64. The reason Jerusalem in the Word means the church in regard to its teachings is that that was the only place in the land of Canaan where the Temple was, where the altar was, where sacrifices were performed, and therefore where there was actual worship of God. That was also why the three annual feasts were celebrated there and why every male in the whole land was commanded to go there. This is why Jerusalem means the church in regard to worship and therefore also the church in regard to its teachings, since worship is defined by teachings and carried out in accord with them. It is also because the Lord was in Jerusalem and taught in its Temple and afterward glorified his human nature there.

Moreover, in the Word as spiritually understood a city means a body of teaching, so a holy city means a body of teaching based on divine truth that comes from the Lord. ¹

[2] We can also see that Jerusalem means a church in regard to its teachings from other passages in the Word, such as this in Isaiah:

For Zion’s sake I will not be silent and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest until her justice goes forth like radiance and her salvation burns like a lamp. Then the nations will see your justice and all monarchs will see your glory, and a new name will be given you that the mouth of Jehovah will utter. And you will be a crown of beauty in the hand of Jehovah and a diadem of the kingdom in the hand of your God. Jehovah will be well pleased with you and your land will be married. Behold, your salvation will come. See, his reward is with him. And they will call them a holy people, the redeemed of Jehovah; and you will be called a city sought out, not deserted. (Isaiah 62:1-4, 11-12)

This whole chapter is about the Lord’s Coming and about the new church that he is about to establish. This is the new church meant by the Jerusalem that will be given a new name that the mouth of Jehovah will utter and that will be a crown of beauty in the hand of Jehovah and a diadem of the kingdom in the hand of God, with which Jehovah will be well pleased, and which will be called a city sought out, not deserted. This cannot mean the Jerusalem where Jews were living when the Lord came, because this was the opposite in all respects, more properly called “Sodom, ” as it is in Revelation 11:8, Isaiah 3:9, Jeremiah 23:14, Ezekiel 16:46, 48.

[3] Another passage from Isaiah:

Behold, I am creating a new heaven and a new earth; the former ones will not be remembered. Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating. Behold, I am going to create Jerusalem as a rejoicing and her people as a gladness, so that I may rejoice over Jerusalem and be glad about my people. Then the wolf and the lamb will feed together; they will do no evil in all my holy mountain. (Isaiah 65:17-19, 25)

This chapter too is about the Lord’s Coming and the church that he is going to establish-a church that was not established among people in Jerusalem but among people who were outside it. This church, then, is meant by the Jerusalem that would be a rejoicing for the Lord and whose people will be a gladness for him, and where the wolf and the lamb will feed together, and where they will do no evil.

Here it is also saying, as it does in the Book of Revelation, that the Lord is going to create a new heaven and a new earth, meaning much the same thing; and it also says that he is going to create Jerusalem.

[4] Another passage from Isaiah:

Wake up! Wake up! Put on your strength, O Zion. Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, holy city. No more will the uncircumcised or the unclean come into you. Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, and sit [in a higher place], Jerusalem. The people will acknowledge my name on that day, because I am the one saying “Here I am!” Jehovah has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem. (Isaiah 52:1-2, 6, 9)

This chapter too is about the Lord’s Coming and the church that he is going to establish. So the Jerusalem into which the uncircumcised or the unclean will no longer come, and which the Lord will redeem, means the church; and Jerusalem the holy city means the church’s teachings that come from the Lord.

[5] In Zephaniah:

Rejoice, O daughter of Zion! Be glad with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The King of Israel is in your midst. Do not fear evil anymore. He will be glad over you with joy; he will rest in your love; he will rejoice over you with singing. I will give you a name and praise among all the peoples of the earth. (Zephaniah 3:14-17, 20)

Again, this is about the Lord and the church from him, the church over which the King of Israel (who is the Lord) will rejoice with singing and be glad with joy, in whose love he will be at rest, and to whom he will give a name and praise among all the peoples of the earth.

