Apocalypse Revealed # 243
243. The third living creature had a face like a human being. This symbolizes the Divine truth of the Word in respect to its wisdom.
A human being in the Word symbolizes wisdom, because the human being was born to receive wisdom from the Lord and become an angel. The wiser someone is, therefore, the more human he is. True human wisdom consists in perceiving the existence of God, the nature of God, and what pertains to God. This is what the Divine truth of the Word teaches.
That a human being symbolizes wisdom is apparent from the following passages:
I will make a man more rare than fine gold, and a human being more rare than the gold of Ophir. (Isaiah 13:12)
A man means intelligence, and a human being wisdom.
...the inhabitants of the earth shall be burned up, and rare will be the human being left. (Isaiah 24:6)
...I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of a human being and the seed of an animal. (Jeremiah 31:27)
You are My flock...; you are humankind, I am your God. (Ezekiel 34:31)
...the ruined cities shall be filled with a flock of humankind. (Ezekiel 36:38)
I looked upon the earth when, lo, it was empty and void, and to the heavens when they had not their light... I looked when, lo, there was no human being... (Jeremiah 4:23, 25)
They sacrifice a human being, they kiss the calves. (Hosea 13:2)
He measured the wall (of the Holy Jerusalem): one hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a human being, which is that of an angel. (Revelation 21:17)
So, too, in many other places, where a human being symbolizes someone who is wise, and in an abstract sense, wisdom itself.
Luke 16:19-31
19
"Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day.
20
A certain beggar, named Lazarus, was laid at his gate, full of sores,
21
and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. Yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22
It happened that the beggar died, and that he was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried.
23
In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom.
24
He cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.'
25
"But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But now here he is comforted and you are in anguish.
26
Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that those who want to pass from here to you are not able, and that none may cross over from there to us.'
27
"He said, 'I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father's house;
28
for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, so they won't also come into this place of torment.'
29
"But Abraham said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.'
30
"He said, 'No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.'
31
"He said to him, 'If they don't listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.'"
