468. And his feet like pillars of fire. This symbolizes the Lord's Divinity on the natural plane in respect to His Divine love, which sustains all things.

This, too, is apparent, from the explanation in no. 49 above, where it is said of the Son of Man that "His feet were like fine brass, as though fired in a furnace."

The angel's feet looked like pillars of fire because the Lord's Divinity on the natural plane - which fundamentally is the Divine humanity that He took on in the world - supports His Divinity from eternity, as the body does the soul, and likewise as the Word's natural meaning supports its spiritual and celestial meanings, on which subject see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 27-49. To be shown that feet symbolize something natural, see no. 49, and a pillar something that supports, no. 191.

Fire symbolizes love because spiritual fire is nothing else. Therefore it is customary in worship to pray that heavenly fire, that is to say, heavenly love, may kindle the worshipers' hearts. People know that there is a correspondence between fire and love from the fact that a person grows warm with love, and cold with its loss. Nothing else produces vital warmth but love, in both senses. The origin of these correspondences is owing to the existence of two suns, one in the heavens, which is pure love, and the other in the world, which is nothing but fire. This, too, is the reason for the correspondence between all spiritual and natural things.

[2] Since fire symbolizes Divine love, therefore on Mount Horeb Jehovah appeared to Moses in a bush on fire (Exodus 3:1-3). Moreover He descended upon Mount Sinai in fire (Deuteronomy 4:36). For this reason, too, the seven lamps of the lampstand in the Tabernacle were lit every evening, so as to burn before Jehovah (Leviticus 24:2-4). For the same reason fire burned continually on the altar and was not extinguished (Leviticus 6:13), and the priests took fire from the altar in their censers and burned incense (Leviticus 16:12-13).

Therefore Jehovah went before the children of Israel by night in a pillar of fire (Exodus 13:21-22). Fire from heaven consumed the burnt offerings on the altar, as a sign of His being well pleased (Leviticus 9:24, 1 Kings 18:38). The burnt offerings were called offerings by fire to Jehovah, and offerings by fire for a restful aroma to Jehovah (Exodus 29:18; Leviticus 1:9, 13, 17; 2:2, 9-11; 3:5, 16; 4:35; 5:12; 7:30; 21:6; Numbers 28:2; Deuteronomy 18:1).

Therefore in the book of Revelation the Lord's eyes looked like a flame of fire (Revelation 1:14; 2:18; 19:12, cf. Daniel 10:5-6). And seven lamps of fire burned before the throne (Revelation 4:5).

It is apparent from this what lamps containing oil and lamps without oil symbolize (Matthew 25:1-11). The oil means fire, and thus love.

And so on in many other places.

In an opposite sense fire symbolizes hellish love, and this is plain from so many passages in the Word that it would be impossible to cite them all because of their number. See something on the subject in the book Heaven and Hell, published in London, nos. 566-575.

191. "'I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God.'" This symbolically means that the truths they possess, springing from goodness derived from the Lord, sustain the Lord's church in heaven.

A temple symbolizes the church, and the temple of My God symbolizes the Lord's church in heaven. It is apparent from this that a pillar symbolizes what sustains and stabilizes the church, and that is the Divine truth in the Word.

In the highest sense, a temple symbolizes the Lord in respect to His Divine humanity, particularly in respect to Divine truth. In a representative sense, however, a temple symbolizes the Lord's church in heaven, and so also the Lord's church in the world.

That a temple in the highest sense symbolizes the Lord in respect to His Divine humanity, and particularly in respect to Divine truth, is apparent from the following passages:

(Jesus said to the Jews,) "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." ...He was speaking of the temple of His body. (John 2:19, 21)

I saw no temple in (the New Jerusalem), for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. (Revelation 21:22)

Behold..., the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, and the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire. (Malachi 3:1)

I will bow myself toward Your holy temple... (Psalms 138:2)

...I will look again toward Your holy temple... And my prayer went to You, to Your holy temple. (Jonah 2:4, 7)

Jehovah is in His holy temple. (Habakkuk 2:20)

The holy temple of Jehovah or of the Lord is His Divine humanity, for it is to this that people bow, look to, and pray, and not to the temple merely, as the temple is not, in itself, holy. It is called a holy temple, because holiness is predicated of Divine truth (no. 173).

"The temple that sanctifies the gold" in Matthew 23:16-17 means nothing else than the Lord's Divine humanity.

[2] That a temple in a representative sense symbolizes the Lord's church in heaven, is apparent from the following passages:

(The) voice (of Jehovah) from the temple...! (Isaiah 66:6)

...a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven... (Revelation 16:17)

The temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. (Revelation 11:19)

...the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. And out of the temple came the seven angels... And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God... (Revelation 15:5-6, 8)

I called upon Jehovah, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple... (Psalms 18:6)

I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and His skirts filled the temple. (Isaiah 6:1)

[3] That a temple symbolizes the church in the world is apparent from these passages:

Our holy... temple... has become a conflagration... (Isaiah 64:11)

I will shake all nations..., that I may fill this house with glory... The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the former... (Haggai 2:7, 9)

The new temple in Ezekiel 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48 describes a church to be established by the Lord. A church is also meant in Revelation 11:1 by the temple that the angel measured. So likewise elsewhere, as in Isaiah 44:28, Jeremiah 7:2-4, 9-11, Zechariah 8:9.

...the disciples (of Jesus) came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, ."..Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left... upon another, that shall not be demolished." (Matthew 24:1-2)

The temple here symbolizes the church today; and its demolition means, symbolically, that not one stone would be left upon another. This symbolizes the end of that church, when not any truth would remain. For when the disciples spoke with the Lord about the temple, the Lord foretold the consecutive states of this church, even to its last one, or the end of the age; and the end of the age means the final period of the church, which is the one that exists today. This was represented by the destruction of that temple to its foundations.

[4] A temple has these three symbolic meanings, namely the Lord, the church in heaven, and the church in the world. Because these three are bound up together, they cannot be separated. Consequently one cannot be meant without the other. Therefore anyone who divorces the church in the world from the church in heaven, or the one or the other from the Lord, is without the truth.

The temple here means the church in heaven, because reference to the church in the world follows after this (no. 194).