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Revelation 2

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1 To the angel of the Ephesian church write: These·​·things▵ says He who holds the seven stars in His right·​·hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands,

2 I know◦ thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and that thou canst not bear those who are evil, and hast tested those who say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars;

3 and hast borne, and hast patience, and on·​·account·​·of My name hast labored, and hast not tired.

4 But I have this against thee, that thou hast left thy first love*.

5 Remember therefore from whence thou hast fallen; and repent, and do the first works; but◦ if not I will come to·​·thee quickly, and will move thy lampstand out·​·of its place, unless thou repent.

6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the works of the Nicolaitans, which I·​·also hate.

7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree◦ of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

8 And to the angel of the church of the Smyrneans write: These things says the First and the Last, who was dead, and is alive,

9 I know◦ thy works, and affliction, and poverty (but◦ thou art rich), and the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but they are a synagogue of Satan.

10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold◦, the Devil will cast some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you shall have affliction ten days; be thou faithful to death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

11 He who has an ear, let him hear what◦ the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not▵ be hurt by▵ the second death.

12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write: These·​·things▵ says He who has the sharp two-edged* sword◦,

13 I know◦ thy works, and where thou dwellest, where Satan’s throne is; and thou holdest My name, and hast not denied My faith, even in those days in which Antipas was My faithful martyr*, who was killed among◦ you where Satan dwells.

14 But I have a few things against thee, that thou hast there those who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast an offense before◦ the sons of Israel, to eat idol-sacrifices, and to commit·​·harlotry.

15 So thou hast, even thou, those who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans, which I hate*.

16 Repent; otherwise I will come to thee quickly, and will fight among them with the sword◦ of My mouth.

17 He who has an ear, let him hear what◦ the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone◦*, and on the stone◦ a new name written, which no·​·one knows except him who receives it.

18 And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These·​·things▵ says the Son of God, who has His eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet like fine·​·brass,

19 I know◦ thy works, and love, and ministry, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first.

20 But I have a few things against thee, that thou allowest that woman Jezebel, who calls▵ herself a prophetess, to teach, and to seduce My servants to commit·​·harlotry, and to eat idol-sacrifices.

21 And I gave her time◦ to repent of her harlotry, and she repented not.

22 Behold◦, I will cast her into a bed, and those who commit·​·adultery with her into great affliction, unless they repent of their works.

23 And I will kill her children with death. And all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the kidneys and hearts; and I will give to each of you according to your works.

24 But◦ to you I say, and to the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this teaching, and who have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you no other burden.

25 Nevertheless, that which you have, hold until◦ I come◦.

26 And he who overcomes and keeps My works to the end, to him will I give authority over the nations;

27 and he shall shepherd*, them with an iron staff; as the vessels of a potter they shall be broken in pieces*, even as I have received from My Father.

28 And I will give him the morning star.

29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

   

Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

Commentary

 

Exploring the Meaning of Revelation 2

By Rev. N. Bruce Rogers

THE SPIRITUAL MEANING of Revelation 2

(This text is excerpted from "Apocalypse Revealed", by Emanuel Swedenborg, as translated by N.B. Rogers.)

The Contents of the Whole Chapter

To the churches in the Christian world: to people there who regard primarily doctrinal truths and not goods of life, those meant by the church of Ephesus, nos. 73-90.

To those there who are engaged in good endeavors as regards life, and caught up in falsities as regards doctrine, those meant by the church of the people of Smyrna, nos. 91-106.

To those there who place everything of the church in good works and not anything in truths, those meant by the church in Pergamum, nos. 107-123.

And to those there who possess a faith springing from charity, as well as to those who possess a faith divorced from charity, those meant by the church in Thyatira, nos. 124-152.

These are all called to the New Church, which is the New Jerusalem.

