Near the end of the gospel of John, (in John 21:1-14), we find a story where, some days after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, seven of Jesus's disciples have travelled north from Jerusalem to the sea of Galilee. At Peter's suggestion they have all gone out in his boat to fish. They fish all night, but have no luck, and catch nothing. They are fairly close to the shore, and as the early morning light begins to grow they see a man standing by the water. He calls out to them, asking if they have caught anything. When they answer "no", he tells them, "try the other side of the boat". They give it a try. When they do, they catch so many fish that they can't haul the net into the boat; it's too heavy. So they row toward shore, dragging the net full of fish behind them.

As they're drawing closer to shore, they still haven't recognized that the man on the shore is Jesus. He has kindled a small, and is cooking fish. He invites them to have breakfast with Him, and at that point, John realizes that it is Jesus, and tells Peter. Peter grabs his cloak, belts it around himself to cover his nakedness, and jumps into the water to swim to shore.

This story has some interesting details to explore. The earlier stories of events that happened after the Lord's rising took place in or near Jerusalem, but this one is in Galilee. Five of these disciples are named, and at least four of the five were from Galilee, so they are at home. They were fishermen before Jesus called them to be disciples, so to go fishing is in their blood.

The five disciples named in the story are Simon (or Peter), the brothers James and John, Thomas, and Nathaniel. Two more who are not named, to make up the seven, and it would be reasonable to guess that they were Andrew, Peter's brother, and Philip, a friend of Nathaniel's - both of whom were also from Galilee.

The angels that Peter and John had seen at the sepulcher had told them that Jesus would meet them in Galilee on "the mountain". Perhaps these seven, being from Galilee, had hurried on ahead of the others.

Let's look at their names and see what the literal meaning is, and what they represent in a spiritual way.

- Simon was renamed by Jesus as ‘Peter', which in the Greek means a rock. In this case, the name means the firmest and most critical rock, or truth, of Christianity, i.e. that Jesus was from God.

- John means love or charity.

- James, John's brother, means the doing of charity.

- Nathaniel means a gift from God, and being a friend of Philip, I think it might be that the gift from God that he represents is the love of learning things that fill the understanding, our curiosity.

- Thomas, in Greek, means a twin, and since he is named right after Peter perhaps he has a similar representation. Peter believes in the Lord easily because of what he has seen and what the Lord has told him whereas Thomas believes, and believes just as strongly, but only after his doubts have been erased, after he has been shown.

The towns most mentioned in the stories that take place around the "Sea of Galilee" in the gospels are Bethsaida, Capernaum, Cana, and Nazareth. Bethsaida itself means "a place of fishing." The maps I have of the area are small scale and not all exactly the same, but the indication is that it is at the northern end of the lake or even on the upper Jordan river just before it runs into the lake. Capernaum and Magdala are on the northwestern shore and Cana and Nazareth are inland, but only four or five miles west of this corner of the lake. This area was where most of these disciples had been brought up, and fishing was a common occupation.

The name Galilee means "a circuit". The Word teaches us that Jesus taught in the towns all around the lake, so that a reading of all that Jesus taught and did in that country could be thought of as a "circuit" of His teachings.

The next detail of interest is that when the Lord suggests the other side of the boat and the result is a large catch of fish after a long night of nothing. This is reminiscent of the fishing incident given in Luke 5:4-7. Since the disciples are to become "fishers of men" (as in Matthew 4:19) and they are to persuade people into the knowledge and worship of the Lord, the Christ, it is perhaps a lesson that in their ministry they must always be guided by the Lord.

Then John realizes, and whispers to Peter, "it's the Lord" (John 21:7) and Peter quickly puts his cloak on and jumps in to get to shore faster. Why is it John that first realizes? John represents love and affection while Peter represents faith or truth. While truth is the means of acting, as Peter does, love is the means of connecting, which is what John did. And why did Peter need to grab his cloak and put it on? Clothing in the Word represents the truths about spiritual things that all people may have if they look for them. It is the particular truths that form Peter as a disciple, "Thou art the Christ" (Matthew 16:16-18) that he answers to the Lord, and this truth is the rock of the Christian church. Having this truth as part of himself is necessary to meet the Lord.

