307. In the celestial sense father means our Lord Jesus Christ, and mother means the communion of saints, that is, His church scattered throughout the world. It is clear from the following passages that the Lord is father:

A child is born for us, a son is given to us, whose name is God, Hero, the everlasting father, the Prince of peace, Isaiah 9:6.

You are our father. Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us. You are our father, our Redeemer from eternity is your name, Isaiah 63:16.

Philip said, Show us the Father; Jesus says to him, He who sees me sees the Father. Why then do you say, Show us the Father? Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, John 14:8-11; 12:45.

It is clear from the following passages that mother in this sense means the Lord's church:

I saw the holy city the New Jerusalem arrayed like a bride adorned for her husband, Revelation 21:2.

The angel said to John, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb; and he showed me the city, the holy Jerusalem, Revelation 21:9-10.

The time has come for the wedding of the Lamb, and his wife has made ready; blessed are those who are invited to the wedding-feast of the Lamb, Revelation 19:7, 9. (See further Matthew 9:15; Mark 2:19-20; Luke 5:34-35; John 3:29; 19:25-27.)

On the New Jerusalem meaning the new church now being established by the Lord, see Apocalypse Revealed (800, 881). It is this church, not the earlier one, which is wife and mother in this sense. The spiritual offspring born of this marriage are the various kinds of good which constitute charity, and the truths which constitute faith; and those whom the Lord puts in possession of these are called 'sons of the wedding,' 'sons of God,' and 'born of God.'

800. "Because by your sorcery all the nations were led astray." This symbolizes the nefarious arts and cunning schemes of those higher in the Roman Catholic hierarchy by which they turned the hearts of all away from a reverent worship of the Lord to a profane worship of people, living and dead, and of icons.

The sorcery by which they led all the nations astray symbolizes the nefarious arts and cunning schemes by which those higher in the Roman Catholic hierarchy deluded people and persuaded the people to worship and adore them instead of the Lord, thus as though they were the Lord. And because the Lord is God of heaven and earth, as He Himself teaches in Matthew 28:18, they persuaded the people to worship and adore them as though they were gods. (That these Roman Catholics transferred the Lord's Divine authority to themselves may be seen in no. 798 above.) Moreover, because this is the symbolic meaning of these words, they also symbolically mean that those higher in the Roman Catholic hierarchy used these nefarious arts and cunning schemes to draw the hearts of all away from reverent worship of the Lord to a profane worship of men, living and dead, and of icons.

That they are still going to have this as their end, and will continue to have it as their end in the spiritual world, is something we have said and shown before. It is described in Isaiah in this way:

Stand fast... in your enchantments (O Babylon) and in the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth. Perhaps you will be able to profit, perhaps you will inspire terror. You have become wearied in the multitude of your counsels; let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators now stand up and save you... Behold, they have become as stubble. Fire has burnt them. They shall not deliver their souls from the reach of the flame... Such have become... your merchants from your youth; each has wandered off from his quarter. There is no one to save you. (Isaiah 47:12-15)