AR 537-540 - The Red Dragon With Seven Heads, Ten Horns, and Seven Jewels

AR 537 [1 , 2, 3, 4]

Behold, a great, fiery red dragon.
(Revelation 12:3)

This symbolizes people
in the Protestant Reformed Church
who make God three entities and the Lord two,
and who divorce charity from faith,
making faith saving
and not at the same time charity.

These are the people meant by the dragon here
and in the following verses.
For they are antagonistic
to the two essential elements of the New Church,
namely, that God is one in essence and person,
in whom is the Trinity,
and that that God is the Lord;
moreover, that charity and faith are one,
like an essence and its form,
and that only those people possess charity and faith
who live in accordance with the Ten Commandments,
which teach that evils are not to be done.
To the extent anyone does not do evils then,
by refraining from them as sins against God,
to the same extent he does goods
which are goods of charity
and believes truths that are truths of faith.

Everyone who considers it can see
that people who make God three entities
and the Lord two,
and who divorce charity from faith,
making faith saving and not at the same time charity,
are antagonistic to
these two essential elements of the New Church.

The dragon is called great because,
with the exception of some people here and there
who do not believe in the same way
regarding the Trinity and faith,
all the Protestant Reformed churches
distinguish God into three persons
and make faith alone saving.
People who distinguish God into three persons
and cling to this statement in the Athanasian Creed,
"There is one Person of the Father,
another of the Son,
and another of the Holy Spirit,"
and also to this,
"The Father is God,
the Son is God,
and the Holy Spirit is God" -
these people, I say,
cannot make one God out of three.
They can indeed say they are one God,
but they cannot think it.

By the same token
people who think of the Lord's Divinity from eternity
as a second person in the Godhead,
and of His humanity in time
as being like the humanity of any other person,
cannot help but make the Lord two entities,
despite the statement in the Athanasian Creed
that His Divinity and humanity are one person,
united like soul and body.

The dragon is called fiery red
because a fiery red color symbolizes
falsity arising from the evils attendant on lusts,
which is a falsity of hell.

AR 538
Having seven heads.
(Revelation 12:3)

This symbolizes irrationality
owing to their falsifying and profaning
the Word's truths.

A head symbolizes wisdom and intelligence,
and in an opposite sense, irrationality.
However, the seven heads here,
being the heads of the dragon,
symbolize more specifically irrationality owing to
a falsification and profanation of the Word's truths.
For the number seven
is predicated of things that are holy,
and in an opposite sense,
of things that are profane.
Consequently we are told next
that on its heads were seen seven jewels,
and jewels symbolize the Word's truths,
there truths falsified and profaned.

AR 539

And ten horns.
(Revelation 12:3)

This symbolizes much power.
A horn symbolizes power,
and the number ten symbolizes much.

The dragon is said to have much power
because the salvation of mankind
by faith alone apart from works of the Law -
the faith meant by the dragon -
captivates hearts,
and then arguments in support of it persuade them.
It captivates, indeed,
because when a person hears
that the condemnation of the Law
has been taken away
and that the Lord's merit
is imputed to him simply by faith in that fact,
he can indulge the appetites of his heart and body,
without any fear of hell.
This gives that faith power,
which is symbolized by the dragon's ten horns.
That it has had that power
is clearly apparent from the acceptance of that faith
throughout the whole
Protestant Reformed Christian world.

AR 540

And seven jewels on its heads.
(Revelation 12:3)

Jewels or precious stones
symbolize the Word's truths,
specifically truths in the Word's literal meaning,
but here those truths falsified and profaned
because the jewels were seen
on the dragon's seven heads,
which symbolize irrationality
owing to a falsification and profanation of truths.