Apocalypse Explained, volume 1 - Swedenborg Foundation

APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED 193By this is meant, in the spiritual sense, that he should put away thefalsities that were of the Jewish doctrine, and accept the doctrine oftruth from the Lord, and should undergo assaults and temptationsfrom falsities. Those, therefore, are deceived who believe that thosewho wish to follow the Lord are to sell their goods and suffer thecross. Since the Lord was Divine truth itself, which in John 1:1–3,14, is called the “Word,” the Lord’s suffering himself to bescourged and crucified signifies that Divine truth which is in theWord was so treated by the Jews. (That all things related of theLord’s passion in the Evangelists involve and signify that the Jewsso treated Divine truth, see above, n. 83.) Wherefore the Lord says:Remember my word, if they have persecuted me, they will alsopersecute you (John 15:20).[5] That the Jews in particular are meant by the “devil” who wasto cast the disciples of the Lord into prisons, and that, in general,all that call themselves “Jews, and are not, but are a synagogue ofsatan,” are meant (according to the passages cited above, n. 119,120), is clear from the Lord’s words in John:Ye do not understand my speech because ye cannot hear my word.Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.He was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth,because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie he speakethfrom his own, for he is a liar and the father thereof (John 8:43, 44).That “their father was a murderer from the beginning,” “and thetruth was not in him, but a lie,” signifies that from the beginningthey had been against truths and in falsities from evil. For a“murderer” is a destroyer of the truth of the church, and “father”means predecessors. (Of the quality of the Jewish nation formerlyand at present, see Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, n. 248; that the“bound in prison” signify those who are in falsities from evil, seeArcana Coelestia, n. 4958, 5096; “to be overcome 7 in prison”signifies to be detained and separated from truths, n. 5037, 5038,5083, 5086, 5096; and also to be tempted, n. 5037, 5038.)