630. "And worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water." This symbolically means that the Lord alone is to be worshiped, because He alone is the Creator, Savior, and Redeemer, and because the angelic heaven and the church and everything in them originate from Him alone.

To worship means, symbolically, to acknowledge as holy, as may be seen in nos. 579, 580, 588, 603 above. Consequently, when said in reference to the Lord, to worship means, symbolically, to acknowledge as God of heaven and earth and to worship. To make heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water, in the natural sense means to create them, but in the spiritual sense it symbolically means to form the angelic heaven and the church and everything in them. For heaven symbolizes, in the spiritual sense, the angelic heaven; the earth and the sea symbolize in that sense the internal church and the external church (nos. 403, 404, 420, 470); and springs of water symbolize all the Word's truths that serve the church for its doctrine and life (no. 409).

[2] The Creator, Jehovah, is the Lord from eternity, and the Savior and Redeemer is the Lord born in time, thus the Lord in respect to His Divine humanity, as can be seen from beginning to end in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord.

Who cannot understand that one God is the creator of the universe, and that there are not three creators? And that creation has as its goal a heaven and church from the human race? (On which subject see Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence, nos. 27-45.) So it is that in the spiritual sense to make heaven and the earth means, symbolically, to form the angelic heaven and the church.

This is said for the same reason as in no. 613 above, where we explain what is symbolically meant by having the name of the Father written on their foreheads. And because that was said there, therefore it says here, "worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water."

603. And cause whoever does not worship the image of the beast to be killed. This symbolically means that the clergy pronounce damnation on people who do not acknowledge their doctrine of faith as a sacred doctrine of the church.

To worship the image of the beast means, symbolically, to acknowledge their doctrine of faith as sacred church doctrine; for to worship means, symbolically, to acknowledge as a sacred tenet of the church (nos. 579, 580, 588, 597), and the image of the beast symbolizes that doctrine. To be killed means, symbolically, to be spiritually killed, which is to be damned (no. 325 and elsewhere). And because to be killed means, symbolically, to be damned, it also means to be declared a heretic and to be excommunicated from the church. For in their eyes a heretic is regarded as damned.

This is the case with the learned of the clergy, who have been taught the mysteries of justification in schools and universities. Especially is it the case with those possessing a conceit in their erudition because of the mysteries they have learned. These condemn all who do not think as they do, and to the extent they dare, they fulminate against them.

[2] I can relate the following, that clergy who have learned those mysteries and possessed a conceit in their erudition on that account, in the spiritual world are so hostile to people who worship the Lord and do not accept faith alone as the only means of salvation, that they break out into a blaze of anger and wrath when they see them, and also when from a distance they sense the Divine atmosphere of the Lord and the atmosphere of charity surrounding them.

Since that is their character, therefore the dragon is described as a most hostile foe to such people. As for example, that it stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her child as soon as it was born; that it spewed water out of its mouth like a flood after the woman, to cause her to be carried away by the flood; and that enraged with the woman, it went off to make war with the rest of her offspring (Revelation 12:4, 15, 17). That three unclean spirits, like frogs, came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, to gather their followers to the battle of the great day of God Almighty (Revelation 16:13-16, cf. 19:19-20; 20:8-10). And also that the beast ascending out of the bottomless pit killed the two witnesses and cast their bodies on the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, and would not allow their bodies to be put into tombs (Revelation 11:7-9). Not to permit their bodies to be put into tombs means, symbolically, to reject as damned (no. 506).