When they are all on shore, Jesus says to them to bring some of the fish they have caught, so Peter goes to the water and drags the full net up onto the sand and counts out the fish, one hundred and fifty three. Then Jesus invites them all to come and eat.

Now a strange comment is put into the story: "…none of the disciples durst ask him, 'who art thou?', knowing that it was the Lord." (John 21:12). It seems that they should have known. They had been following Him for several years. I wonder if this is a reminder that the Christian church has yet to understand the true reality of the Lord - was He God, or was He man? The Catholic church argued this for more than three hundred years, and the council that was supposed to decide came up with three separate persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all in one Godhead. Some of the Christian churches of today seem to focus on two, the Father, and a Son born from eternity, who apparently both rule together.

The New Christian Church understands that Jesus was born both God and man but that there was a slow but inevitable change going on during His lifetime. He was born with God, Jehovah, as His inmost, and a human heredity and body from Mary as a covering or cloak over this inmost. Mary was, you may recall, of the royal house of David, so her heredity was both strong and inclusive, and thus represented all that was connected to the Jewish form of worship. During Jesus' life (and starting early, though we don't know just how early), He put off things from Mary, and put on what was a corresponding Divine, from His inmost, in its place, until on Easter morning He was wholly divine, with all that came from His mother being dispersed and gone. There is only One God.

Why is it that in this little story the number of fishes that were caught in the net is mentioned, and why does it seem now so important that Peter took the time to count them as everyone waited? Something that has been revealed to the New Christian Church is that all the numbers used in the stories of the Word have a meaning that belongs to that number even outside the literal use in the story. The number 153 can be seen as the combination of 150 and 3, and both of these are strongly meaningful. Starting with the "three", there should be little doubt that it means something since it is used so often. Jesus rose on the third day. Also three is the number of things that, put together, make anything complete, the wish or desire to do it, the knowledge of how to do it, and the actual doing. This is true of any task - from baking a cake right up to the Lord's love, His wisdom, and His act put forth in creating the universe. One hundred and fifty is not so plain. I am aware of only two places it is used in the Word, and we are told that it means a total change, an ending of something and the beginning of something different. It is used here and in the story of the flood, at the end of Genesis 7 and in Genesis 8:3; "And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days." "… And the waters returned from off the earth continually; and after the end of the one hundred and fifty days the waters were abated." The use here is that it means the end of the Church called "Adam" and the start of the church called "Noah" (See on this website "The Churches", and for the meaning, see Arcana Coelestia 812, 846). In the story we are considering it means the end of the Church called Israel and the start of the Christian church, though that is probably complete a day or two later when the Lord meets with all of His disciples on the mountain and sends them out to preach and heal.

This first part of this story ends with all of the seven disciples on the shore with Jesus, and His giving to them a breakfast of bread and roasted fish. With this giving, perhaps they all fully realized who He was, as with the two disciples at Emmaus. The Gospel comments, "This is now the third time that Jesus showed Himself to his disciples after that He was risen from the dead.

10067. 'And sprinkle it over Aaron and over his garments' means a reciprocal uniting of Divine Good and Divine Truth within the Lord's Divine Human in the higher heavens. This is clear from the representation of 'Aaron' as the Lord in respect of Divine Good, dealt with in 9806, which is the Lord's Divine Good in the celestial kingdom, dealt with in 9946, or what amounts to the same thing, in the higher heavens; from the meaning of Aaron's 'garments' as a representative sign of the Lord's spiritual kingdom lying adjacent to His celestial kingdom, dealt with in 9814; and from the meaning of 'sprinkling over them' as uniting. For what was sprinkled or poured out over someone represented a uniting, as also previously with the blood sprinkled over the altar round about, 10064.

