Jehovah said, Strive with your mother; she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Hosea 2:2, 5. You are your mother's daughter, a mother who loathes her husband. Ezek. 16:45. Where is the divorce document of your mother, whom you* have sent away? Isa. 50:1. Your mother is like a vine planted close to water and fruitful. Ezek. 19:10.

These refer to the Jewish church.

Jesus stretching out his hand to the disciples said, My mother and my brothers are those who listen to God's word and do it. Luke 8:21; Matt. 12:48, 49; Mark 3:33-35.

The Lord's disciples mean the church. His mother was standing by Jesus' cross; and Jesus, seeing his mother and the disciple he loved standing by, says to his mother, Lady, here is your son; and he says to the disciple, Here is your mother. So from that hour the disciple took her as his own mother. John 19:25-27.

This passage means that the Lord did not recognise Mary as His mother, but the church; so He called her 'Lady' and the disciple's mother. The reason why she was called the mother of this disciple, that is, of John, is that he represented the church as regards the good deeds of charity; these are the church in its real action. That too is the reason why he took her as his own mother. It can be seen in THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED (5, 6, 790, 798, 879) that Peter represented truth and faith, James charity and John the works of charity; and the twelve disciples together represented the church in all respects (233, 790, 903, 915). * Elsewhere, as AC 5886:2, TCR 306, this verse is quoted as 'whom I have sent away.'