897. 21:11 Having the glory of God, and its light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, bright as crystal. This symbolically means that in that church the Word will be understood, because its spiritual sense will come shining through.

The glory of God symbolizes the Word in its Divine light, as will be seen next. Its light symbolizes the Divine truth in it, for this is the meaning of light in the Word (no. 796). "Like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, bright as crystal," symbolizes the Word shining and translucent because of its spiritual sense, as will also be seen next.

These words describe the understanding of the Word among people who possess the doctrine of the New Jerusalem and live in accordance with it. In their case the Word seems to shine when they read it. It shines because of the Lord's presence in the midst of the spiritual sense, because the Lord embodies the Word, and the spiritual sense exists in the light of heaven that emanates from the Lord as its sun. Moreover, the light that emanates from the Lord as a sun is in its essence the Divine truth of His Divine wisdom.

Every single thing in the Word contains a spiritual meaning, which angels see and from which they have their wisdom, and the light of that spiritual sense comes shining through with people who possess genuine truths from the Lord, as we showed in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture.

[2] That the glory of God means the Word in its Divine light can be seen from the following passage:

The Word became flesh..., and we beheld His glory, the glory as though of the only begotten of the Father... (John 1:14)

That the glory is the glory of the Word, or the Divine truth in the Lord, is plain, since it says, "The Word became flesh."

Glory has the same meaning in verse 23 below, where it says, "the glory of God illuminated it, and the Lamb is its lamp" (Revelation 21:23).

The same is meant by the glory in which people will see the Son of Man when He comes in the clouds of heaven (Matthew 24:30, Mark 13:26). See nos. 22, 642, 820 above.

Nor is anything else meant by the throne of glory on which the Lord will sit when He comes to execute the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:31), because He will judge everyone in accordance with the Word's truths. Therefore we are told as well that He will come in His glory.

We are, moreover, told that after the Lord was transfigured, Moses and Elijah appeared in glory (Luke 9:30-31). Moses and Elijah there symbolize the Word. The Lord Himself also then caused Himself to appear to the disciples as the Word in its glory.

To be shown that glory symbolizes Divine truth, more citations from the Word may be seen in no. 629 above.

[3] The Word is likened to a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, bright as crystal, because a precious stone symbolizes the Divine truth in the Word (nos. 231, 540, 726, 823), and a jasper stone symbolizes the Divine truth in the spiritual sense shining through the Divine truth in the literal sense. This is the symbolic meaning of jasper stone in Exodus 28:20, Ezekiel 28:13, and in the following verses in the present chapter, where we are told that the construction of the wall of the holy Jerusalem was of jasper (verse 18). Moreover, because the Word's spiritual sense shines through in its literal sense, we are told that the jasper stone was as bright as crystal. All enlightenment that people have who possess Divine truths from the Lord comes from that.

820. 19:11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. This symbolizes the spiritual sense of the Word revealed by the Lord and the deeper meaning of the Word thereby disclosed, which is the coming of the Lord.

Seeing heaven opened symbolizes a revelation by the Lord and a disclosure then, which we will take up below. A horse symbolizes an understanding of the Word, and a white horse a deeper understanding (no. 298). And because this is the symbolic meaning of a white horse, and a deeper understanding of the Word is an understanding of the spiritual sense, therefore that sense is here symbolized by the white horse.

This is the coming of the Lord, because that sense makes it clearly apparent that the Lord embodies the Word, that the Word deals with Him alone, that He is God of heaven and earth, and that the New Church originates from Him alone.

The Lord told His disciples that they would see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with glory and power (Matthew 17:5; 24:30; 26:64; Mark 14:61-62; Revelation 1:7; Acts of the Apostles 1:9, 11). And the Lord said this also when He spoke with His disciples about the culmination of the age, which is the final period of the church when a judgment takes place.

Everyone who does not think beyond the literal sense believes that when the Last Judgment arrives, the Lord will appear in clouds of the sky, accompanied by angels and the blowing of trumpets. But this is not the meaning. Rather it means that the Lord will appear in the Word, as can be seen from the exposition above in nos. 24 and 642, and He appears clearly in the Word's spiritual sense. He appears not only as being an embodiment of the Word, that is, of Divine truth itself, or as being inmostly present in the Word and in everything springing from it, but also as being a single God, having the Trinity in Him, thus as being the only God of heaven and earth. Moreover, it appears also that He came into the world to glorify His humanity, that is, to make it Divine.

[2] The humanity that the Lord glorified, that is, the humanity that He made Divine, was the natural humanity, which He could not glorify or make Divine except by taking on a humanity in a virgin in the natural world, to which He then united His Divinity which He had from eternity. This union was achieved by temptations suffered by the humanity He had taken on, the last of which was His suffering of the cross and at the same time His fulfilling all of the Word, not only by His fulfilling all of the Word in its natural sense, but also by His fulfilling all of the Word in its spiritual sense, and also in its celestial sense, which, as we said before, deals with Him alone.

But on this subject see what we disclosed in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, and in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture.

Now because the Lord embodies the Word, and the Word became flesh (John 1:1-2, 14), and the Word became flesh in order that He might fulfill it, it is apparent that the Lord's appearing on the clouds of heaven means His coming in the Word. That the clouds of heaven symbolize the Word in its literal sense may be seen in nos. 24 and 642 above.

It is apparent that it is the Lord's appearing in the Word that is meant, because the white horse symbolizes a deeper understanding of the Word, and we are told that the name of Him who sat on the horse is "The Word of God," and that His name is "King of kings and Lord of lords" (verses 13, 16).

[3] It is apparent from this now that John's seeing heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, symbolizes the spiritual sense of the Word revealed by the Lord and the deeper meaning of the Word thereby disclosed, which is the coming of the Lord.

That the Word's spiritual sense has at this day been revealed, which no one in the Christian world has previously known anything about, may be see in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), in which we expounded two of the books of Moses - Genesis and Exodus - in accordance with that sense. It may be seen also in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 5-26; in the short treatise, The White Horse, from beginning to end, and from the numbers collected there from Arcana Coelestia regarding the sacred scripture; and furthermore in this exposition of the book of Revelation, in which not even one little verse can be understood apart from its spiritual meaning.