14. Where the Lord speaks with His disciples about the end of the age, which is the final period of the church, at the end of His predictions concerning its successive changes in state, He says:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn; and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send out His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31)

[2] This, in the spiritual sense, does not mean that the sun and moon will be darkened, that the stars will fall from heaven, and that a sign of the Lord will appear in the sky. Nor does it mean that people will see Him on the clouds, or at the same time angels with trumpets. Rather each of these predictions has some spiritual meaning having to do with the church, regarding whose state at its end these predictions were made.

Indeed, in the spiritual sense the sun that will be darkened means the Lord in relation to love. The moon that will not give its light means the Lord in relation to faith. The stars that will fall from heaven mean concepts of goodness and truth that will perish. The sign of the Son of man in heaven means an appearance of Divine truth. The tribes of the earth that will mourn mean an absence of any truth as a matter of faith, and of any goodness as a matter of love. The coming of the Son of man on the clouds of heaven with power and glory means the Lord’s presence in the Word and a revelation of Him. The clouds symbolize the Word’s literal sense, and glory the Word’s spiritual sense. The angels with a great sound of a trumpet symbolize heaven and Divine truth coming from it. Gathering the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other, symbolizes a renewal of the church as regards love and faith.

[3] That this prediction does not mean a darkening of the sun and moon and a falling of the stars to earth is quite clear from the Prophets, in which similar predictions occur regarding the state of the church when the Lord would come into the world. As in Isaiah:

Behold, the day of Jehovah is coming, cruel..., one of wrathful anger.... ...the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its rising, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. I will visit upon the world its malice.... (Isaiah 13:9-11, cf. 24:21, 23)

In Joel:

(Behold, ) the day of Jehovah is coming..., a day of gloom and pitch darkness.... The sun and moon will darken, and the stars diminish their brightness. (Joel 2:1-2, 10, cf. 2:31, 3:15)

In Ezekiel:

...I will cover the heavens and darken the stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. All the shining lights of the heavens I will darken..., and bring darkness upon (the) land.... (Ezekiel 32:7-8)

The day of Jehovah means the Lord’s advent, which occurred when there was no longer any goodness and truth left in the church, and no knowledge of the Lord.

6408. 'From Asher' means the blessedness that the affections possess, that is to say, heavenly affections, which are those of love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour. This is clear from the representation of 'Asher' as the happiness of eternal life and the blessedness that the affections possess, dealt with in 3938, 3939, in addition to which he was called Asher from a word meaning blessedness. As regards that blessedness, it is not easy to describe it, for the reason that it is an inner blessedness, which rarely reveals itself physically in a person and so is rarely perceptible. For while a person lives in the body he is distinctly aware of what presents itself in his body, but he is only very dimly aware of what presents itself in his spirit; for while a person is living in his body worldly concerns impede his awareness of it. The blessedness that the affections possess cannot flow into his perception in the body where those concerns are centred unless what exists on the natural and sensory levels has been brought into agreement with what exists on interior levels; and even then it is only a dim awareness, no more than a calm feeling brought about by his contented state of mind. But after he has died that blessedness makes itself plain and is felt to be blessing and happiness, which affect him both interiorly and exteriorly. In short the blessedness that heavenly affections possess is that which his soul or spirit possesses, flowing in by an interior route and reaching through to the body, where it is received to the extent that the delights springing from the loves that belong to the natural and the senses do not stand in the way.

[2] This blessedness does not exist in any way at all with those whose delight is that of self-love and love of the world; for these loves are quite the opposite of it. People ruled by these loves therefore are not at all able to understand how any blessedness can exist apart from that of being promoted to important positions, being venerated as if they were gods, having an abundance of riches, and possessing more wealth than others. And if these people are told that the delight that springs from those loves is external and perishes along with the body, and that what remains of it in the mind is turned after death into a miserable and hideous delight, such as exists with those in hell, but that an internal kind of delight exists, and that this is a blissful and happy one such as exists with those in heaven, they do not comprehend these things at all, for the reason that with them the external holds sway and the internal is closed. From all this one may see how to understand 'the blessedness that the affections possess', a blessedness meant by 'Asher'.