36. I became in the spirit on the Lord's day. (1:10) This symbolizes a spiritual state then owing to Divine influx.

"I became in the spirit" means, symbolically, a spiritual state, the state in which John was while he was experiencing the visions, and which we will take up in the following exposition. "On the Lord's day" symbolizes influx from the Lord then, for that day brings the Lord's presence, as it is a holy day.

Concerning the prophets we read that they were in the spirit or in vision, and that the Word came to them from Jehovah.

When they were in the spirit or in vision, they were not in the body, but in their spirit, a state in which they saw phenomena such as are found in heaven. But when the Word came to them, they were then in the body and heard Jehovah speaking.

These two states of the prophets must be properly distinguished. In the state of vision the eyes of their spirit were open and the eyes of their body closed; and they heard then what angels said, and what Jehovah said through angels, and also saw representations produced for them in heaven. Moreover, they sometimes seemed to themselves to be taken then from place to place, their body remaining where it was.

[2] This was the state in which John was when he wrote the book of Revelation, and the state sometimes experienced by Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel. They also said that they were then in vision or in the spirit. For Ezekiel says,

The Spirit lifted me up... and brought me back into Chaldea, to those in captivity, in a vision (of God), in the spirit of God. (Thus) went up from me the vision that I had seen. (Ezekiel 11:1, 24)

He also says that the Spirit lifted him up, and he heard behind him an earthquake, and more (Ezekiel 3:12, 24). So, too, that the Spirit lifted him up between earth and heaven, that it brought him in visions of God to Jerusalem, and that he saw abominations (Ezekiel 8:3f.). He was likewise in a vision of God or in the spirit when he saw the four living creatures, which were cherubim (Ezekiel 1; 10), as also when he saw a new earth and a new temple, and an angel measuring them (Ezekiel 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48). That he was then in the visions of God, he himself says (Ezekiel 40:2), and that the spirit lifted him up (Ezekiel 43:5).

[3] The same was the case with Zechariah, who had an angel with him at the time, when he saw a man riding a horse among the myrtle trees (Zechariah 1:8ff.); when he saw the four horns, and then a man with a measuring line in his hand (Zechariah 1:18; 2:1ff.); when he saw Joshua the high priest (Zechariah 3:1ff.); when he saw the lampstand and two olive trees (Zechariah 4:1ff.); when he saw the flying scroll and the ephah (Zechariah 5:1, 6); when he saw the four chariots coming from between two mountains, and the horses (Zechariah 6:1ff.).

Daniel was in a like state when he saw the four beasts coming up from the sea (Daniel 7:1ff.), and when he saw the combat between the ram and the male goat (Daniel 8:1ff.). He himself says that he saw these things in visions (Daniel 7:1-2, 7, 13; 8:2; 10:1, 7-8), and that the angel Gabriel appeared to him in a vision (Daniel 9:21).

[4] The same was the case with John, as when he saw the Son of Man in the midst of the seven lampstands (Revelation 1), and finally, the new heaven and the new earth, and then the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven (Revelation 21, 22. John himself says that he saw these things in the spirit and in vision (1:10; 4:2; 9:17; 21:10). This, too, is meant by the statement, "I saw," everywhere it occurs in this book.

[5] It is clearly apparent from this that to be in the spirit is to be in a state of vision, which is brought about by an opening of the sight of a person's spirit; and when this is opened, phenomena found in the spiritual world are as clearly visible as those in the natural world are to the sight of the body.

The reality of this is something I can attest to from many years' experience.

The disciples were in this state when they saw the Lord after His resurrection, which is why are told that their eyes were opened (Luke 24:30-31).

Abraham was in a like state when he saw the three angels and spoke with them. ¹

So, too, Hagar, Gideon, Joshua and others, when they saw angels of Jehovah. Likewise when Elisha's lad saw the mountain full of fiery chariots and horses all around Elisha, for Elisha prayed and said,

"Jehovah, open, I pray, his eyes that he may see." And Jehovah opened the eyes of the lad, and he saw. (2 Kings 6:17)

As regards the Word, however, it was not revealed in a state of the spirit or of vision, but the Lord dictated it to the prophets in an audible voice. Consequently we are nowhere told that the prophets spoke it from the Holy Spirit, but from Jehovah. See The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, no. 53.

Imibhalo yaphansi:

49. His feet were like fine brass, as though fired in a furnace. (1:15) This symbolizes natural Divine good.

The Lord's feet symbolize His natural Divinity. Fire or being fired symbolizes goodness. And fine brass symbolizes the natural goodness of truth. Consequently the feet of the Son of Man like fine brass, as though fired in a furnace, symbolize natural Divine good.