The Contents of the Individual Verses

Verse ContentsSpiritual Meaning
1. "To the angel of the church of Ephesus write,To people and concerning people who regard doctrinal truths primarily, and not goods of life:
'These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand,The Lord, the source of all truths by means of the Word,
who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands:the source of all enlightenment for people who are part of His church.
2. I know your works,The Lord sees all a person's inner and outer qualities simultaneously,
your labor, and your patience,their effort and perseverance,
and that you cannot bear those who are evil.that they cannot endure to have evils called goods, or the converse.
And you have explored those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars;They have examined what in the church are called goods and truths, which nevertheless are evils and falsities.
3. and you have endured and have patience,Their perseverance with them.
and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary.Their effort and work in acquiring for themselves the constituents of religion and its accompanying doctrine.
4. Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first charity.But this is against them, that they do not hold goods of life in first place.
5. Remember therefore from where you have fallenA calling to mind of their going astray,
and repent and do the first works,in order to turn the state of their life around.
or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place, if you do not repent.Otherwise it is certain that enlightenment will not be granted for them to continue to see truths.
6. But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.Owing to their truths they know this and therefore do not wish works to be merit-seeking.
7. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.Anyone who understands these things, let him obey what the Divine truth of the Word teaches those who will be members of the New Church, which is the New Jerusalem.
To him who overcomesTo him who fights against evils and falsities and is reformed,
I will give to eat from the tree of life,an assimilation of the goodness of love and charity from the Lord,
which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.'inwardly in the truths of wisdom and faith.
8. "And to the angel of the church of the people of Smyrna write,To people and concerning people who as to life are engaged in good endeavors, but as to doctrine are caught up in falsities:
'These things says the First and the Last,The Lord, that He alone is God,
who was dead, and is alive:that He has been disregarded in the church and His humanity not acknowledged to be Divine, even though in respect to it, too, He alone is life and the only source of eternal life.
9. I know your works,The Lord sees all those people's inner and outer qualities simultaneously,
and tribulation, and poverty,that they are caught up in falsities and so are not engaged in good practices,
and the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not,their false speaking in saying that they have among them goods of love, when in fact they do not,
but are a synagogue of Satan.because as to doctrine they are caught up in falsities.
10. Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer.Do not despair when you are infested by evils and attacked by falsities.
Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison,Their goodness of life will be infested by evils emanating from hell,
that you may be tested,through falsities assailing them.
and you will have tribulation ten days.This will continue the whole time.
Be faithful until death,Their reception of truths until their falsities are removed.
and I will give you the crown of life.They will then have eternal life, their reward for overcoming.
11. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.The same here as before [verse 7].
He who overcomesHe who fights against evils and falsities and is reformed
shall not be hurt by the second death.'will not later succumb to evils and falsities from hell.
12. "And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write,To people and concerning people who place everything having to do with the church in good works, and not anything in doctrinal truths:
'These things says He who has the sharp two-edged sword:The Lord in relation to doctrinal truths from the Word, by which evils and falsities are dispelled.
13. I know your works,The same here as before [verses 2, 9].
and where you dwell, [where Satan's throne is].Their life in darkness,
And you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith,even though they have religion and worship in accordance with it,
even in the days in which Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.at a time when all truth has been extinguished by falsities in the church.
14. But I have a few things against you,Against them are the following:
because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.that they have among them people who perform hypocritical works, by which the worship of God in the church is defiled and adulterated;
15. Thus you have also those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.that they have among them also people who make works deserving of merit.
16. Repent,They should guard themselves against such works.
or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.If they do not, the Lord will contend with them from the Word.
17. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.The same here as before [verses 7, 11].
To him who overcomesThe same here as before [verses 7, 11].
I will give to eat of the hidden manna.An assimilation of the good of celestial love then, and thus a conjunction of the Lord with those who perform works.
And I will give him a white stone,Truths supportive of and united to good.
and on the stone a new name written,Thus they will have a quality of good that they did not have before,
which no one knows except him who receives it.'which is not apparent to anyone, because it is engraved on their life.
18. "And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write,To people and concerning people who are governed by a faith arising from charity, and so are engaged in good works; and also to people and concerning people who are governed by a faith divorced from charity, and so are engaged in evil works.
'These things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire,The Lord in respect to the Divine wisdom of His Divine love.
and His feet like fine brass:Natural Divine good.
19. I know your works,The same here as before [verses 2, 9, 13].
and charity and ministry,The spiritual affection called charity, and the practice of it.
and your faith and patience,Truth and their effort to acquire it and teach it.
and your works, and the last more than the first.The growth of these from an affection for spiritual truth.
20. Nevertheless I have a few things against you,These are the things that follow:
that you allow the woman Jezebel,that they have among them people in the church who divorce faith from charity,
who calls herself a prophetess,and who make faith the only doctrine of the church,
to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immoralityin consequence of which faith the truths of the church are falsified.
and eat things sacrificed to idols.The defilement of worship and profanations.
21. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.Those who confirm themselves in that doctrine do not turn back from it, even if they see things contrary to it in the Word.
22. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation,Therefore they must be left to their doctrine with its falsifications and be sorely infested by falsities,
unless she repents of her deeds.if they refuse to turn back from divorcing faith from charity.
23. I will kill her sons with death,Truths from the Word will all be turned into falsities,
that all the churches may know that I am He who searches the reins and hearts.so that the church may know that the Lord sees the quality of truth and the quality of good in everyone,
And I will give to each one of you according to his works.and gives to everyone according to the charity and its accompanying faith present in his works.
24. Yet to you I say, and to the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine,To those in whose case the doctrine of faith is divorced from charity, and to those in whose case the doctrine of faith is combined with charity,
and who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say,who do not understand the interior constituents of their tenets, which are nothing but falsities:
I will put on you no other burden.Only let them guard themselves against those people,
25. Still, hold fast what you have till I come.so that they may retain the few things that they know from the Word about charity and its resulting faith, and live according to them, until the Lord's advent.
26. And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end,Those who are in fact governed by charity and its resulting faith, and continue to be governed by them to the end of their life,
to him I will give power over the nations.will overcome the evils in themselves that come from hell
27. He shall rule them with a rod of iron;by truths drawn from the literal sense of the Word and at the same time by rational considerations from a natural sight,
they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter's vessels,as being of little or no account.
as I also have received from My Father;And this owing to the Lord, who, when He was in the world, acquired for Himself all power over the hells, by virtue of His Divinity that He had in Him.
28. and I will give him the morning star.Intelligence and wisdom then.
29. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'"The same here as before [verses 7, 11, 17].