[2] The reason why the Lord's Divine Human in the heavens is what is meant is that the subject here and in what comes immediately after is the Lord's Divine [Being] in the heavens and His union with the angels there, so that the subject is the second state of the glorification of the Lord's Human, see 10057. So it is that here 'Aaron' represents the Lord in respect of Divine Good in the celestial kingdom and 'his garments' Divine Truth in the spiritual kingdom lying adjacent to the celestial kingdom; thus the Lord in respect of both in the higher heavens is represented. The reason why the Divine Human is what this Divine Good and Divine Truth come from is that nothing Divine is acknowledged and worshipped in the heavens other than the Lord's Divine Human; for the Divine [Being] which the Lord called His Father was the Divinity within Himself. The truth that in the heavens nothing Divine is acknowledged and worshipped other than the Lord's Divine Human becomes clear from the Lord's words recorded many times in the Gospels, such as the following,

All things have been delivered to Me by the Father. Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22.

The Father has given all things into the hand of the Son. John 3:34-35.

The Father has given the Son power over all flesh. John 17:2.

Without Me you can do nothing. John 15:5.

Father, all Mine are Yours, and all Yours are Mine. John 17:10.

All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Matthew 28:18.

Jesus said to Peter, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Matthew 16:19.

[3] The truth of all this is also evident from the consideration that no one can be joined through faith and love to the Divine [Being] Himself without the Divine Human; for it is impossible to form in the mind any idea of the Divine [Being] Himself, called the Father, because He is incomprehensible, and that of which it is impossible to have any mental picture forms no part of a person's belief nor thus of what he loves. Yet the most important of all the elements of worship is believing in God and loving Him above all else. That the Divine [Being] Himself, or the Father, is incomprehensible is also the Lord's teaching, in John,

Nobody has ever seen God; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. John 1:18.

In the same gospel,

You have never heard the Father's voice nor seen His shape. John 5:37.

[4] And that the Divine [Being] Himself, or the Father, is comprehensible within the Lord through His Divine Human is likewise His teaching, in John,

He who sees Me sees Him who sent Me. John 12:45.

In the same gospel,

If you know Me you know My Father also, and from now on you know Him and have seen Him. He who sees Me sees the Father. John 14:6-11.

And in Matthew,

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him. Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22.

The reason why it is also said that no one knows the Son except the Father is that 'the Son' is used to mean Divine Truth and 'the Father' Divine Good, each being within the Lord; and one cannot be known except from the other. That is why the Lord first says that all things have been delivered to Him by the Father, and afterwards that the Father is known to him to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him. For the meaning of 'the Son' as Divine Truth and of 'the Father' as Divine Good, each of which are the Lord's, see 2803, 2813, 3704, 7499, 8328, 8897, 9807.

From all this it is now evident that the Divine [Being] in the heavens is the Lord's Divine Human.

[5] Next it must be stated what was represented by the blood of the second lamb being sprinkled over the altar round about, and by some of the blood and some of the anointing oil being sprinkled over Aaron and over his garments. From what has been stated and shown above in 10064-10067 it is evident that the uniting of Divine Truth to Divine Good and of Divine Good to Divine Truth within the Lord's Divine Human were meant. But the arcanum that lies hidden within this has not yet been disclosed. The arcanum is that the uniting of Divine Good and Divine Truth, thus of the Divine [Being] Himself, called the Father, and Divine Truth or the Son, was reciprocal. The uniting of Divine Truth to Divine Good is meant by the sprinkling of the blood over the altar, 10064. These when they have been united are meant by the blood on the altar, some of which was to be taken, 10065, and by the anointing oil, which means Divine Good, 10066. Consequently the reciprocal uniting of Divine Truth and Divine Good within the Lord's Divine Human is meant by the sprinkling of that blood together with the anointing oil over Aaron and over his garments, as shown earlier on in this paragraph 10067.

[6] That the uniting was reciprocal is absolutely clear from the Lord's words in the following places: In John,

I and the Father ¹ are one. Even though ² you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I am in the Father. John 10:30, 38.

In the same gospel,

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. John 14:6-11.

In the same gospel,

Jesus said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You. All Mine are Yours, and all Yours are Mine. John 17:1, 10.

In the same gospel,

Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. And God will glorify Him in Himself. John 13:31-32.

