1733. Possessor of the heavens and the earth symbolizes the bonding of his inner self (Jehovah) with his intermediate and outer selves, as the symbolism of heaven and earth shows. Anything comparatively deep inside us is called heaven, and anything on the surface is called the earth. The reason heaven symbolizes what lies relatively deep inside us is that our deeper levels are an image of heaven and therefore are a kind of miniature heaven. The Lord's intermediate self is quintessentially heaven because he is the all-in-all of heaven and therefore is heaven itself. The fact that our outer self is called the earth follows naturally. The new heavens and the new earth mentioned in the prophets and Revelation, then, actually mean the Lord's kingdom and everyone who typifies the Lord's kingdom, or who has the Lord's kingdom inside. ¹ To see that heaven and earth have these meanings, look at what is said about heaven in §§82, 911, and about the earth in §§82, 620, 636, 913.

[2] The symbolism here of God the Highest, possessor of the heavens and the earth, as the bonding of the inner self with the intermediate and outer selves in the Lord can be seen from this: In regard to his inner self, the Lord was Jehovah himself. Because his inner self or Jehovah guided and taught his outer self, as a parent does a child, his outer self is called Child of God [divine offspring] in relation to Jehovah, but Child of Humankind [human offspring] in relation to his mother. The Lord's inner being, Jehovah himself, is what is being called God the Highest. As full union (or oneness) has not yet occurred, it is also called possessor of the heavens and the earth — that is, possessor of everything in the intermediate and outer selves meant here by the heavens and the earth (as noted).

Footnotes:

620. The symbolism of the land as the tribe of people mentioned earlier is established by places above that show the symbolism of the land (or earth) and the ground [§§268, 566].

Land is a term that surfaces repeatedly in the Word, where it means an area — such as the land of Canaan — in which the Lord's true church exists. It also means an area — such as the land of Egypt or another non-Jewish nation — in which the church does not exist. Accordingly it stands for the race of people living there; and since it stands for the race, it also stands for every member of the race there.

An expression such as the land of Canaan uses the term land for a heavenly love. The lands of non-Jewish nations are so called on account of foul loves. But ground is used in reference to faith, which is planted as a seed. As I showed [§566:2], the land means the area surrounding the ground and the ground means the area surrounding a field, just as love is what contains faith and faith is what contains the religious knowledge that is planted.

The use of land in the current verse implies a race or tribe in which every element of heavenly love and of the church died away. (How a term applies [in a given context] can be determined from the subject under discussion.)