Apocalypse Revealed #481
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:
1. "And the angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.'"
