49. [verse 15] 'And His feet like burnished bronze [as if] burned in a furnace' signifies natural Divine Good. The Lord's 'feet' signify His natural Divine; 'fire' or 'what is burned' signifies good, while 'burnished bronze' signifies natural good of truth; therefore by 'the feet of the Son of Man like burnished bronze as if burned in a furnace' is signified natural Divine Good. That His feet signify this results from correspondence. In the Lord, and consequently from the Lord, there is a CELESTIAL DIVINE, a SPIRITUAL DIVINE, and a NATURAL DIVINE. The celestial Divine is understood by the 'head' of the Son of Man, the spiritual Divine by His 'eyes' and by the 'breast' that was 'girt with a golden girdle', and the natural Divine by His 'feet'. [2] Since these three are in the Lord, therefore those three are also in the angelic heaven. The third or supreme heaven is in the celestial Divine: the second or middle heaven is in the spiritual Divine: while the first or ultimate heaven is in the natural Divine. In like manner the Church on earth (in terris); for the entire heaven is in the presence of the Lord as one Man, in which those who are in the Lord's celestial Divine make the head, those who are in the spiritual Divine make the body, and those who are in the natural Divine make the feet. Consequently also in any one man, because he has been created into the image of God, there are those three degrees, and as these are opened, that man becomes an angel, either of the third, the second, or the ultimate heaven. It is from this also that there are three senses in the Word, celestial, spiritual, and natural. That this is the case may be seen in ANGELIC WISDOM CONCERNING DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM, specifically in the third part, in which those three degrees have been dealt with. That the feet, the soles, and the heels correspond to the natural things with a man, and in the Word therefore signify natural things, may be seen IN ARCANA CAELESTIA published at London (n. 2162, 4938-4952). [3] Natural Divine Good is also signified by 'feet' in the following places; in Daniel:-
I lifted up mine eyes and saw, behold a man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with gold of Uphaz; his body was beryl-like, and his eyes as torches of fire, his arms and his feet like the lustre of polished bronze Dan. x 5, 6.
In the Apocalypse:-
I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, his fret as pillars of fire Rev. x 1.
And in Ezekiel:-
The feet of the cherubs were glittering like the lustre of polished bronze Ezek. i 7.
It was because the Divine of the Lord was being represented in them that the angels and cherubs were so seen. [4] Since the Lord's Church is under the heavens, thus under the Lord's feet, it is therefore called His footstool in the following places:-
The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee to beautify the place of My sanctuary; I will render the place of My fret honourable, and they shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet Isa. lx 13, 14.
The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool Isa. lxvi 1.
God remembers not His footstool in the day of anger Lam. ii 1.
Worship Jehovah towards His footstool Ps. xcix 5.
Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah (Bethlehem); we will go up into His dwelling-places; we will bow down at His footstool Ps. cxxxii 6 [,7].
As a consequence of this, those worshipping fell at the Lord's feet (Matt. xxviii 9; Mark v 22; Luke viii 41; John xi 32). Again, they kissed His feet, and wiped them with their hair (Luke vii 37, 38, 44, 46; John xi 2; xii 3). [5] Because the Natural is signified by 'feet', the Lord therefore said to Peter, when He washed his feet:-
He who is washed needs not save to wash his feet, and the whole is clean John xiii 10.
To 'wash the feet' is to purify the natural man, and when this has been purified the whole man also is purified, as has been shown abundantly in ARCANA CAELESTIA, and in THE DOCTRINES OF THE NEW JERUSALEM. The natural man, who is also the external man, is purified whilst he is fleeing from the evil things that the spiritual or internal man sees to be evil and necessary to flee from. [6] Now since the natural man is understood by 'feet', and this, if it has not been washed or purified, perverts all things, therefore the Lord said:-
If thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than to have two feet and be cast into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire Mark ix 45.
Here is not understood 'foot', but the natural man. The like is understood by 'trampling the good pasture under foot', and 'troubling the waters with the feet' (Ezek. xxxii 2; xxxiv 18, 19; Dan. vii 7, 19; and elsewhere). [7] Since by the Son of Man the Lord is understood as to the Word, it is plain that by His feet is also understood the Word in the natural sense, which has been much treated of in THE DOCTRINE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM CONCERNING THE SACRED SCRIPTURE; as also that the Lord came into the world so that He might fulfil all things of the Word, and by this means become the Word even in ultimates (n. 98-100); but this arcanum is for those who will be in the New Jerusalem. [8] The Lord's Natural Divine was also signified by the bronze serpent set up in the wilderness as a result of a command from Moses, by looking at which all were healed who had been bitten by serpents (Num. xxi 6, 8, 9). That this signified the Lord's Natural Divine, and that those who look to this will be saved, the Lord Himself teaches in John:-
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the SON OF MAN be lifted up, so that all who believe in Him may not perish, but have eternal life John iii 14, 15.
It is because 'bronze', as also 'burnished bronze', signifies the Natural in respect of good, that the serpent was made out of bronze. See below n. 775.
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