[6] In Isaiah:

Thus says Jehovah your Redeemer and your Maker, who says to Jerusalem, “You will be inhabited,” and to the cities of Judah, “You will be built.” (Isaiah 44:24, 26)

And in Daniel:

Know and understand: from [the time] the word goes forth that Jerusalem must be restored and built until [the time of] Messiah the Leader will be seven weeks. (Daniel 9:25)

We can see that here too Jerusalem means the church because this latter was restored and built up by the Lord, but Jerusalem, the capital city of the Jews, was not.

[7] Jerusalem means the church that comes from the Lord also in the following passages. In Zechariah:

Thus says Jehovah: “I will return to Zion and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Jerusalem will be called the city of truth, and the mountain of Jehovah Sabaoth will be called the holy mountain.” (Zechariah 8:3; see also 8:20-23)

In Joel:

Then you will know that I am Jehovah your God, dwelling on Zion, my holy mountain. Jerusalem will be holy. And on that day it will happen that the mountains will drip with new wine and the hills will flow with milk; and Jerusalem will abide from generation to generation. (Joel 3:17-21)

In Isaiah:

On that day the branch of Jehovah will be beautiful and glorious. And it will happen that those remaining in Zion and those left in Jerusalem will be called holy-all who are written as alive in Jerusalem. (Isaiah 4:2-3)

In Micah:

At the very last of days the mountain of the house of Jehovah will be established on the top of the mountains. Teaching will go forth from Zion and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. To you the former kingdom will come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. (Micah 4:1-2, 8)

In Jeremiah:

At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of Jehovah, and all nations will gather at Jerusalem because of the name of Jehovah. They will no longer follow the stubbornness of their own evil heart. (Jeremiah 3:17)

In Isaiah:

Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts! Your eyes will see Jerusalem as a peaceful abode and as a tabernacle that will not be taken down; its tent pegs will never be removed and not one of its cords will be torn away. (Isaiah 33:20)

There are other passages elsewhere, such as Isaiah 24:23; 37:32; 66:10-14; Zechariah 12:3, 6, 9-10; 14:8, 11-12, 21; Malachi 3:2, 4; Psalms 122:1-7; 137:4-6.

[8] As for Jerusalem in these passages meaning the church that the Lord was going to establish and that has in fact been established, and not the Jerusalem in the land of Canaan that was inhabited by Jews, this too we can tell from the places in the Word where this latter city is described as totally lost and as destined for destruction, passages such as Jeremiah 5:1; 6:6-7; 7:17-18, and following; 8:6-8, and following; 9:10-11, 13, and following; 13:9-10, 14; 14:16; Lamentations 1:8-9, 17; Ezekiel 4:1; 5:9; 12:18-19; 15:6-8; 16:1-63; 23:1-49; Matthew 23:37, 39; Luke 19:41-44; 21:20-22; 23:28-30; and in many other places.

脚注:

4493. 'And they circumcised every male, all who went out of the gate of his city' means the acceptance of externalities. This is clear from the meaning of 'circumcising every male' as being introduced into the representatives and meaningful signs of that people (that is, into those of Jacob's descendants) - solely into the external observances involved in these, dealt with in 4486; and from the meaning of 'going out of the gate of the city' as departing from the doctrine of the Church among the Ancients, dealt with immediately above in 4492. And as the departure from doctrine and the acceptance of externalities is meant, the expression 'those who went out of the gate of his city' occurs twice, without any reference at the same time, as is so elsewhere, to those who went into it. For 'going in' means an acceptance of doctrine and a departure from externalities; but the reverse of this is described here.

