Apocalypse Revealed #206
206. "'Because you say, "I am rich and wealthy."'" (3:17) This symbolically means, because they believe they possess in great abundance concepts of goodness and truth having to do with the church and heaven.
To be rich and wealthy means, symbolically, nothing else here than to have full knowledge and understanding of such things as have to do with the church and heaven, things which are called spiritual and theological, because they are the subject here. Spiritual riches and wealth are nothing else.
People who base their beliefs on their own thinking, and not on the Lord through the Word, also believe that they know and understand everything. That is because their spiritual mind is closed and only their natural mind open, and without spiritual light the natural mind has no other sight.
That riches and wealth in the Word symbolize spiritual riches and wealth, which are concepts of truth and goodness, is apparent from the following passages:
By your wisdom and your intelligence you have gained riches for yourself..., gold and silver in your treasuries; by the increase of your wisdom... you have increased your riches... (Ezekiel 28:4-5)
This is said of Tyre, which symbolizes the church in respect to its concepts of truth and good. Similarly:
The daughter of Tyre (the daughter of the king) (will bring you) a gift; the rich among the people will seek to placate your face. (Psalms 45:12)
...(Jehovah) will impoverish (Tyre); He will destroy its wealth in the sea... (Zechariah 9:4)
They will plunder (O Tyre) your riches... (Ezekiel 26:12)
(Asshur said,) "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am intelligent...; (therefore) I... will plunder the treasures of the peoples... My hand will find... the wealth of the peoples...." (Isaiah 10:13-14)
Asshur symbolizes the rational faculty - here that it perverts the goods and truths of the church, which are the treasures and wealth of the peoples that it will plunder.
I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places... (Isaiah 45:3)
Blessed is the man who fears Jehovah... Wealth and riches will be in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. (Psalms 112:1, 3)
(God) has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. (Luke 1:53)
...woe to you who are rich, for you have received your joy. Woe to you who are filled, for you shall hunger. (Luke 6:24-25)
The rich here mean people who possessed concepts of truth and good because they had the Word, namely the Jews. So, too, the "rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen" (Luke 16:19).
The rich and riches have a similar meaning elsewhere, as in Isaiah 30:6; Jeremiah 17:11; Micah 4:13; 6:12; Zechariah 14:14; Matthew 12:35; 13:44; Luke 12:21.
Ezekiel 28
1
The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
2
Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a GOD, I sit in the seat of GOD, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not GOD, though thou set thine heart as the heart of GOD:
3
Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
4
With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:
5
By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
6
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of GOD;
7
Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.
8
They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
9
Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
10
Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
11
Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
12
Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17
Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18
Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
19
All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
20
Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
21
Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,
22
And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.
23
For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
24
And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
25
Thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.
26
And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.
