1. THE FAITH OF THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW CHURCH

A statement of faith, set out in both universal and particular terms, is placed at the beginning to serve as a preface to the book which follows, to be like a doorway leading into a church, and a summary presenting in a short compass what follows at more length. It is called the faith of the new heaven and the new church, because heaven, where the angels are, and the church among men form a single unit, just as the internal and external sides of the personality make up a single individual. This is why a member of the church who possesses the good of love which arises from the truths of faith, and possesses the truths of faith which arise from the good of love, is, so far as the interiors of his mind are concerned, an angel of heaven. Therefore too after dying he comes into heaven, and there enjoys happiness depending upon how far the good and truth are linked. It should be known that in the new heaven, which is at the present time being established by the Lord, this statement of faith serves as its preface, doorway and summary.

65. (vi) MAN WAS CREATED TO BE A FORM FOR DIVINE ORDER.

Man was created to be a form for Divine order, because he was created as an image and likeness of God; so since God is order itself, he was created as an image and likeness of order. The two factors which brought order into existence and preserve it in existence are the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom; and man was created to be a receiver of these. Consequently he was by creation endowed with the order according to which the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom act in the universe, and principally that according to which they act in the heaven of angels, so that this whole heaven is a form of Divine order on the largest scale, and in the sight of God it appears like one man. There is too a full correspondence between that heaven and man. For there is no community in heaven which does not correspond to some member, internal part or organ in the human body. So it is said in heaven that a certain community is in the province of the liver, or the pancreas, or the spleen, or the stomach, or the eye, or the ear, or the tongue, and so on. The angels themselves know under what part of the human body they come. The truth of this I was allowed to know by direct experience. I saw a community composed of some thousands of angels as one person. This showed plainly that heaven taken together is an image of God, and the image of God is a form of the Divine order.

217. (i) THE TRUTHS OF THE LITERAL SENSE OF THE WORD ARE MEANT BY THE PRECIOUS STONES FORMING THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NEW JERUSALEM IN (Revelation 21:17-21).

I mentioned above (209) that in the spiritual world precious stones are to be found just as in the natural one, and that they have a spiritual origin from the truths in the literal sense of the Word. Incredible as it may seem, this is in fact the truth. This is the reason why, every time there is a reference in the Word to precious stones, they mean in the spiritual sense truths. It follows from this that the precious stones, of which the foundations of the wall surrounding the city of the New Jerusalem are said to have been built, mean the truths of doctrine in the new church. For the New Jerusalem means the new church in respect of the doctrine it derives from the Word. Therefore its wall and the foundations of the wall must mean the external of the Word. This is its literal sense as the source of its doctrine, and by means of its doctrine the church. This sense is like a wall with its foundations, surrounding a city and making it secure.

[2] The description in Revelation of the New Jerusalem and its foundations is this:

The angel measured the wall of the city of Jerusalem as one hundred and forty-four cubits, which is the measure of a man, that is, an angel. The wall had twelve foundations, decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh turquoise, the twelfth amethyst. .

The reason why the wall had twelve foundations, made of the same number of precious stones, is that the number twelve means the whole of truth derived from good, so here the whole of doctrine. These matters, together with the preceding and following parts of that chapter, can be found expounded in detail, with confirmations drawn from parallel passages in the Prophets, in my book Apocalypse Revealed.