14. Where the Lord speaks to His disciples about the consummation of the age, which is the last phase of the Church, at the end of His predictions concerning its successive changes of state, He says,
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. Matt. xxiv 29-31.
[2] By these words in the spiritual sense it is not meant that the sun and the moon would be darkened, that the stars would fall from heaven, that the sign of the Lord would appear in heaven, and that He would be seen in the clouds, and also that angels with trumpets would be seen; but by all the expressions in this passage are meant spiritual things relating to the Church, concerning the state of which at its end these things are said. For in the spiritual sense, by the sun which shall be darkened is meant the Lord as to love; by the moon which shall not give her light (lumen) is meant the Lord as to faith; by the stars which shall fall from heaven, the cognitions of good and truth which will perish; by the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, the appearing of Divine Truth; and by the tribes of the earth that shall mourn, the want of all truth which is of faith, and of all good which is of love. By the Coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven with power and glory is meant the presence of the Lord in the Word, and revelation; by the clouds is signified the sense of the Letter of the Word, and by glory, the spiritual sense of the Word. By the angels with a great sound of a trumpet is signified heaven, whence comes Divine Truth; by gathering together the elect from the four winds from one end of the heavens to the other, is signified that which is new (novum) in the Church as to love and faith.
[3] That the darkening of the sun and moon, and the falling of the stars to the earth, are not here meant, clearly appears from the Prophets, for in them similar things are said concerning the state of the Church when the Lord was about to come into the world. Thus, in Isaiah:
Behold, the day of Jehovah cometh, cruel...with fierce anger... For the stars of the heavens and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil. [Isa. xiii 9-11]; xiv 21, 23.
In Joel:
The day of Jehovah cometh ... A day of darkness and of thick darkness ... The sun and the moon shall be dark. And the stars shall withdraw their shining. Joel ii 1, 2, 10; iii 15.
In Ezekiel:
I will cover the heavens, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights ... will I make dark... and set darkness upon thy land. Ezek. xxxii 7, 8.
By the day of Jehovah is meant the Coming of the Lord, which took place when there was no longer any good and truth left in the Church nor any rational conception of the Lord.