379. "And made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb." This symbolically means, and by truths have purified those religious beliefs from the falsities accompanying evil, and so have been reformed by the Lord.

Some evils are evils that accompany falsity, and some falsities are falsities that accompany evil. Evils that accompany falsity are found among people who, in accord with their religion, believe that evils do not condemn, provided they orally confess that they are sinners. And falsities that accompany evil are found among people who justify the evils they harbor.

As in no. 378 above, robes here symbolize general truths drawn from the Word, which constitute the people's religious beliefs. They are said to have made their robes white in the blood of the Lamb because the color white is predicated of truths (nos. 167, 231, 232), meaning therefore that they used truths to purify their falsities.

This symbolically means also that thus they were reformed by the Lord, because all who have fought against evils in the world and have believed in the Lord are, after their departure from the world, taught by the Lord and led by truths away from the falsities of their religion. And so they are reformed. That is because people who refrain from evils as being sins possess goodness of life, and goodness of life desires truths, and acknowledges and accepts them. But this is never the case with evil of life.

People believe that the blood of the Lamb here and elsewhere in the Word symbolizes the Lord's suffering of the cross. But the suffering of the cross was the final temptation or trial by which the Lord completely overcame the hells and fully glorified His humanity. By these two means He saved mankind (see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, nos. 12-14, 15-17, and also no. 67 above). Moreover, because by His suffering of the cross the Lord fully glorified His humanity, which is to say, made it Divine, therefore nothing else can be meant by His flesh and blood but the Divinity in Him and emanating from Him - His flesh meaning the Divine goodness of His Divine love, and His blood meaning the Divine truth emanating from that goodness.

[2] Blood is mentioned many times in the Word, and everywhere it symbolizes, in the spiritual sense, either the Lord's Divine truth, which is the same as the Divine truth of the Word, or in an opposite sense, the Divine truth of the Word falsified or profaned, as can be seen from the following passages.

First, that blood symbolizes the Lord's Divine truth or the Divine truth of the Word can be seen from these passages:

Blood was called the blood of the covenant, and a covenant conjoins, a conjunction that the Lord accomplishes by His Divine truth. So, for example, in Zechariah:

By the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the pit... (Zechariah 9:11)

After Moses read the Book of the Law in the hearing of the people, he sprinkled half the blood on the people and said,

This is the blood of the covenant which Jehovah has made with you in accordance with all these words. (Exodus 24:3-8)

Moreover,

(Jesus) took the cup..., and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. ...this is My blood, the blood of the new covenant... (Matthew 26:27-28, cf. Mark 14:24, Luke 22:20)

The blood of the new covenant or testament symbolizes nothing else than the Word, which is called a covenant or testament - the Old Covenant or Testament, and the New Covenant or Testament - thus symbolizing the Divine truth in it.

[3] Since blood has this symbolic meaning, the Lord therefore gave His disciples wine, saying, "This is My blood" - wine symbolizing Divine truth (no. 316). Wine is also on that account called "the blood of grapes" (Genesis 49:11, Deuteronomy 32:14).

This is still further apparent from these words of the Lord:

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will have no life in you... For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. (John 6:53-56).

It is clearly apparent that blood here means Divine truth, because the text says that he who drinks has life, and abides in the Lord, and the Lord in him. This is the effect of Divine truth and a life in accordance with it, and an effect confirmed by the Holy Supper, as everyone in the church may know.

[4] Since blood symbolizes the Lord's Divine truth, which is the same as the Divine truth of the Word, and this is the essence of the Old and New Covenants or Testaments, therefore blood was the holiest representative symbol in the Israelite Church, in which every single thing corresponded to something spiritual. So, for example, the people were to take some of the blood of the paschal lamb and put it on the doorposts and lintel of their houses to keep the plague from coming upon them (Exodus 12:7, 13, 22). The blood of the burnt offering was to be sprinkled on the altar, at the base of the altar, on Aaron and his sons, and on their vestments (Exodus 29:12, 16, 20-21).

[5] The blood of the Lamb has a like symbolism in the following verses in the book of Revelation:

...war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon... And they overcame it by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony... (Revelation 12:7, 11)

For no one can think that Michael and his angels overcame the dragon with anything other than the Lord's Divine truth in the Word. Angels in heaven, indeed, cannot think of any blood, nor do they think of the Lord's suffering, but of His Divine truth and resurrection. Consequently, when a person thinks about the Lord's blood, angels perceive His Divine truth, and when a person thinks about the Lord's suffering, they perceive His glorification, and then only His resurrection. I have been granted to know the reality of this by much experience.

[6] That blood symbolizes Divine truth is apparent also from these verses in the book of Psalms:

(God) will save the souls of the needy... Precious shall be their blood in His sight. And they shall live, and He will give them the gold of Sheba. (Psalms 72:13-15)

The blood, precious in the sight of God, stands for Divine truth among those people. The gold of Sheba is the resulting wisdom.

In Ezekiel:

Gather together... to My great sacrifice... on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. You shall... drink the blood of the princes of the earth... You shall... drink blood till you are drunk at My sacrifice which I am sacrificing for you... (Thus) I will set My glory among the nations. (Ezekiel 39:17-21)

Blood here does not mean blood, because the statement is that they will drink the blood of the princes of the earth and that they will drink blood till they are drunk. But the true meaning of the word emerges when blood is understood to mean Divine truth. The subject there, too, is the Lord's church, which He would establish among gentiles.

