820. [verse 11] 'And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse' signifies the spiritual sense of the Word revealed by the Lord, and thereby the disclosure of the interior understanding of the Word, which is the Lord's coming. By 'I saw heaven opened' is signified a revelation by the Lord and a making manifest at that time, concerning which [something] follows. By 'a horse' is signified the understanding of the Word, and by 'a white horse' the interior understanding of the Word (n. 298) ; and because this is signified by 'a white horse', and the spiritual sense is the interior understanding of the Word, therefore that sense is signified by the 'white horse' here. The reason why this is the Lord's coming is because by means of that sense it appears manifestly that the Lord is the Word, and that the Word treats of Himself Only, and that He is the God of heaven and earth, and that from Himself Only does the New Church come into existence. The Lord said that they should 'see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with glory and vigour (virtus)' (Malt. xvii 5; xxiv 30; xxvi 64; Mark xiv 61, 62; Luke ix 34, 35; xxi 27; Rev. i 7; Acts i 9, 11). And in fact the Lord said this when He spoke with the disciples of the consummation of the age, which is the last time of the Church when there is the judgment. Everyone who does not think beyond the sense of the letter believes that when the last judgment comes the Lord is going to appear in the clouds of heaven with angels and the sounds of trumpets. That this, however, is not the meaning, but that He is going to appear in the Word, can be established from the exposition above (n. 24, 642); and the Lord appears manifestly in the spiritual sense of the Word. [From that sense] it appears not only that He is the Word, that is, the Divine Truth itself, and that He Himself is the inmost of the Word and thence is everything thereof, but it also appears that He Himself is the one God in Whom is the Trinity, and thus the only God of heaven and earth; and, moreover, that He came into the world so that He might glorify His Human, that is, make it Divine. [2] The Human that He glorified, that is, made Divine, was the Natural Human, which He could not glorify or make Divine except by means of taking on the Human in a virgin in the natural world. To this He then united His own Divine, which He had from eternity. The unition was effected by means of the temptations admitted into His own assumed Human, the last of which was the passion of the cross, and at the same time by the fulfilment of all things of the Word. [This was done] not only by the fulfilment of all the things of the Word in its natural sense, but also by the fulfilment of all the things of the Word in its spiritual sense and in its celestial sense, in which as was said above it treats of Himself Only. But on these matters the things may be seen that have been made manifest in THE DOCTRINE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM CONCERNING THE LORD and in THE DOCTRINE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM CONCERNING THE SACRED SCRIPTURE. Now because the Lord is the Word, and the Word was made flesh (John i 1, 2, 14), and the Word was made flesh so that He might fulfil it, it is plain that the Lord's coming in the Word is understood by His appearing 'in the clouds of heaven'. That 'the clouds of heaven' signify the Word in the sense of the letter may be seen above (n. 24, 642). That the appearing of the Lord in the Word is understood is plain because by the 'white horse' is signified the interior understanding of the Word, and it is said that the Name of the One sitting upon the horse is THE WORD OF GOD, also that His Name is 'King of kings and Lord of lords' (vers. 13, 16). [3] From these considerations it is plain that by 'I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse' is signified the spiritual sense of the Word revealed by the Lord, and by this means the disclosure of the interior understanding thereof; which indeed is the Lord's coming. That the spiritual sense of the Word, of which no one in Christendom has known anything before, has been revealed at this day, can be seen in ARCANA CAELESTIA, where two books of Moses, Genesis and Exodus, have been expounded in accordance with that sense; also in THE DOCTRINE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM CONCERNING THE SACRED SCRIPTURE (n. 5-26); in the little work CONCERNING THE WHITE HORSE from beginning to end, and the things collected there out of 'Arcana Caelestia concerning the Sacred Scripture'; and, moreover, in THESE EXPOSITIONS ON THE APOCALYPSE where not one little verse can be understood at all without the spiritual sense.