Apocalypse 3: 19. “Be zealous, therefore, and repent, signifies that this should be done from affection for truth and aversion to falsity. It is here said, Be zealous, because it was said above (vers. 15), I would thou wert cold or hot, here that they should be hot; for zeal is spiritual heat, and spiritual heat is the affection of love; here the affection of the love of truth: and he who acts from the affection of the love of truth, acts also from an aversion to falsity; for which reason these things are signified by repent. Zeal in the Word, when the Lord is spoken of, signifies love and wrath: love, John ii. 17; Ps. 1xix. 9; Isa. xxxvii. 32; lxiii. 15; Ezek. xxxix. 25; Zech. i. 14; viii. 2: wrath, Deut. xxxii. 16, 21; Ps. lxxix. 5,6; Ezek. viii. 18; xxiii. 25; Zeph. i. 18; iii. 8. But zeal with the Lord is not wrath; it only appears in externals as if it were; interiorly it is love. The reason that it appears in externals as if it were wrath is that it appears as if the Lord was
wrathful when He reproves man, especially when his evil punishes him; which is permitted from love, that his evil may be removed. He is altogether like a parent, who, if he loves his children, permits chastisement in order to remove their evils. From these things it is manifest why Jehovah calls Himself jealous (Deut. iv. 24; v. 9, 10; vi. 14, 15).”
— The Divine Revelation of the New Jerusalem: Expanded Edition (Hyperlinked Works of Emanuel Swedenborg Book 1) by Emanuel Swedenborg
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