabolic.

But the question is, what part of the Word did they falsify? Or in what way did they commit sexual immorality spiritually with the Word? The answer is that they falsified the entire Word, inasmuch as the entire Word teaches nothing else than love toward the Lord and love for the neighbor. For the Lord says that "on these two commandments hang... the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:40). One also finds faith taught in the Word, yet not their kind of faith, but a faith connected with love.