481. And he said to me, "Take and eat it; and it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey." This symbolically means that accepting the doctrine from an acknowledgment that the Lord is the Savior and Redeemer is pleasing and agreeable, but acknowledging that He alone is God of heaven and earth, and that His humanity is Divine, is displeasing and vexatious, owing to their falsifications.

To take the little book means, symbolically, to accept the doctrine regarding the Lord. To eat it means, symbolically, to acknowledge the doctrine. To make the stomach bitter means, symbolically, that the doctrine will be displeasing and vexatious owing to falsifications; for bitterness symbolizes truth falsified (no. 411). To be as sweet as honey in the mouth means, symbolically, that the initial acceptance of the doctrine is pleasing and delightful.

In application now to this doctrine, meant by the little book open in the hand of the angel (nos. 469, 472), these particulars mean, symbolically, that accepting it from an acknowledgment that the Lord is the Savior and Redeemer is pleasing and delightful, but that any acknowledgment that He only is God of heaven and earth, and that His humanity is Divine, is displeasing and vexatious owing to falsifications.

The falsifications which cause this doctrine to be perceived as displeasing and vexatious are chiefly these, that people do not acknowledge the Lord to be one with the Father, as He Himself nevertheless taught, and that they do not acknowledge the Lord's humanity to be Divine, which nevertheless is the Son of God (Luke 1:35 ¹ ). And so it may be said that they make God three and the Lord two. Added to these falsifications are the continual falsities flowing from them. From these flows faith alone, and faith alone afterward serves to confirm them.

From these falsities arise such a bitterness and inner repugnance that people after death cannot even pronounce the words Divine humanity from any mental acknowledgment of their meaning, as may be seen in no. 294 above.

Footnotes:

465. I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. (10:1) This symbolizes the Lord in His Divine majesty and power.

That the angel here is the Lord is apparent from his description, that he was clothed with a cloud, with a rainbow over his head; that his face was like the sun and his feet like pillars of fire; and that he kept his feet on the sea and on the land; moreover that he cried out as when a lion roars, and that his voice was like thunder.

He appeared as an angel because that is how He appears when He manifests Himself in the heavens and below the heavens. For He fills some angel with His Divinity in accommodation to the reception of those whom He gives to see Him. No angel, and still less any mortal, can endure His presence as He is in Himself or in His essence. Therefore He appears above the heavens as the sun, which is as distant from angels as the world's sun is from people. He is present there in His Divinity from eternity and at the same time in His Divine humanity, which are united like soul and body.

He is called here a mighty angel because of His Divine power. And He is called another angel owing to the fact that described here is another aspect of His Divinity than was described before.