From these places it becomes clear that the Divine Good of Divine Love, which is the Father, has been united to Divine Truth, which is the Son, in a reciprocal manner within the Lord, and that consequently His Human is Divine Good. The like is also meant when the Lord says that He came from the Father, and has come into the world, and is going to the Father, John 16:27-29; that all things which are the Father's are His, John 16:15; and that the Father and He are one, John 10:30.

[7] But a better way to understand these matters may lie in considering the reciprocal joining together of goodness and truth with a person who is being regenerated by the Lord, for, as has been stated previously, the Lord regenerates people just as He glorified His Human, 10057. When the Lord regenerates a person He instills truth that will become the truth of faith in the understanding part of the person's mind and good that will become the good of love in the will part of it. There He joins the two together, and when they have been joined together the truth of faith derives its life from the good of love, and the good of love receives the specific quality of its life from the truth of faith. This joining together is accomplished in a reciprocal or mutual manner by good; it is called the heavenly marriage and constitutes heaven with the person. The Lord dwells in this heaven as that which is His, for all the good of love springs from Him, as does all the joining of truth to good. The Lord cannot dwell in anything that is the person's own, because that is evil.

[8] This mutual joining together is what is meant by the Lord's words in John,

On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. John 14:20.

And in the same gospel,

All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them ... that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You, and they may be one in Us. John 17:10, 21-22.

A mutual joining together is described in these words, yet they should not be taken to mean that a person joins himself to the Lord. Rather the Lord joins to Himself the person who abandons evils; for the abandonment of evils is left to the person's own responsibility, and when he abandons them the reciprocal joining together of the truth belonging to faith and the good belonging to love is effected by the Lord, and not at all by that person. For as is well known in the Church, a person left to himself cannot do anything good, and so left to himself cannot receive any truth in his good. This too the Lord affirms in John,

Abide in Me, and I in you. He who abides in Me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you cannot do anything. John 15:4-5.

[9] Light may be cast on this mutual joining together by a person's understanding and will when joined together. His understanding is composed of truths and his will is composed of forms of good; the truths belong to the faith present in him and the forms of good to the love there. The person takes in the truths by hearing about them with his ears or reading about them with his eyes and stores them away in his memory. Those truths have to do either with circumstances involving public duties or with those involving private conduct; and they are called known facts. The person's love, which belongs to his will, employs the understanding to look at the facts stored away there and to choose from them those that are in accord with that love. It then draws and joins to itself those that are chosen, and uses them day by day to strengthen itself. The truths made living in this manner by love constitute the understanding part of the person's mind, while the actual forms of good belonging to his love constitute the will part of it. Those forms of the good of love are also like a fire burning there, while the truths which have been made living by the love and reside in the parts round about are like the light radiated from that fire. Gradually as the truths are kindled by that fire the desire is kindled in them for a mutual or reciprocal joining together. This leads to a mutual joining together that is everlasting.

[10] From all this it is clear that the good belonging to love is what effects the joining together and not the truth belonging to faith, except insofar as it has any of the good of love within it. Whether you say love or good it amounts to the same thing, for all good comes from love, and whatever comes from love is called good. Also whether you say love or the will, this too amounts to the same thing, for what a person loves, that he wills.

[11] It should be recognized that the things which have to do with circumstances involving public duties and private conduct, spoken of just above, join themselves together in the external man, whereas those which have to do with spiritual circumstances, spoken of previously, join themselves together in the internal man, and after that in the external man by way of the internal. For those that have to do with spiritual circumstances, namely those which are truths of faith and forms of the good of love to the Lord, and have regard to eternal life, link up with the heavens and open up the internal man. The extent to which this is opened, and the essential nature of that opening, is determined by the truths of faith - how many are received, and in what way they are received, within the good of love to the Lord and towards the neighbour, these loves being derived from the Lord. From this it is evident that thought remains on a merely external level in the case of those who fail to absorb the things which have to do with spiritual circumstances, and that it rises no higher than the level of the senses in the case of those who refuse to believe in their existence, however intelligent these people seem to be in what they say.

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