How the Lord’s Advent becomes effective in the Individual Man

The Lord’s presence is perpetual with every man, the evil as well as the good; for without His presence no man lives. But His advent is to those only who receive Him,—who are those that believe in Him, and do His Commandments. The effect of the Lord’s perpetual presence is, that man is made rational, and that he can become spiritual. This is effected by the light proceeding from the Lord as a sun in the spiritual world, which man receives in his understanding; and that light is the truth by which he has rationality. But the Lord’s advent is to him who conjoins heat with that light, that is, love with he truth; for the heat proceeding from that same sun is love to God and towards the neighbour. The mere presence of the Lord, and enlightenment of the understanding thereby, may be compared to the presence of the light of the sun in the world; unless it is conjoined with heat all things on earth become desolate. But the advent of the Lord may be compared to the advent of heat, which takes place in the springtime; and because heat then conjoins itself with the light, the earth is softened, seeds shoot forth and bear fruit. Such a parallelism exists between the spiritual things in which a man’s spirit dwells, and the natural things in which his body lives. (TCR n. 774)

THE FIFTH, OR NEW CHRISTIAN CHURCH

General Character

It was foretold in the Apocalypse, chap. xxi., xxii., that at the end of the former church a New Church would be established, in which this should be the primary doctrine: That God is One, both in person and in essence, and that the Lord is that God. This Church is what is there meant by the New Jerusalem; into which no one can enter but who acknowledges the Lord alone as God of heaven and earth. Wherefore this church is there called the Lamb’s Wife. And this I am able to proclaim: That the whole heaven acknowledges the Lord alone, and that whoever does not acknowledge Him is not admitted into heaven; for heaven is heaven from the Lord. This acknowledgment, from love and faith, itself effects that those who are in heaven are in the Lord and the Lord in them; as He Himself teaches in John: “At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you” (xiv. 20); and in the same: “Abide in Me, and I in you, … I am the vine, ye are the branches; he that abideth in Me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me he is cast forth” (xv. 4-6; also xvii. 22, 23).

The reason why this was not seen before from the Word, is that if it had been seen it would not have been received; for the Last Judgment was not yet accomplished, and before that the power of hell prevailed over the power of heaven,—and man is in the midst between heaven and hell. If therefore this had been seen before, the devil, that is hell, would have plucked it from the hearts of men, and moreover would have profaned it. This condition of the power of hell was entirely broken by the Last Judgment, which has now been accomplished. Since that, that is, now, every man who will can be enlightened, and be wise. (DP n. 263)

This New Church is signified by the New Jerusalem

That a New Church is meant by the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven (Rev. xxi), is because Jerusalem was the metropolis of the land of Canaan; and there were the temple and the altar, there the sacrifices were offered, and thus there the actual Divine worship was performed to which every male in the land was commanded to go up three times in the year; and because the Lord was in Jerusalem, and taught in its temple, and afterwards glorified His Human there. Hence it is that the church is signified by Jerusalem. That the church is meant by Jerusalem, is very evident from the prophecies in the Old Testament respecting the new church to be instituted by the Lord, in that it is there called Jerusalem. Only those passages shall be adduced from which every one endued with interior reason may see that the church is there meant by Jerusalem. Let these passages only be cited therefrom: “Behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth; the former shall not be remembered…. Behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy, and I will rejoice over Jerusalem, and joy over My people…. Then the wolf and the lamb shall feed together; … they shall not do evil in all the mountain of My holiness” (Isaiah lxv. 17-19, 25). “For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. Then the nations shall see thy righteousness, and all icings thy glory; and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of Jehovah shall name. And thou shalt be a crown of glory … and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God…. Jehovah shall delight in thee, and thy land shall be married…. Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, His reward is with Him…. And they shall call them The holy People, The redeemed of Jehovah; and thou shalt be called A city sought for, not forsaken” (lxii. 1-4, 11, 12). “Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on the garments of thy beauty, O Jerusalem, the city of holiness; for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, O Jerusalem,…. The people shall know my name in that day, for it is I that speak, behold, it is … Jehovah hath comforted His people, He hath redeemed Jerusalem” (lii. 1, 2, 6, 9). “Thus saith Jehovah, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; wherefore Jerusalem shall be called the City of Truth, and the Mountain of Jehovah of Hosts, the Holy Mountain” (Zech. viii. 3). “Then shall ye know that I am Jehovah your God, dwelling in Zion the mountain of holiness; and Jerusalem shall be Holiness…. And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, … and Jerusalem shall abide from generation to generation” (Joel iii. 17, 20). “In that day shall the branch of Jehovah be beautiful and glorious…. And it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem shall be called holy, every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem” (Isaiah iv. 2, 3). “At that time they shall call Jerusalem the Throne of Jehovah, and all nations shall be gathered into it, on account of the name of Jehovah at Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart” (Jer. iii. 17). “Look upon Zion, the city of our festivities: Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet Habitation, a Tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken,” (Isaiah xxxiii. 20). That by Jerusalem here the church is meant which was to be instituted by the Lord, and not the Jerusalem inhabited by the Jews, is manifest from every part of its description in the passages adduced; as that Jehovah God would create a new heaven and a new earth, and also at the same time Jerusalem; and that this Jerusalem would be a crown of glory and a royal diadem; that it was to be called Holiness, and the City of Truth, the Throne of Jehovah, a Quiet Habitation, a Tabernacle that shall not be taken down; that there the wolf and the lamb shall feed together; and there it is said the mountains shall drop new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and that it shall abide from generation to generation; and, besides many other things, it is also said of the people there that they should be holy, every one written among the living; and that they should be called the Redeemed of Jehovah. Moreover, in all these passages the coming of the Lord is referred to; especially His second coming, when Jerusalem will be such as is there described. For before she was not married, that is, made the bride and wife of the Lamb, as is said of the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse. The former church, or that of the present day, is meant by Jerusalem in Daniel; and its beginning is there described by these words: “Know and perceive that from, the going forth of the word for restoring and building Jerusalem, even to the Prince Messiah, shall be seven weeks; after that in sixty and two weeks the street and the trench shall be restored and built, but in troublous times” (ix. 25). And its end is there described by these words: “At length upon the bird of abominations shall be desolation, and even to the consummation and decision it shall drop upon the devastation” (ver. 27). These last are what are meant by the Lord’s words in Matthew: “When ye shall see the abomination of desolation, foretold by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let him that readeth observe well” (xxiv. 25). That Jerusalem in the passages above quoted did not mean the Jerusalem inhabited by the Jews, may be seen from the passages in the Word where it is said of this that it was utterly lost, and that it was to be destroyed. (TCR n. 782)