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #11

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11. Which are in Asia. This symbolically means, to those who from the Word possess the light of truth.

Since, as we said before, all the names of persons and places in the Word mean things having to do with heaven and the church, so too does Asia, and likewise the names of the seven churches there, as will be apparent from considerations that follow.

Asia means those who possess the light of truth from the Word because the Most Ancient Church existed there, followed by the Ancient Church, and later the Israelite Church, and because the Ancient Word existed among them, and later the Israelite Word. For all light of truth comes from the Word.

To be shown that there were ancient churches in the Asiatic world, and that they had a Word which was afterward lost, and that there finally existed there the Word that we have today, see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 101-103.

That, now, is the reason that Asia here symbolizes all those who from the Word possess the light of truth.

[2] Regarding the aforementioned Ancient Word which existed in Asia before the Israelite Word, this new information deserves to be reported, that it is still preserved there among peoples who live in Great Tartary. 1 I have spoken with spirits and angels in the spiritual world who came from there, who said that they possessed a Word, that they had possessed it from ancient times, that they conduct their worship in accordance with it, and that it consists of nothing but things that correspond. They said that it also contains the book of Jasher, which is mentioned in Joshua (Joshua 10:12-13) 2 and in the Second Book of Samuel (2 Samuel 1:17, 18) 3 , and that they have among them as well The Wars of Jehovah and Prophecies, books which Moses mentions in Numbers (Numbers 21:14, 15, 27-30) 4 .

Moreover, when I read in their presence the words that Moses took from those books, they looked to see whether they existed there, and they found them.

It was apparent to me from this that the Ancient Word still exists among them.

In the course of my conversation with them they said they worship Jehovah - some of them worshiping Him as an invisible God, some as a visible one.

Furthermore, they related that they do not allow foreigners to enter their midst, with the exception of the Chinese, with whom they cultivate a peaceful relationship, because the Chinese emperor came from them. They said, too, that their country is so populous that they do not believe any region in the whole world to be more populous - which is also believable on account of the wall extending so many miles which the Chinese once built to protect themselves from being invaded by them.

Inquire concerning the Ancient Word in China, and perhaps you will find it there among the Tartars. 5

Footnotes:

1. A vast region controlled by Mongols in the 13th and 14th centuries, extending from eastern Europe over much of Asia. After the Turkish groups known as Tatars were conquered and assimilated by the Mongols in the early 13th century, the Mongol invaders of Russia and Hungary became known to Europeans as Tatars or Tartars, and their territory was depicted in maps as Great Tartary.

2. "Then Joshua spoke to Jehovah in the day when Jehovah delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: 'Sun, stand still over Gibeon; and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.' So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge upon their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jasher?"

3. "Then David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son, and he told them to teach the children of Judah the Song of the Bow; indeed it is written in the Book of Jasher."

4. "Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the Jehovah: 'Waheb in Suphah, the brooks of the Arnon, and the slope of the brooks that reaches to the dwelling of Ar, and lies on the border of Moab.'" "...Therefore the Prophecies say: 'Come to Heshbon, let it be built; let the city of Sihon be repaired. For fire went out from Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon; it consumed Ar of Moab, the lords of the heights of the Arnon. Woe to you, Moab! You have perished, O people of Chemosh! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to Sihon king of the Amorites. But we have shot at them; Heshbon has perished as far as Dibon. Then we laid waste as far as Nophah, which reaches to Medeba.'"

5. I.e., among the descendants of the Mongols.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

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