3. Thus far it has remained unknown that a new earth means a new church on earth, because everyone has understood earth in the Word as meaning the earth, when it really means the church. In the natural sense earth is the earth, but in the spiritual sense the church. The reason is that those who grasp the spiritual sense, those, that is, who are spiritual like the angels, do not understand the actual earth when earth is mentioned in the Word, but the people on it, and their worship of God. That is why earth means the church. Proof of this is to be found in ARCANA CAELESTIA; see below. ¹ I should like to quote one or two passages from the Word, which allow one to grasp to some extent that earth means the church:

The flood-gates on high have been opened, and the foundations of the earth have been shaken. The earth was utterly shattered, the earth quaked exceedingly. The earth reels to and fro like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; and its transgression weighs heavy on it. Isaiah 24:18-20.

I will make mankind scarcer than pure gold. Therefore I shall shake the heaven, and the earth will be shaken from its place on the day when Jehovah's anger is kindled. Isaiah 13:12-13.

The earth quaked before Him; the heavens trembled, the sun and the moon were darkened, and the stars withdrew their shining. Joel 2:10.

The earth was shaken and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains trembled and were shaken. Psalms 18:7-8.

There are very many other such passages.

Footnotes:

4454. 'And Shechem said to her father and to her brothers' means counsel taken by the truth from the ancient Divine stock with the good and truth of this semblance of religion. This is clear from the meaning of 'saying' in this case as taking counsel; from the representation of 'Shechem' as the truth from the ancient Divine stock, dealt with above in 4447; from the meaning of 'father', who in this case is Jacob, as the good of truth, dealt with in 4273, 4337; and from the meaning of 'brothers', who in this case are the sons of Jacob, as truths, dealt with above. It is evident from the references quoted above in 4447 that Shechem means truth from the ancient Divine stock; for Hamor the Hivite together with his nation and family in the land of Canaan were part of the remnants of the Most Ancient Church, which was celestial. This Church, more than all other Churches in the whole world, was in origin Divine, for the good of love to the Lord was present in it. Will and understanding with them made one, and so one mind, and on that account they had from good a perception of truth. For the Lord was flowing in by an internal route into the good present in their will and from this into the good present in their understanding, that is, into their truth, as a consequence of which that Church more than all others was called Man, 477-479, and also the Likeness of God, 51, 473, 1013. From this one may see why Hamor and Shechem are said to be from the ancient Divine stock, as previously in 4399. The fact that the Most Ancient Church, which was called 'Man', or to use the Hebrew word 'Adam', was located in the land of Canaan, as stated above in 4447, is quite evident from their descendants who were called the Nephilim, Genesis 6:4. The presence of the latter in the land of Canaan is referred to in Numbers 13:33; see 581. But at that time the expression 'the land of Canaan' was used to mean all the land from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates, Genesis 15:18.