626. 14:6 Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth. This symbolizes an announcement of the Lord's advent, and of a new church to descend from Him out of heaven.

In the highest sense an angel means the Lord, and so also heaven (nos. 5, 344, 465). Another angel symbolizes something new now from the Lord. To fly in the midst of heaven means, symbolically, to look down, to observe and to foresee (no. 415), here to foresee something new in the church from the Lord out of heaven. The everlasting gospel symbolizes an announcement of the coming of the Lord and His kingdom (nos. 478, 553). Those who dwell on the earth symbolize people in the church to whom the announcement is made.

This serves also to announce that a new church is now about to descend from the Lord out of heaven, because the Lord's advent involves two elements: a last judgment and after that a new church. The last judgment is the subject of chapters 19, 20; and the new church, which is the New Jerusalem, is the subject of chapters 21, 22.

That the gospel and preaching the gospel symbolize an announcement of the advent of the Lord and His kingdom, can be clearly seen from the passages cited in no. 478, to which the reader is referred.

122. The Lord's twelve disciples represented all the various forms of faith and caring that together constitute the church, as did the twelve tribes of Israel: 2129, 3354, 3488, 3858, 6397. Peter, James, and John represented faith, caring, and good actions that come from caring, respectively: preface to Genesis 18. Peter represented faith: preface to Genesis 22, §§4738, 6000, 6073, 6344, 10087. John represented good actions that come from caring: preface to Genesis 18. The fact that in the last times of the church there would be no faith in the Lord because there would be no caring is represented by Peter's denying the Lord three times before the rooster crowed for the third time; ¹ in a symbolic sense, Peter in that passage means faith: 6000, 6073. Both "the crowing of the rooster" and "twilight" in the Word mean the last times of the church (10134); and "three" or "three times" means what is completed (2788, 4495, 5159, 9198, 10127). Much the same is meant by the Lord's saying to Peter, when Peter saw John following the Lord, "What is that to you, Peter? Follow me, John," ² because Peter had said of John, "What about him?" (John 21:21, 22): 10087. Since John represented good actions that come from caring, he leaned on the Lord's chest [John 13:23-25; 21:20]: 3934, 10087. Likewise, what the Lord said to John from the cross meant that good actions from a caring heart are what constitute the church: "When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing by her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!' And he said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!' And from that hour the disciple accepted her into his household" (John 19:26, 27). John means good actions that come from a caring heart, and "the woman" and "mother" mean the church; therefore the whole statement means that wherever good actions are being done from a caring heart is where the true church will be found. "Woman" in the Word means the church: 252, 253, 749, 770, 3160, 6014, 7337, 8994. The same holds true for "mother": 289, 2691, 2717, 3703, 4257, 5581, 8897, 10490. All the names of individuals and places in the Word symbolize qualities in the abstract: 768, 1888, 4310, 4442, 10329.

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