1. APOCALYPSE. CHAPTER 1.

[Note: The text from the Book of Revelation is shown first, followed by an explanation of its meaning.]

1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave Him to show unto His servants the things which must quickly come to pass, and signified, sending by His angel, unto His servant John.

2. Who bare witness to the Word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, whatsoever things he saw.

3. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear, the words of the prophecy, and keep the things which are written therein; for the time is near.

4. John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you, and peace, from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come; and from the seven spirits which are in sight of His throne;

5. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the Firstborn from the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that loveth us, and washeth us from our sins in His blood;

6. And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father: to Him be the glory and the might unto the ages of the ages. Amen.

7. Behold, He cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth shall lament over Him. Even so; Amen.

8. I am the Alpha and the Omega, Beginning and End, saith the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.

9. I, John, who also am your brother and partaker in the affliction and in the kingdom and patient expectation of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, ¹ for the Word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

10. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day; and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

11. Saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last; and what thou seest write in a book, and send to the churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and Smyrna, and Pergamum, and Thyatira, and Sardis, and Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

12. And I turned to see the voice which spake with me. And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands,

13. And in the midst of the seven lampstands one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about at the paps with a golden girdle.

14. And His head and hairs white as white wool, as snow: and His eyes as a flame of fire.

15. And His feet like unto burnished brass, as if glowing in a furnace; and His voice as the voice of many waters.

16. And having in His right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth a sharp two-edged sword going forth; and His face as the sun shineth in his power.

17. And when I saw Him I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the First and the Last;

18. And the Living One; and I became dead; and behold I am alive unto the ages of the ages, Amen: and I have the keys of hell and of death.

19. Write the things which thou sawest, and the things which are, and the things which are to be hereafter.

20. The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches; and the seven lampstands which thou sawest are the seven churches.

1. Many have expounded this prophetical book called Revelation, but none of them understood the internal or spiritual sense of the Word. They have therefore applied the particular things in the book to the successive states of the church, which they have learned from histories; many things, moreover, they have applied to civil affairs. For this reason those expositions are for the most part conjectures, which can never appear in such light that they can be affirmed as truths. As soon, therefore, as they are read, they are put aside as speculations. The expositions of Revelation now extant are of this character, because, as has been said, their authors had no knowledge of the internal or spiritual sense of the Word. Yet, in fact, all things recorded in Revelation are written in a style similar to that of the Old Testament prophecies, and to the style, in general in which everything in the Word is written. The Word in the letter is natural, but in its bosom it is spiritual; and being such, it contains within it a sense that is not at all apparent in the letter. How the one sense differs from the other may be seen from what is said and shown in the small work on the The White Horse and in the appendix there from the Arcana Coelestia. ²

Footnotes:

305. But man has severed this connection with heaven by turning his exteriors away from heaven, and turning them to the world and to self by means of his love of self and of the world, thereby so withdrawing himself that he no longer serves as a basis and foundation for heaven; therefore the Lord has provided a medium to serve in place of this base and foundation for heaven, and also for the conjunction of heaven with man. This medium is the Word. How the Word serves as such a medium has been shown in many places in the Arcana Coelestia, all of which may be seen gathered up in the little work on The White Horse mentioned in the Apocalypse; also in the Appendix to the New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine, from which some notes are here appended. ¹

Footnotes:

8862. The reason why 'the words which God spoke' means God's truths for those in heaven and for those on earth is that the Ten Commandments or Decalogue, and then the statutes, declared and commanded from Mount Sinai, are truths such as are intended not only for those who are on earth but also for those who are in heaven. All the words, that is, all the truths that come from the Lord are not merely for people in the world but also at the same time for angels; for they pass through heaven and thereby to earth. But they do not sound the same in heaven as they do on earth, because there they exist in a spiritual form, whereas on earth they exist in natural form. What they are like in their spiritual form compared with what they are in their natural form is clear from the internal sense and the external sense of the particular things in the Word. In the internal sense they are spiritual matters, but in the external sense, which is the sense of the letter, they are natural ones. The latter have been made suitable for those on earth, but the former for those in heaven.

[2] The truth of this may be seen from the consideration that the Word, sent by the Divine Himself, has passed from Him through heaven to earth. When it reaches earth it is truth made suitable for the human race, which lives amid earthly and bodily things. But as it exists in heaven it is made suitable for angels, who live amid spiritual and celestial things. Because it is like this the Word is in itself holy; for it contains what is heavenly and Divine within it. This is perfectly clear from the Ten Commandments. Anyone can see that those commandments are the kind of laws that are well known everywhere on earth - that one should honour parents, that one should not kill, commit adultery, or steal, and that people should not answer as false witnesses. Consequently the Israelite nation could have known these laws from natural enlightenment alone; for is there any nation that does not know them? And yet Jehovah Himself came down to declare them; and He declared them out of fire that was burning 'even to the heart of heaven'. ¹ From this it becomes clear that those commandments contain more within them than is apparent in the letter; that is to say, they contain truths such as are intended at the same time for heaven and which fill heaven. Everything in the Word is like this since it comes from the Divine. All this shows why the Word is holy and what should be understood by statements about the inspiration of the Word even to every jot and tattle, and to every small part of a letter, Matthew 5:18; Luke 16:17. The nature therefore of the Ten Commandments in the spiritual sense, that is, as they exist in heaven, will be seen in what is to follow.

Footnotes: