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Then I looked, and behold,
a Lamb standing on Mount Zion,
and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand.
(Revelation 14:1)
This symbolizes the Lord now present
in a new heaven composed
of people in the Christian churches
who acknowledged the Lord alone
as God of heaven and earth,
and had doctrinal truths
springing from the goodness of love
received from Him through the Word.
. . . The Lamb means the Lord
in respect to His Divine humanity.
Mount Zion symbolizes a heaven
where the inhabitants are people . . ..
One hundred and forty-four thousand
symbolizes all those people
who acknowledge the Lord alone
as God of heaven and earth
and have doctrinal truths springing from
the goodness of love received
from Him through the Word.
.
. . The heaven that is the subject here
is a heaven composed of Christians
from the time the Lord was in the world,
and formed of those
who approached the Lord alone
and lived in accordance with
His commandments in the Word
by shunning evils as sins against God.
This heaven is the new heaven
from which the holy Jerusalem, or New Church,
will descend on earth (Revelation 21:1-2).
The heavens that existed before the Lord's advent
are above it and are called the ancient heavens.
The people in them also all acknowledge
the Lord alone as God of heaven and earth.
Those heavens communicate with this new heaven
through influx.
People
know that the land of Canaan
symbolizes the church,
because the Word existed there,
and by it the Lord was known.
Moreover, in the middle of it was the city of Zion,
and below it the city of Jerusalem,
both situated on the mountain.
Zion and Jerusalem symbolized, therefore,
the innermost elements of the church.
And because the church in the heavens
goes hand in hand with the church on earth,
therefore the church in both places
is meant by Zion and Jerusalem -
Zion meaning the church as to love,
and Jerusalem the church
as to its accompanying doctrine.
The mountain is called Zion,
because a mountain symbolizes love
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