10. The twenty-first chapter in the book of Revelation describes the holy Jerusalem in this way, that it had in it a light “like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, bright as crystal;” that it had “a great and high wall, and twelve gates, and over the gates twelve angels, with names written on them...of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel;” that it had a wall of “a hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that is, of an angel;” that the construction of its wall was of jasper, and its foundations of all kinds of precious stones — jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, and amethyst; that “the twelve gates were twelve pearls;” that the city was “pure gold, like transparent glass;” and that it was square, “its length, breadth, and height...equal, ” measuring “twelve thousand furlongs.” And so on.

All of these particulars must be understood spiritually, as can be seen from the fact that the holy Jerusalem symbolizes a new church to be established by the Lord, as we showed in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord 62-65. And because Jerusalem in this description symbolizes a church, it follows that everything said about it as a city — about its gates, its wall, the foundations of the wall, and about their measurements — contains a spiritual meaning. For matters having to do with the church are spiritual.

[2] We have explained the symbolic meanings of each of these particulars in The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine (London, 1758), no. 1. We therefore forgo any further explanation of them here. It is enough for it to be known from that book that there is a spiritual meaning present in each particular of the city’s description, like a soul in its body. Also, that apart from that meaning, nothing relating to the church would be understood in the depictions there, as that the city was of pure gold, with its gates of pearls, its wall of jasper, and the foundations of its wall of precious stones; that the wall was of a hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that is, of an angel; that the city itself was twelve thousand furlongs long, wide, and high; and so on.

Someone who has a knowledge of correspondences and knows from it the spiritual sense, understands the meanings of these things — as that the wall and its foundations symbolize doctrine drawn from the Word’s literal sense, and that the numbers 12,144, and 12,000 have similar symbolic meanings, namely all the truths and goods of the church in their entirety.

47. The outer constituents of the Temple in Jerusalem represented the outer constituents of the Word, which are those of its literal sense. That is because the Temple had the same representation as the Tabernacle, namely heaven and the church, and so also the Word.

That the Temple in Jerusalem symbolized the Lord’s Divine humanity is something the Lord Himself tells us in John:

Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.... But He was speaking of the temple of His body. (John 2:19, 21)

And wherever the Lord is meant, the Word is meant as well, because the Lord embodies the Word.

Now because the inner constituents of the Temple represented the inner constituents of heaven and the church, thus also those of the Word, therefore its outer constituents represented and symbolized the outer constituents of heaven and the church, thus also those of the Word, which are those of its literal sense.

Regarding the outer constituents of the Temple, we read that they were built of whole, uncut stone, and inside of cedar; that all its walls within were carved with figures of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers; and that the floor was overlaid with gold (1 Kings 6:7, 18, 29-30). All of these particulars, too, symbolized the outer constituents of the Word, which are the holy ones of its literal sense.