119. That the church is called mother is apparent from the following passages:

(Jehovah said,) "Contend with your mother...; ...she is not My wife, and I am not her Husband." (Hosea 2:2)

"You are the daughter of your mother, who loathes her Husband...." (Ezekiel 16:45)

"Where is the certificate of your mother's divorce, whom I have put away?" (Isaiah 50:1)

Your mother was like a vine..., planted by the waters, fruitful.... (Ezekiel 19:10)

"Mother" in those places refers to the Jewish Church.

(Jesus, stretching out His hand toward His disciples, said,) "My mother and My brothers are they who hear the word of God and do it." (Luke 8:21, cf. Matthew 12:48-50, Mark 3:33-35)

The church is meant by the Lord's disciples.

By the cross of Jesus stood His mother.... (And) Jesus...seeing His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing by, (also) said to His mother, "Woman, behold your son!" And He said to the disciple, "Behold your mother!" (Therefore) from that hour the disciple took her into his own [home]. (John 19:25-27)

The meaning here is that the Lord did not acknowledge Mary but the church as His mother. That is why He calls her "woman" and names her the mother of the disciple. He named her the mother of this disciple, John, because John represented the church in respect to its good acts of charity. These good acts are the church in actual practice. Therefore it is said that the disciple took Mary into his own [home].

(We explained in The Apocalypse Revealed that Peter represented truth and faith, James charity, and John works of charity - see nos. 5, 6, 790, 798, 879 - and that the twelve disciples together represented the church in all its elements - see nos. 233, 790 [798?], 903, 915.)

13. From Him who is and who was and who is to come. This symbolically means, from the Lord who is eternal and infinite, and who is Jehovah.

That it is the Lord is clearly apparent from verses that follow in this chapter, where it is said that John heard a voice from the Son of Man saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last," and afterward, "I am the First and the Last" as well as in the next chapter, 2:8, and later in 21:6; 22:12-13). Also in Isaiah:

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts: "I am the First and I am the Last, and besides Me there is no God." (Isaiah 44:6; also 48:12)

Moreover, He who is the First and the Last is He who is, who was, and who is to come.

[2] This also is the meaning of "Jehovah." For the name "Jehovah" means "He is" and "He who is," or He who is being itself. ¹ It also means "He was" and "He is to come," since the past and the future in Him are present. Consequently He is eternal independently of time, and infinite independently of place.

The church also confesses this in conformity with the doctrine of the trinity called the Athanasian Creed, where these words are found:

The Father is eternal and infinite, the Son is eternal and infinite, and the Holy Spirit is eternal and infinite. And yet there are not three eternal and infinite Gods, but one.

That one is the Lord, as we demonstrated in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord.

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