13
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
True Christian Religion #467
467. In the Word the Garden of Eden does not mean a garden, but intelligence, and a tree does not mean a tree, but man. The Garden of Eden can be shown to mean intelligence and wisdom from the following passages:
In your intelligence and wisdom you made riches for yourself. 1 Ezekiel 28:4.
and in the continuation of this chapter:
Full of wisdom, you were in Eden, God's garden; every kind of precious stone was your covering, Ezekiel 28:12-13.
This is said of the prince and king of Tyre, to whom wisdom is attributed, because Tyre in the Word means the church in respect of knowledge of truth and good, which is the means to wisdom. The precious stones which are to be his covering also mean things known about truth and good; for the prince and king of Tyre were not in the Garden of Eden.
[2] In another passage in Ezekiel:
Asshur is a cedar in Lebanon. The cedars have not hidden it in the garden of God. All the trees in the garden of God were not its equal in beauty; all the trees of Eden in the garden of God envied it, Ezekiel 31:3, 8-9.
And further on:
To whom you thus became like in glory and size among the trees of Eden, Ezekiel 31:18.
This is said of Asshur, because in the Word Asshur means rationality and intelligence arising from this.
[3] In Isaiah:
Jehovah will comfort Zion, and turn its desert into an Eden and its wilderness into a garden of Jehovah, Isaiah 51:3.
Zion there is the church, Eden and the garden of Jehovah are wisdom and intelligence. In Revelation:
To him who overcomes I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise 2 of God, Revelation 2:7.
In the midst of the street, on either side of the river was the tree of life, Revelation 22:2.
[4] These passages show plainly that the garden in Eden, in which we are told Adam was placed, means intelligence and wisdom, because similar things are said of Tyre, Asshur and Zion. A garden also means intelligence in other passages of the Word, such as Isaiah 58:11; 61:11; Jeremiah 31:12; Amos 9:14; Numbers 24:6. This spiritual way of understanding a garden is due to the representations seen in the spiritual world. There parks are to be seen, wherever angels possess intelligence and wisdom; it is the intelligence and wisdom themselves, which they get from the Lord, which produce such appearances around them. This is due to the correspondence, because everything which comes into being in the spiritual world is an example of correspondence.
Footnotes:
1. The Latin text repeats here the phrase 'you were in Eden, God's garden' from the next quotation.
2. The Greek word paradeisos, used here in its Latin form, means properly an enclosed garden or park; the meaning 'paradise' arose only later.
Revelation 10
1
And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:
2
And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,
3
And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.
4
And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.
5
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
6
And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:
7
But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
8
And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said, Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.
9
And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.
10
And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.
11
And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.