[7] Second, that blood symbolizes Divine truth can be clearly seen from its opposite meaning, in which it symbolizes the Divine truth of the Word falsified or profaned, as is apparent from these passages:

He who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil... (Isaiah 33:15)

You shall destroy those who speak falsehood; Jehovah abhors the bloody and deceitful man. (Psalms 5:6)

...everyone recorded for life in Jerusalem, when the Lord has... rinsed away (her) blood... from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of purification. (Isaiah 4:3-4)

...on the day you were born... I saw you trampled in your blood, and I said to you in your blood, "Live!" ...I washed you and rinsed away the blood upon you... (Ezekiel 16:5-6, 9, 22, 36, 38)

They wandered blind in the streets; they have defiled themselves with blood, and what they cannot touch, they touch with their garments. (Lamentations 4:13-14)

The garment is polluted with blood. (Isaiah 9:5)

Also on your skirts is found the blood of the souls of the innocent... (Jeremiah 2:34)

Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings... (Isaiah 1:15-16)

...your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken a lie... They make haste to shed innocent blood. (Isaiah 59:3, 7)

...Jehovah is coming out... to visit the iniquity... of the earth; then the earth will disclose her blood... (Isaiah 26:21)

...as many as received Him, to them He gave the ability to be children of God..., who were born, not of blood... (John 1:12-13)

In (Babylon) was found the blood of prophets and saints... (Revelation 18:24)

...the sea... became as the blood of a dead man... ...the springs of water... became blood. (Revelation 16:3-4. Cf. Isaiah 15:9, Psalms 105:29)

The like is symbolized by the rivers, ponds, and pools of water in Egypt being turned into blood (Exodus 7:15-25).

...the moon (shall be turned) into blood, before the coming of the great... day of Jehovah. (Joel 2:31)

...the moon became... blood. (Revelation 6:12)

In these places and many others, blood symbolizes the truth of the Word falsified, and also profaned. But this can be seen more clearly when these passages in the Word are read in context.

So, then, since blood in an opposite sense symbolizes the truth of the Word falsified or profaned, it is apparent that blood in a true sense symbolizes the truth of the Word not falsified.

213. "'That the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed.'" This symbolically means, so as not to profane and adulterate the goodness of heavenly love.

No one can know the symbolic meaning of the shame of nakedness unless he knows that the reproductive organs in both sexes, called also the genitalia, correspond to celestial love.

To be shown that the human body and all its constituents have a correspondence with the heavens, see the book Heaven and Hell, published in London in , nos. 87-102. And to be shown that the reproductive organs correspond to celestial love, see Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), also published in London, nos. 5050-5062.

Now because these organs correspond to celestial love, which is the love found in the third or inmost heaven, and because a person is born of his parents into loves contrary to that love, it is apparent that if he does not acquire for himself the goodness of love and the truth of wisdom from the Lord, which are symbolically meant by gold refined in fire and white garments, he will be seen to be impelled by a contrary love, which in itself is profane.

[2] This latter circumstance is symbolically meant by uncovering nakedness and manifesting the shame of it, in the following places:

Blessed is he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and his private parts be seen. (Revelation 16:15)

...daughter of Babylon (and of the Chaldeans), sit on the ground... Uncover your hair..., uncover the thigh, pass through the rivers. Let your nakedness be uncovered; yes, let your shame be seen. (Isaiah 47:1-3)

Woe to the bloody city! ...Because of the multitude of (her) harlotries... I will uncover your skirts in front of you, and I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your disgrace. (Nahum 3:1, 4-5)

Contend with your mother... lest I strip her naked... (Hosea 2:2-4)

When I passed by you... I covered your nakedness... Then I washed you... and... I clothed you... But you... played the harlot... not remembering your youth, when you were naked and bare... (Therefore) your nakedness was uncovered... (Ezekiel 16:6ff.)

Jerusalem has sinned gravely; therefore... all... despise her, because they have seen her nakedness. (Lamentations 1:8)

Jerusalem, of which these things were said, means the church; and to play the harlot means, symbolically, to adulterate and falsify the Word (no. 134).

Woe to him who makes his neighbor drink..., making him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness! ...Drink, you too, that your uncircumcised foreskin may be exposed! (Habakkuk 2:15-16)

[3] Someone who knows what nakedness symbolizes can understand what is symbolically meant by the statement that when Noah was drunk from drinking wine he lay uncovered inside his tent, and Ham saw and laughed at his nakedness, but Shem and Japheth covered his nakedness, turning their faces away so as not to see it (Genesis 9:21-23). He can understand also why it was decreed that Aaron and his sons should not go up by steps to the altar, that their nakedness might not be exposed (Exodus 20:26). And so, too, why it was decreed that they should make for them linen trousers to cover their naked flesh, that they should have these on when they came near the altar, and that otherwise they would bear their iniquity and die (Exodus 28:42-43).

Nakedness in these places symbolizes the evils into which a person is born, which, because they are contrary to the goodness of celestial love, are in themselves profane and are removed only by truths and by living in accordance with those truths. Linen also symbolizes truth (no. 671[1-2]).

[4] Nakedness in addition symbolizes innocence, and also ignorance of goodness and truth. Innocence is symbolized by the statement, "they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they had no cause for shame" (Genesis 2:25). Ignorance of goodness and truth is symbolized by the following:

...this... fast that I choose: ...to break bread with the hungry..., and... when you see the naked man, to cover him. (Isaiah 58:6-7)

He gives his bread to the hungry man, and covers the naked one with clothing. (Ezekiel 18:7)

...I was hungry and you gave Me food...; I was naked and you clothed Me. (Matthew 25:35-36)