[2] The implications of this must now be stated. Members of the Most Ancient Church, the remnants of which Hamor and Shechem with their families were a part, had an entirely different mental constitution and different disposition from adherents to the Ancient Church. The will in the case of the members of the Most Ancient Church contained that which was whole; but this was not so with adherents to the Ancient Church. Because of this the Lord was able with members of the Most Ancient Church to flow in through the will, and therefore by an internal way, but not so with adherents to the Ancient Church, since in these the will had been destroyed. But the Lord flowed into their understanding, and so not by an internal way but by an external one, as stated above in 4489. Flowing in through the will involves flowing in through the good of love, for all good belongs to the will part of the mind, whereas flowing in through the understanding involves flowing in through the truth of faith, for all truth belongs to the understanding part. Within the latter - the understanding - the Lord formed, in the case of adherents to the Ancient Church, a new will when He regenerated them. For goods and truths were implanted in the will part of the mind of members of the Most Ancient Church, see 895, 927, but in the understanding part of that of adherents to the Ancient Church, 863, 875, 895, 927, 2124, 2256, 4328. The new will is formed within the understanding part of the mind, 928, 1023, 1043, 1044, 4328. A parallelism exists between the Lord and the good residing with man, but not between Him and the truth there, 1831, 1832, 2718, 3514. As a consequence adherents to the Ancient Church dwelt in obscurity compared with members of the Most Ancient, 2708, 2715, 2935, 2937, 3246, 3833. From all this it may be seen that members of the Most Ancient Church had an entirely different mental constitution and different disposition from adherents to the Ancient Church.

[3] It was for this reason that those who belonged to the Most Ancient Church were internal people and had no external forms of worship, while those who belonged to the Ancient Church were external people and did have them. For the former saw external things in the light of internal ones, as if by the light of the sun in the daytime, whereas the latter saw internal things in the light of external ones, as if by the light of the moon or stars at night. This also explains why the Lord is seen by the former in heaven as the Sun, but by the latter as the Moon, 1521, 1529-1531, 2441, 2495, 4060. The former are those who in explanations above are called celestial, the latter those who are called spiritual.

[4] To illustrate the essential difference between the two let an example be taken. If a member of the Most Ancient Church had read the Word, the historical or the prophetical, he would have seen its internal sense without prior instruction or any explanation. He would have seen it so perfectly that the celestial and spiritual things belonging to the internal sense would have instantly met his eyes, and scarcely anything belonging to the sense of the letter. Thus the internal sense would have been for him in brightness, but the sense of the letter in obscurity. He would be like someone listening to a person speaking, and taking in only the sense and paying no attention to the words used by the speaker. But if a member of the Ancient Church had read the Word he would not have been able, without prior instruction or explanation, to see its internal sense, and so the internal sense would have been for him in obscurity but the sense of the letter in brightness. He would be like someone listening to a person speaking and in thought hanging on to the words used by him, all the while paying no attention to the sense of them, which would therefore be lost on him. But when a member of the Jewish Church reads the Word he does not understand anything beyond the sense of the letter. He does not know of and also denies the existence of any internal sense. And it is similar with the member of the Christian Church at the present day.

[5] These considerations show the essential difference between those represented here by Hamor and Shechem who, being part of the remnants of the Most Ancient Church, were interested in internal things and not in external ones, and those meant by the sons of Jacob who were interested in external things and not in internal ones. Those considerations show in addition that Hamor and Shechem could not have acceded to external things and accepted those which existed among the sons of Jacob unless their internals were closed. But if these had been closed they would have perished for ever.

[6] This is the hidden reason why Hamor and Shechem with their families were slain, a deed that would not otherwise have been allowed. Not that this absolves the sons of Jacob from blame for having committed that hideous crime. They had no knowledge of that hidden reason, nor did they have that as their end in view. Everyone is judged according to the end he has in view, that is, his intention; and it is plainly stated in verse 13 that their intention was deceitful. When the Lord allows any such crime as this it is carried out by the evil and by those in hell who instigate it. But all evil which the evil intend and do to the good the Lord converts into good, as is the case here in that Hamor and Shechem with their families were [eternally] saved.