His feet have this symbolic meaning because of their correspondence.

Present in the Lord, and so emanating from the Lord, are a celestial Divinity, a spiritual Divinity, and a natural Divinity. His celestial Divinity is meant by the head of the Son of Man; His spiritual Divinity by His eyes and by His breast girded with a golden girdle; and His natural Divinity by His feet.

[2] Because these three elements are present in the Lord, therefore the same three are also present in the angelic heaven. The third or highest heaven exists on the celestial Divine level, the second or middle heaven on the spiritual Divine level, and the first or lowest heaven on the natural Divine level. The like is the case with the church on earth. For the whole of heaven is, in the Lord's sight, like a single person, in which those who are governed by the Lord's celestial Divinity form the head, and those who are governed by His spiritual Divinity form the trunk, while those who are governed by His natural Divinity form the feet.

For this reason, too, every person, having been created in the image of God, has in him the same three degrees, and as they are opened he becomes an angel either of the third heaven, or of the second, or of the last.

It is owing to this also that the Word contains three levels of meaning - a celestial one, a spiritual one, and a natural one.

The reality of this may be seen in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, particularly in Part Three, in which we discussed these three degrees.

To be shown that feet, the soles of the feet, and heels correspond to natural attributes in people, and that in the Word, therefore, they symbolize natural attributes, see in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), published in London, nos. 2162 and 4938-4952.

[3] Natural Divine good is also symbolically meant by feet in the following passages. In Daniel:

I lifted my eyes and looked; behold, a... man clothed in linen garments, whose loins were girded with the gold of Uphaz! And his body was like beryl, and... his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and his feet like the sheen of burnished bronze. (Daniel 10:5-6)

In the book of Revelation:

I saw... an angel coming down from heaven, ...his feet like pillars of fire. (Revelation 10:1)

And in Ezekiel:

(The feet of the cherubim) sparkled like the sheen of burnished bronze. (Ezekiel 1:7)

Angels and cherubim so appeared for the reason that the Lord's Divinity was represented in them.

[4] Since the Lord's church exists below the heavens, thus under the Lord's feet, it is therefore called His footstool in the following places:

The glory of Lebanon shall come to you..., to beautify the place of My sanctuary; ...I will make the place of My feet honorable. And... they shall bow themselves at the soles of your feet. (Isaiah 60:13-14)

Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. (Isaiah 66:1)

(God) does not remember His footstool in the day of His anger. (Lamentations 2:1)

...worship (Jehovah) in the direction of His footstool. (Psalms 99:5)

Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah (Bethlehem).... We will go into His dwelling places, we will bow ourselves at His footstool. (Psalms 132:6-7)

That is why worshipers fell at the Lord's feet (Matthew 28:9, Mark 5:22, Luke 8:41, John 11:32), and why they kissed His feet and wiped them with their hair (Luke 7:37-38, 44-46, John 11:2; 12:3).

[5] Because feet symbolize the natural self, therefore the Lord said to Peter, when He washed Peter's feet,

He who is washed needs only to have his feet washed, and he is completely clean. (John 13:10)

To wash the feet is to purify the natural self. When it has been purified, the whole self also is purified, as we showed many times in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), and in The Doctrines of the New Jerusalem. ¹ The natural self, which is also the outer self, is purified when it refrains from the evils which the spiritual or inner self sees to be evils and ones to be shunned.

[6] Now because the feet mean the natural component of a person, and this perverts everything if it is not washed or purified, therefore the Lord says,

If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, rather than to have two feet and be cast into hell, into the unquenchable fire... (Mark 9:45)

The foot here does not mean the foot, but the natural self.

The like is meant by treading down the good pasture with the feet and troubling waters with the feet (Ezekiel 32:2; 34:18-19, Daniel 7:7, 19, and elsewhere).

[7] Since the Son of Man means the Lord in relation to the Word, it is apparent that His feet mean the Word in its natural sense as well, which we dealt with at length in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, and also that the Lord came into the world to fulfill everything in the Word and to become thereby an embodiment of the Word, even in its outmost expressions (The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 98-100). But this is a secret for people who will be in the New Jerusalem.

[8] The Lord's natural Divinity was also symbolized by the bronze serpent that Moses was commanded to set up in the wilderness, so that all who had been bitten by serpents were healed by looking at it (Numbers 21:6, 8-9). That this symbolized the Lord's natural Divinity, and that those people are saved who look to it, the Lord Himself teaches in John:

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:14-15)

The serpent was made of bronze because bronze, like fine brass, symbolizes the natural self in respect to good, as may be seen in no. 775 below.

Imibhalo yaphansi: