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John Chapter 1

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Chapter 1 THE INTERNAL SENSE.
  1. IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with god, and god was the Word.
  2. The same was in the beginning with god,
 THAT the lord, as to his Divine Human [principle], which is divine truth, existed from eternity, in undivided union with the divine good, which is jehovah, verses 1, 2.
  1. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.
 That by divine truth from the lord was effected the all of creation, both natural and spiritual, thus the production of the all of outward nature, and likewise the regeneration of man, and the establishment of the church, vs 3.
  1. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
 That divine truth is always in union with divine love, and by virtue of that union is the source of all wisdom, intelligence, and rationality, amongst mankind, vs 4.
  1. And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.
 But that mankind had so immersed themselves in external and natural things, and thus in false principles, that they no longer acknowledged divine truth, vs 5.
  1. There was a man sent from god, whose name was John.
  2. He came for a witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him.
  3. He was not the light, but that he might bear witness of the light.
  4. [That] was the true light, which enlightens every man that comes into the world.
 That divine truth has its appointed representatives here on earth, amongst those who are principled in charity and faith, whose office it is to testify concerning the lord’s Divine Humanity, and thus to lead mankind to acknowledge and receive it, as the only source of all wisdom, intelligence, and rationality, vs 6, 7, 8, 9.
  1. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
  2. He came to his own, and his own received him not.
  3. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of god, to them who believe in his name.
  4. Who were born, not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of god.
 That the lord, by his divine truth, or the Word, was present with the Jewish church, but that he was not in general known and acknowledged, yet that all, who did know and acknowledge him, were made regenerate, and thus delivered from the guilt of doing violence to charity, and of profaning truth, being cleansed from all the principles of evil and error, vs 10, 11, 12, 13.
  1. And the Word was made flesh, and tabernacled amongst us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.
 That the lord, by assuming the human nature, and thus becoming a man, made himself divine truth in ultimates, as he had before been divine truth in first principles, and thus gained fuller access to man, by imparting a fuller measure of his divine love and wisdom, vs 14.
  1. John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I said, He that comes after me, was before me, because he was prior to me.
  2. And of his fullness have we all received, and grace for grace.
  3. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by jesus christ.
 Therefore all, who are principled in charity and faith, acknowledge from the heart, that the lord in his Divine Humanity is the eternal god, and that all good and truth are from him, and that he came into the world to open those interior things of his Word, for the benefit of mankind, vs 15, 16, 17.
  1. No one has seen god at any time; the Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the father, he has brought him forth to view.
 They acknowledge also, that no right apprehension can be had of the invisible jehovah, but by or through the visible humanity, which he assumed and glorified for that purpose, vs 18.
  1. And this is the witness of John, when the Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to ask him, Who are you?
  2. And he confessed, and denied not, and confessed, I am not the christ.
  3. And they asked him, What then? Art you Elias? And he says, I am not. Art you the Prophet? And he answered, No.
  4. Then they said to him, Who are you? that we may give an answer to them who went us: What say you of yourself?
  5. He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the lord, as said Esaias the prophet.
 Thus they testify concerning themselves, to those of the perverted church who are inquisitive about them, that they possess no truth or good of themselves, but only from the Word, and that from the Word all in the vastated church are admonished to prepare themselves to receive the lord in his divine humanity, vs 19, 20, 21, 22, 23.
  1. And they who were sent were of the Pharisees.
  2. And they asked him, and said to him, Why baptizest you then, if you are not the christ, nor Elias, nor the Prophet?
  3. John answered them, saying, I baptize with water, but there stands one in the midst of you, whom you know not.
 They testify further, that they can teach only external truth, but that the truth itself is the lord as to his Divine Humanity, who is yet unacknowledged, although he is the very central life of all truths, vs 24, 25, 26.
  1. He it is who, coming after me, was before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.
 And has thus pre-eminence over all, since the lowest order of internal truth is above the highest of what is external, vs 27.
  1. These things were done in Bethabara, beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.
  2. On the morrow John sees jesus coming to him, and says, Behold the Lamb of god who takes away the sin of the world!
 Such is the testimony of external truth, derived from the letter of the Word, which testimony presently conducts to a view of internal truth as it is in connection with the lord’s Divine Humanity, by virtue of which internal truth confession is made that the lord in his Divine Humanity is the purest innocence, and that human disorder can never be removed, only so far as that innocence is implanted in human minds, vs 28, 29.
  1. He it is of whom I said, After me comes a man, who was before me; for he was prior to me.
  2. And I knew him not, but that he should be made manifest to Israel, on which account I am come baptizing with water.
 Confession is further made from internal truth, that the lord, in his Divine Humanity, is the eternal god, and that all good and truth are from him, and that he is to be made known to the church by the teaching of external truth from the Word, vs 30, 31.
  1. And John bare witness, saying, I saw the Spirit descending as a dove from heaven, and it abode upon him.
  2. And I knew him not, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, On whom you shall see the Spirit descending, and abiding upon him, he it is who baptizeth with the Holy Spirit.
  3. And I saw and bare witness, that he is the Son of god.
 Which truth testifies, that all the good and truth of faith, thus all purification and regeneration, are from the Divine Humanity of the lord, and that consequently all internal truth is from the same source, vs 32, 33, 34, 35.
  1. Again on the morrow, John stood and two of his disciples.
  2. And looking upon jesus as he walked, he says, Behold the Lamb of god !
  3. And the two disciples heard him speaking, and they followed jesus.
 That they who are principled in charity, and in the faith of charity, have their spiritual sight opened to behold and to confess the lord in his Divine Humanity, whom therefore they immediately acknowledge and obey as the only god, vs 35, 36, 37.
    1. But jesus turning, and seeing them following, says to them, What seek you? They said to him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master) where abide you ?

  1. He says to them, Come and see. They came and saw where he abode, and remained with him that day, and it was about the tenth hour.
 And being led by an internal dictate in their own minds to explore and examine the end of all truth, or knowledge, they are led further to inquire after the good of love and charity, to which all truth and knowledge point, and thus attain conjunction with the lord in that good, vs 38, 39.
  1. Andrew the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two disciples who heard from John, and followed him.
  2. He first finds his own brother Simon, and says to him, We have found the Messiah,—which is, being interpreted, the christ.
  3. And he led him to jesus, and jesus looking on him, said, You are Simon the son of Jona: You shall be called Cephas, which is, bring interpreted, a stone, (or Peter.)
 That they who are principled in the good of charity instruct those who are principled in the good of faith, concerning the lord in his Divine Humanity, and thus conduct them to the incarnate god, by whom they are taught that they, who are principled in truth derived from good, ought to attach themselves to divine truth, or to truth proceeding from, and in conjunction with, the lord’s Divine Humanity, vs 40, 41, 42.
  1. On the morrow, jesus willed to go forth into Galilee, and he finds Philip, and says to him, Follow me.
  2. But Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrewand Peter.
  3. Philip finds Nathaniel, and says to him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth.
 That they of the church, who are principled in intelligence, are next instructed to acknowledge all intelligence to be derived from the lord’s Divine Humanity, and that when they are so instructed, they again instruct those who are principled in charity and its faith, that the lord is manifested in his Divine Humanity, as was predicted, vs 43, 44, 45.
  1. And Nathaniel said to him, Can any good thing be from Nazareth? Philip says to him, Come and see.
  2. jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him, and says of him, Behold, truly an Israelite, in whom is no guile.
  3. Nathaniel says to him, Whence know you me? jesus answered, and said to him, Before that Philip called you, when you were under the fig-tree, I saw you.
  4. Nathaniel answered, and says to him, Rabbi, You are the Son of god, you are the King of Israel!
 Which instruction is received with doubt, until conviction is worked of the divine wisdom of that humanity, by the distinction which it makes between spiritual good and natural good, and by setting the former above the latter, vs 46, 47, 48, 49.
  1. jesus answered, and said to him, Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig-tree, believe you? You shall see greater things than these.
  2. And he says to him, Verily, verily, I say to you, now on you shall see heaven open, and the angels of god ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
 That this distinction, however, does not produce a conviction equal to that which arises in the course of regeneration, when the internal man is opened to see the several orders of truth in their connection with their divine source, by virtue of which man’s ascent to god is first effected, and afterwards the descent of god to man, vs 50, 51.

http://www.biblemeanings.info/Bible/john.html

THE

GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN,

Translated from the Greek,

AND

ILLUSTRATED BY EXTRACTS

FROM THE

THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS OF THAT EMINENT SERVANT OF THE LORD,

THE

HON. EMANUEL SWEDENBORG,

TOGETHER WITH

NOTES & OBSERVATIONS OF THE TRANSLATOR ANNEXED TO EACH CHAPTER.

BY THE REV. J. CLOWES, M.A.

RECTOR OF ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, MANCHESTER, AND FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

” Whoso readeth, let him understand.”—Matt. xxiv. 15.

 

Second Edition.

MANCHESTER:
PRINTED BY HENRY SMITH, ST, ANN’S-SQUARE,

AND SOLD BY

  1. HODSON. 112, FLEET-STREET, LONDON; AND BY E. BAYLIS,
    ST. ANN’S-STREET, MANCHESTER.

MDCCCXXXVIII.

What really happened at Easter?

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What does the New Church teach about Easter? It’s a short question, but it involves a big network of connected ideas. It can’t be answered right in a sound bite, so bear with me…

First, we believe in God – just one God – who creates and sustains everything, including our physical universe.

We believe that God is love itself, and wisdom itself. It is the nature of love to want to love others outside of oneself, and to make them happy, and to be conjoined with them. It is the nature of wisdom to provide the means, the know-how, to bring love into effect.

God, acting from his core of Divine Love, using his Divine Wisdom, created the universe (the Big Bang?), and, eventually, as part of it, our galaxy, solar system, and the Earth. Through his creative providence, life began on earth. Over millions of years, it evolved into progressively more complex life forms, until, in time, God could bring about the development of human beings with rational minds capable of understanding spiritual truths. Through those truths, people would be able to love one another as neighbors, and to love God, walk in his ways, receive his love and wisdom, and be conjoined to Him.

It’s part of God’s Providence to always keep open a way to communicate with us, so that we can receive truths accommodated to our state. He communicated with early humans through a more direct awareness, but as we became more external, he used some men as prophets, or revelators, to write down his truths, and to tell them to others. Some of these revelations are very ancient, by human standards. In the Books of Moses, maybe 3500 years old themselves, Moses refers to even more ancient books – “The Wars of Jehovah”, “Annunciations”, and “The Book of Jasher”, which formed parts of an ancient Word.

At the time before Jesus Christ was born, the truths from the Ancient Word had been corrupted or largely forgotten, and polytheism and idolatry were widespread. Of the 12 tribes of the Children of Israel, 10 were dispersed, and swallowed up into the surrounding culture. In Jerusalem and its surrounds, the Jewish church still preserved the Old Testament, and the faithful still observed its tenets, but even within Judaism, some of the external worship was hollow. There were still some people in simple good, who would receive the Lord’s new truths gladly – Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zacharias, Anna, Simeon, and later the apostles, and then the multitudes who gathered to hear Jesus preach the truth, and to be healed by Him.

The New Church teaches that Jesus Christ was God himself, who took on a human body, so that he could live among us, and teach us the essential truths we need so that we can follow them, and by doing so open our minds to receive and transmit his love.

We also believe that part of his method of redeeming us was to take on a human heredity with its temptability, so that he could directly fight evil. Where was the evil coming from? We believe that people have immortal souls. When our bodies die, we live on in a spiritual world. In that world, we can’t pretend we are good if we are not – our true natures become evident. And, we gravitate towards like-minded people, much as we do in this world, except with clearer sight. If we fundamentally love our neighbor and God more than ourselves, we will create friendly, neighborly societies. If we fundamentally are looking out for “number one”, our societies will tend towards the nasty, forming hellish places. God didn’t create hell, but he does not force us to be good, since that would destroy our freedom. So, he permits us to create hells for ourselves. We can do it on earth too, when evil people have power. Nazi Germany was one ultra-clear example of this, among too many others.

Now, in the New Church we believe, as many people do, that there is a relationship between the spiritual world and the natural world, and that we are subject to spiritual influences. The popular image of the guardian angel actually has some basis in spiritual fact, and the image of the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other is also more real than is comfortable to think about.

We are tempted, while living our lives, to do evil things. These temptations flow into us from evil people in the spiritual world. In the normal order of things, the power of this evil is kept in check by balancing influx from heaven, where the Lord’s love flows through good societies and communicates itself to us. At the time of the Lord’s birth, the balance was precarious – the hells had grown too strong and evil was too influential. We see illustrations of this in the stories of the New Testament, where Jesus and his disciples in many cases are healing demon-possessed people.

So, part of the Lord’s mission was to rein in the power of hellish influence, and he did this by allowing himself to be tempted through the human that had had taken on from Mary, and by winning each temptation in turn, to cap the power of each hellish society. In the stories of the New Testament we see some of those temptations – when He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, and in the Garden of Gethsemane, and on the cross. But, he conquered each one, even the final ones where he was doubting whether His mission had succeeded.

What, then, happened at Easter?

God incarnate had come to earth, as Jesus Christ, fulfilling a whole series of Old Testament prophecies. He had, through a lifelong series of temptations, fought with and subdued the powers of hell, restoring the balance which allowed people to freely choose their course in life. He had taught us the new truths that we needed, so that we could learn, if we wanted to, how to be good. He had opened a new channel of communication – we could now picture him in human form – not just as a remote, formless God, but as a Divinely Human God who loves us, wants to save us, and in whose image and likeness we are made.

The crucifixion was the climactic temptation, and victory, in a life of victory over evil. The human body that the Lord took on from Mary was glorified, converted to Divine substance. That’s why it was not found in the tomb on Easter Sunday, when the stone was rolled away.

After Easter, the Lord could – and did – still appear to his followers, but they were seeing him with their spiritual eyes opened. They followed him to Galilee, and witnessed his ascension to heaven. And then they spread out around the world, teaching the truths that he had taught them, and leading by example, so that Christianity became the world’s largest religion.

As the Christian religion spread, false ideas crept into it. Here are some key points in our belief, that combat those falsities:

– We don’t believe that Jesus was a separate person from God. He was God.

– We don’t believe that he sacrificed himself on the cross to atone to God for the sins of humankind. He WAS God. Instead, he allowed himself to be crucified because by doing that he could show that even the death of the physical body was not something final – not something that really had power over good and truth. His resurrection was the key event.

We believe that Mary was good, but not that she was perfect, nor that she was born without sin. She was chosen to be the mother of the Lord because she was, like Joseph, part of the remnant of simple, good people who obeyed the Lord’s will, and whose faith would enable the fulfillment of His mission. However, the heredity through Mary contained normal tendencies towards evil that opened Jesus to temptations, which was a necessary part of the plan.

There are also non-Christian ideas that have currency in our culture, though we think they are false. Here are some key points in our belief:

– We do not believe that Jesus Christ had a romance with or married Mary Magdalene.

– We do not believe that Jesus Christ was merely a good teacher or man of exemplary character, who was later deified by his disciples.

– We DO believe that Jesus Christ did exist as a historical figure, and that he was God incarnate, and that the Gospels contain essential truths that we should live by.

http://newchristianbiblestudy.org/

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Salvation

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Salvation

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For anyone who believes in heaven, one question stands above all the others: How can I get there? How can I be saved?

Christianity has offered a variety of answers over the millennia, from early sects that simply followed the example of Jesus to monasticism to the elaborate rites and rituals of medieval catholicism to crusading warfare to the Protestants’ hope in the mercy and blood of Jesus.

For the most part, those concepts have regarded heaven as a paradise, where anyone would be happy no matter what he or she did to get there, and no matter what kind of person he or she is. This actually does not make a lot of sense if you think about it. If the cruel and power-hungry could attain heaven alongside the kind and caring, then surely they would make heaven a hell through their cruelty and desire to rule. And if the cruel and power-hungry were rendered non-cruel and non-power-hungry, would they still be themselves anymore?

Swedenborg’s idea of heaven – and hell – is different. In his theology both are simply spiritual states where we live with others who love the same things we do. If those loves are good and kind it will be a wonderful life of sharing and joy; if those loves are cruel and selfish we will end up in endless contention with others who are cruel and selfish.

Salvation, then, is a matter of letting the Lord change our hearts from the naturally selfish state to a heavenly, loving state. We do this by learning what is right and good, using our minds to lead us in doing those things, and asking the Lord to change our hearts. If we continue and stick to it. He will little by little do that, so that eventually we can reach a state where we love what is good and know what is true.

So is that salvation by faith? Salvation by works? In a way both, and neither. Works are involved, because we have to make ourselves do what we know is good and loving. Faith is involved because we have to invite the Lord into our hearts to make a true change. But neither can get us there without the other, and the ultimate judgment is on what we love, not what we’ve done or what we believe.

http://newchristianbiblestudy.org/

(References: Divine Providence 338, 339; Divine Providence 258 [3]; True Christian Religion 150, 726)

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Temptation: What is it?

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Most of us would welcome a life without temptation. It would be so easy to be good!

According to Swedenborg, however, a life without temptation would actually guarantee the opposite: It would leave us mired in evil and bound for hell. In fact, his theology says that temptation is the only way we can root out our evils and let the Lord into our hearts, so we should recognize it as an opportunity even if we can’t exactly embrace it as a good time.

The reasoning behind this starts with the idea that we are what we love; that what we care about actually determines our character and defines our identity. That might sound odd at first, but consider: If you say that you “know” someone, you’re really talking about an awareness of what they love, not an awareness of all their thoughts. What we love is who we are.

And from the beginning of our lives, what we love is highly self-centered. Much as we love babies for their innocence, they can’t even form the concept of putting someone else’s needs first. And while children and teenagers learn to be kind and considerate, that kindness is more in their external levels – inside they are busy with the work of becoming themselves, and that remains a self-involved process.

Somewhere between there and the end of life, we’re called on to change completely, setting our self-interest aside and replacing it with a genuine love for others and love for the Lord. That, however, involves uprooting the things we love most. And since those loves form our identity, that’s really hard, and has to be done in many, many steps.

The key element working for us is the mind: from our knowledge and thoughts we can know what’s right even when we don’t want it. In fact, from our knowledge and thoughts we can actually want to be better people, while in our hearts we still want to wallow in those attractive evils.

Elevating the mind this way creates a conflict between “the person I want to become” and “the person I am,” between “what I want” and “what I want to want” (sort of like, “I want to be craving celery, but I’m really craving cookies”). And since the hells want to keep you enslaved by cookies, they go on the attack, using both blunt desire and twisted logic and argument to try to break you down.

Key to the hells’ attack is the fact that what we want forms our identity; giving up each evil thing we crave feels like sacrificing a little part of who we are. But the Lord’s promise is this: If we actually do it, stick through it and let that piece of ourselves be sacrificed, He will eventually replace it with the desire for something good, pure and loving.

An interesting twist is that if we tried to do this all at once, we actually would lose our identity, destroying every love we have at once. This may sound odd – wouldn’t we want such a transformation- – but imagine someone you think of as thoroughly evil: Hitler, perhaps, or Caligula, or Vlad Dracula. Then imagine removing, in one swipe, all their evil desires. Would we even recognize them anymore? Would they be themselves? Would they be anything?

But imagine a child’s stuffed bear, loved so much that it loses an arm. You replace the arm, and then it is loved so much that it loses the other arm. And then the legs, and the head, all replaced one at a time. Finally the body wears through and you replace that too. So what you have is the same bear, but with every part replaced. That’s kind of how the Lord works on us: Through a lifelong series of temptations we can root out and replace one little bit at a time until we emerge all-new and ready for heaven while still being who we are.

It’s clear, then, how crucial a role temptation plays. If we never had that conflict between what we want to be in our minds and what we are in our hearts, the evil would just stay in our hearts untouched. We have to take on those battles, one by one over a lifetime, to become the people the Lord wishes us to be.

http://newchristianbiblestudy.org/

(References: Arcana Coelestia 730, 739, 755, 757, 1690, 2334, 2338, 4274, 5246, 8403)

Prophecies of the Lord’s Advent

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The Messiah. The Savior. For hundreds – maybe thousands – of years, people were waiting for the Lord to be born. Why? Because the Old Testament has many prophecies of the event.

It starts in Genesis 3:15, where the Lord admonishes the serpent in the Garden of Eden:

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Genesis 3:15.

There’s the well-known one from Numbers 24, when Balaam blesses Israel:

He hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: “I shall see him, but not now. I shall behold him, but not nigh. There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.”

In Micah 5, there’s this one, in which Bethlehem is identified as the place where the Lord will come from:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

In Malachi 3:1-4, there’s a prophecy that includes both John the Baptist and the Lord:

1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to this temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.
2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:
3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifer of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
4 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years.

In Isaiah, there’s another prophecy of John the Baptist, and the Lord:

“A voice is crying — in a wilderness — Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, Make straight in a desert a highway to our God.” Isaiah 40:3.

Then, in Isaiah 9, we have perhaps the best-known one of all:

6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

There are many other prophecies besides these. But Malachi was the last of the Jewish prophets, and for perhaps 500 years after his death, the records are silent.

Three hundred years before the time of Jesus Christ, the armies of Alexander the Great swept through Israel, and it became part of Alexander’s empire. After his death, three of his generals divided the empire amongst themselves, and Israel became a borderland between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires. Greek culture followed, threatening to swamp the Jewish culture that had been somewhat restored after the return from Babylon. There was a brief independence under the Maccabees, but then came the Romans.

Somehow, there was still a remnant of good people who were waiting for the Messiah, and – when the time came – they were receptive. Mary was. Joseph was. The shepherds were. The wise men were. Zacharias and Elizabeth were. In the temple, Simeon and Anna were. So, there were a few, who knew the prophecies, and had not lost faith that they would someday be fulfilled.

http://newchristianbiblestudy.org/

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Human

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Human

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The Lord, in His essence, is perfect, infinite love given form through perfect, infinite wisdom. Because He is love, and love wants something to give itself to, he created human beings so that we could accept his love and return it, and thus be conjoined with Him.
Two things had to be done for this to work. First, we had to be structured so we would fit into a state of union with the Lord – which means we had to be forms of love and wisdom ourselves. Second, we had to be free to reject the Lord’s love, or the choice would be meaningless (in fact, if we were purely good, with no choice, we would be extensions of the Lord; in that case loving us would the Lord loving Himself, which is contrary to His nature).

The things that make us human, then, are the fact that we have thoughts and feelings (thoughts come from wisdom; feelings come from love), and that we can choose – in freedom – to use those thoughts and feelings to open ourselves up to the Lord’s love and be conjoined to Him.

And how do we do that? By bringing our thoughts and feelings into line with the Lord’s love and wisdom, so His love and wisdom can flow into us. We accomplish this first through our thoughts, which are more external and more under our control than our feelings are. We can fill our minds with the Lord’s teachings through the Word, through ministers, teachers and parents and through the wisdom of people around us. Using those ideas of what is right and wrong, we can force ourselves to stop doing what is wrong and instead do what is right. If we stick to it out of a desire to be good people, the Lord will start rewarding us with joy in doing the right thing, and will eventually change how we feel so that we genuinely love to do what’s good.

If we do that, we will eventually become angels – who are also human, people who once lived in our world and followed the Lord. If we don’t, instead letting selfish loves rule us, we will eventually become evil spirits in hell – who are also human, though barely so, since they reject the Lord’s love.

An interesting aspect of this is the role of freedom. Free choice is essential to our humanity, but it seems like the more we force ourselve to follow rules the less freedom we have, until as angels we do nothing but obey. Following our urges and doing whatever we want seems like a much greater degree of freedom. This, however, is exactly wrong on a spiritual level. If we follow our urges we will end up desiring only evil. Since evil wants only to hurt and dominate others, we will face constant obstacles and resistance to our desires. That will be all the more true in hell, where the Lord prevents evil spirits from doing any actual long-term harm. On the other hand, if we force ourselves to be hind and loving, the Lord will eventually fill us with the desire to be kind and loving – and in heaven, with everyone in such a state, there is no need for rules at all. Every angel does exactly what he or she wants to do.

There is one other aspect of humanity that is worth mentioning. The Writings also tell us that because both heaven and the natural world were created by the Lord, they are in human form just as we are. That means every aspect of life has some analogy to the human body, and to the human spirit. Since humanity is modeled on the Lord, this also means that every aspect of heaven and earth has some analogy to the nature of the Lord. Think about this next time you go for a hike – every leaf on every tree could tell us something about the Lord, if only we could understand it. And every leaf on every tree could tell us something about ourselves, as well.

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This video is a product of the New Christian Bible Study Corporation. Follow this link for more information and more explanations – text, pictures, audio files, and videos: http://www.newchristianbiblestudy.org

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Holy Spirit

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Holy Spirit

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The nature of the Holy Spirit is a topic where there’s a marked difference between standard Christian theology and the New Christian perspective. The “official” dogma of most Christian teaching is that the Holy Spirit is one of the three persons that make up one God, in the role of reaching out to people with the power of God to bring them into a desire for righteousness. He is perceived to be proceeding from the other two: God the Father and Jesus the Son.

That old formulation was the result of three centuries of debate among early Christians, as they tried to understand the nature of God. At that time, there was a sizeable minority that rejected the God-in-three-persons view, but — the majority won out, at the Council of Nicea, in 325 AD.

The New Christian teaching is more akin to some of the old minority viewpoints. It regards the Holy Spirit as a force, or activity, coming from God — not a separate being. This aligns with our everyday understanding of “spirit” as the projection of someone’s personality. It also accounts for the fact that the term “the Holy Spirit” does not occur in Old Testament, which instead uses phrases such “the spirit of God,” “the spirit of Jehovah” and “the spirit of the Lord,” where the idea of spirit connected closely with the person of God.

The Writings describe the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as three attributes of one person: the soul, body and spirit of the one God. They also say that the term “Holy Spirit” emerges in the New Testament because it is connected with the Lord’s advent in the physical body of Jesus, and because of the way that advent changed the way we can learn the Lord’s truth and become good people.

According to the Writings, the churches that came before the advent were “representative.” The people in them (in the best of those churches, anyway) knew that the Lord had created the world, and that the world was thus an image of the Lord, and they had the ability to look at that created world and understand its spiritual messages; they could look at the world and understand the Lord. And they did it without trying and with great depth, much the way we can read a book when what we’re actually seeing is a bunch of black squiggles on a white sheet of paper.

That ability was eventually twisted into idol-worship and magic, however, as people slid into evil. The Lord used the Children of Israel to preserve symbolic forms of worship, but even they didn’t know the deeper meaning of the rituals they followed. With the world thus bereft of real understanding, the Lord took on a human body so He could offer people new ideas directly. That’s why the Writings say that He represents divine truth (“the Word became flesh,” as it is put in John 1:14).

The Holy Spirit at heart also represents divine truth, the truth offered by the Lord through his ministry in the world and its record in the New Testament. The term “the Holy Spirit” is also used in a more general sense to mean the divine activity and the divine effect, which work through true teachings to have an impact on our lives.

Such a direct connection between the Lord and us was not something that could come through representatives; it had to come from the Lord as a man walking the earth during His physical life or – in modern times – through the image we have of Him as a man in His physical life. That’s why people did not receive the Holy Spirit before the Lord’s advent.

What we have now, though, is a full-blown idea of the Lord, with God the Father representing His soul, the Son representing his body, and the Holy Spirit representing His actions and His impact on people.

(References: Doctrine of the Lord 58; True Christian Religion 138, 139, 140, 142, 153, 158, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 170, 172)

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The Trinity – and the Mistake People Made in 325 AD

           
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Jesus is clearly identified in the Gospels as the son of God, and during his ministry regularly referred to “the Father”, seemingly as a separate, higher being. Yet he also stated his own divinity, which was reinforced when he was resurrected after the crucifixion and appeared, in the flesh, to his followers.

So was he God? What about the Father? Could he and the Father both be God? And what about the Holy Spirit, also mentioned with great frequency? Was that a third divine being?

This seeming paradox led to a variety of interpretations among early Christians, which led to a council of 300 church leaders in the Turkish town of Nicaea in 325 A.D. They settled on the idea of three beings making up one God, an idea which was confirmed and expanded in a second council in Constantinople in 381 A.D. The doctrine took final form in what’s known as the Athanasian Creed, adopted by the Roman Catholic Church in the sixth century.

That creed, which is still central to most Christian churches today, says that the three – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – are equally God and equally all-powerful, and that all three existed from eternity and will exist to eternity. It says the Son was “begotten” of the Father and the Holy Spirit “proceeded” from the Father and the Son, but all three are “uncreated,” are equal, and are together one God in the Holy Trinity.

The Writings say this false doctrine was the beginning of the end for the Christian church, leading to an inevitable belief in three gods, even when people spoke of one God. They also say that three separate infinite beings would be impossible, since something that’s infinite cannot be divided.

Instead, the Writings say that God the Father – Jehovah, as He is known in the Old Testament – planted His own essence in Mary so that it could be clothed with a physical human body. Through Mary the resulting man – Jesus – also inherited all the typical human weaknesses and desires for evil, which meant that despite his divine soul He could lust for evil as powerfully as anyone ever has.

That human frailty allowed Jesus to engage directly in battle against the hells, which had at the time grown so powerful that people were nearly cut off from heaven. Those battles were waged the same way our battles are waged: through temptation. The Writings say Jesus subjected Himself to temptation throughout His life, on a scale and to a degree that we can’t imagine. But as He won each battle, he forced another part of hell into submission.

Those battles had another effect. With each victory, Jesus turned a little bit of His human reality into divine reality, slowly uniting his human exterior with His internal soul, which was Jehovah Himself. By the time of His ministry, what people saw was mostly divine. Through His final temptation, on the cross, he purified the final aspects of his physical humanity, so the body that was buried and resurrected was fully divine – Jesus was Jehovah and Jehovah was Jesus. And since He took that divine human body with Him to heaven, Jesus is till Jehovah and Jehovah is still Jesus, which is expressed in the Writings as the Lord.

As for the Holy Spirit, the case is this:

The Lord has always offered people spiritual guidance, but originally did so from a distance. The earliest people learned of the Lord through angels, and by seeing spiritual meaning in the natural world. Later the Lord used inspired people – Moses and various judges and prophets – to teach others about spiritual things. This changed, however, when He came among us as Jesus. As Jesus He spoke to people directly, teaching them Himself about spiritual things, teachings that were recorded and passed on to us today. The term “the Holy Spirit” describes the power of that direct teaching and the way the Lord uses it to motivate us.

The Holy Spirit, then, draws its power from things that have always been true, but it’s a power that came into effect through Jesus. That’s why it’s an expression that does not ever occur in the Old Testament, which instead speaks of the Spirit of Jehovah or the Spirit of the Lord.

So what does the Trinity mean to us now? What is the presence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in our lives? The Writings say that the three aspects of the Lord do indeed exist, but rather than being three people they are the soul of the Lord (the Father), the body of the Lord (the son) and the Lord’s activity (the Holy Spirit).

http://newchristianbiblestudy.org/

Here is a reference to a key passage in Swedenborg’s work, True Christian Religion 163.

Heaven and Hell

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Heaven And Hell

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People seem a bit unclear about heaven’s landscape – is it a tropical garden with fruit for the picking, or is it a place of fluffy white clouds and harp music?

They are also divided on how to get there. Is it by accepting the forgiveness brought to mankind by Jesus on the cross (the Protestant version)? Or is it by doing the things God has told us to do through holy books and churches (the version for Catholics and most other monotheists)?

But this much seems to be agreed: It is a paradise and a reward, and anyone who gains entry will be happy.

Hell, meanwhile, is quite the opposite: It is a fearsome place where people are tortured. Some see is cold and snowy; most think of it as hot and fiery, but either way it is torment for anyone who goes there. And who is that ends up there? Anyone who doesn’t believe the right things, which will vary depending on which version of the “right things” actually turns out to be right.

But does that all make sense? It seems someone could be a thoroughly nasty person, full of hatred for others and love of himself, and still go to heaven for saying or doing specific, sanctioned things. Someone else could be the nicest guy in the world, always ready to help and with a genuine delight in the good fortune of others, but trot off to hell’s torturers for believing in the wrong version of God.

The obvious question there is “what kind of God would torture people just for believing the wrong thing?” That’s caused a lot of people to question whether hell exists.

A more intriguing question, though, involves that nasty, selfish, horrible person going to heaven. His whole life his delight has been fleecing people out of their money and laughing at them for their stupidity, and now he’s supposed to hang out eating grapes with these same pathetic losers? Worse, he’s not allowed to run any scams, trick them, laugh at them, nothing! This goody-two-shoes “love and harmony” garbage makes him gag. What kind of heaven is that?

Swedenborg’s take on heaven and hell is quite different. It stems from the idea that we are what we love: that our deepest affections and feelings determine our true character, not what we’ve done or even the thoughts we have. After we die, his works say, our affections come to the surface so that everyone can see them, and then we are in a sense free to associate with anyone we want to. So naturally we find people with similar affections so we can live together and share the things we love.

Heaven, then becomes a state where good people can share their lives with other good people. Even better, they share their lives with others who love the same specific good things, and can work on those good things together. This flows out as uses, work that’s important, and that is a delight to everyone involved.

Hell, on the flip side, is simply a place where nasty, selfish people congregate and filter into groups based on the specific lusts and desires they have. Since they’re all evil, they all want to hurt and dominate each other, so it’s a rather endless struggle. And since the Lord prevents them from really hurting each other – and prevents them from attacking the good people – it’s rather frustrating. But that torture from within is the only torture there is; the Lord has no desire to and no reason to punish them. In fact, He still loves them and wishes for them to be as happy as they can be, considering what they have chosen to become.

There is much, much more that could be said; Swedenborg wrote an entire book on the subject. Here are a few key points:

1. People are married in heaven; in fact, the pure love of marriage is the central love of heaven. Those marriages are of husbands and wives who are perfectly matched, suited to each other uniquely because of what they love and how they think. In some cases those are marriages continued from this life; in other cases couples part mutually and are led to the right partners. Swedenborg calls the love of heavenly couples “conjugial,” and says a husband and wife actually become one soul. And yes, those marriages are “complete,” with the addendum that the merging of external bodies we can experience in this life is but a faint reflection of the merging of spiritual bodies that an angel couple experiences.

2. There is no separate race of angels: Angels are people who accepted the Lord’s love in this life and went to heaven after they died.

3. Children who die go to heaven to be raised by angel parents. They are still human and still have free will, but growing up in heaven all but guarantees they will become angels as well.

4. People’s surroundings – and even their outward appearance – are projections of what they are internally, so that both are of surpassing beauty and pleasantness, all perfectly suited to the people who are there.

5. Between heaven and hell is an area Swedenborg calls the World of Spirits. People go there when they first die, and while there learn the truth about the Lord and heaven. People’s inner loves also slowly emerge while they are in the World of Spirits, so they recognize others with the same loves and begin their journeys toward heaven or hell.

6. Heaven itself is in three layers. The lowest is the natural heaven, where people are on a love of being obedient and doing the right things. The middle is the spiritual heaven, where people are in the love of other people, and from that in a love of what is true. The highest is the celestial heaven, where people are in love to the Lord, and express their ideas as wisdom. These layers are mirrored in hell, with those in pure love of self and hatred of the Lord in the deepest hells.

The Swedenborg Foundation recently published a new translation of Swedenborg’s “Heaven and Hell,” with modernized language for greater accessibility. You can order that here: http://swedenborg.com/book_detail.asp-pkproductid=82

You can also download a free version of an older translation here: http://swedenborg.com/page.asp-page_name=complete_works

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Is There Life After Death?

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The Bible on Life After Death

I’ve written about the findings of Drs. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and Raymond Moody, both of whom have worked for years with patients who, after being revived from clinical death, have recounted what happened to them during the experience. I’ve also studied and written about “Heaven and Hell”, written by Emanuel Swedenborg in 1758, which contains so much that bears out the reality of what these people described.

Inevitably, in thinking about the afterlife, questions arise about what is said on the subject in the Bible. People tend to think that the Bible says practically nothing about the life after death, and the churches on the whole, tend to teach a ‘wait and see’ attitude. Even Dr. Moody, in the second part of his book, “Life after Life”, where he looks at the Bible for possible parallels to the experiences his patients described, fails to mention what, at least as I see them, are some of the most significant of all things said there.

I want you, if you will, to quietly consider the following:

Jesus said: “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14 :1-3).

As you think about these words ask yourself, what could Jesus have meant by His Father’s house but some kind of higher life? These are very beautiful words. Full of promise and wonderfully reassuring. Where Christ is, there we shall be.

In another Gospel, Matthew, chapter 22, the Sadducees (who, by the way, did not believe in the resurrection or in survival after death) had been trying to trap the Lord, using a ridiculous example to try to make fun of the whole idea. At the end of this particular encounter with them, the Lord said these words: “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matthew 22: 31-33). It’s so easy for us to miss the point here. Here was a group of people who stoutly denied the resurrection. As far as they were concerned, and though they revered the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they were dead. Not so, said Jesus. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. They are not dead. They are alive today, though in the spiritual world.

And then we come to Luke’s Gospel, to the description there of the crucifixion. One of the criminals crucified alongside Jesus railed at Him, it is said. The other defended Him and turned to Jesus asking him to remember him when He came to His Kingdom. And (Jesus) said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”. They are startling words, aren’t they? “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

It by no means ends here. I want to refer you to a parable. Now I know that some people dismiss the parables as illustrations, the accuracy and teaching of which can be questioned. Is it, though, likely that Jesus would have used something, inaccurate and fanciful, even though it only be in a parable? For myself I can’t believe He would. In any case, listen to what He said. It is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Luke 16:19-31.

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, full of sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried; and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. And he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us’. And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment’. But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent’. He said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.” (Luke 16: 19-31).

Let me say again that though a parable, yet I believe – and a strong case can be made out to this effect – that the Lord was here drawing on essentially real life experiences as He did of course in His other parables. The sad thing, is that it has been neglected for the wealth of information it contains about life after death. Here, in fact, are just some of the points made. The parable takes for granted that resurrection and awakening in the spiritual world follows on after death. Lazarus died and he was taken up into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and found himself in hell. There is no suggestion of an interval of years. No mention of a last judgment with which many have associated resurrection from the dead. The person goes on living though now in another realm. It’s interesting also that the character people form for themselves in this world goes with them into the next. Death doesn’t change people….it doesn’t change us as to the person we really are inside.

And this raises the whole question of the purpose of our life in this world. Swedenborg explains that whilst the Lord wishes to ultimately bring us all into heaven and to bless our lives with heavenly happiness, yet we must choose this life ourselves. And that, in a very real sense, is why we are here. The kind of person we freely choose to be in this world, selfish or unselfish, greedy for ourselves or more considerate for the well-being of others, is the person we will remain. As the tree falls so it lies. And after death we shall take ourselves to people like-minded to ourselves and with whom we are happiest and most at ease. It is sometimes fondly thought and hoped that when we die we will change. We will be different people. We will get about doing the things and being the person we never got around to being here. But we won’t. Once the surprise and novelty wears off, we will be our old selves once again. It’s always the way. It’s worth dwelling on this for a moment. Another popular idea is that after death we will be called to give account of ourselves and will be judged and sent one way or the other whether we like it or not. But nothing whatever is said to this effect in the parable. Lazarus died and went to heaven. The rich man died and went to hell. They took themselves there, to all intents and purposes. Their lives or the type of person they on earth had chosen to be, determined where they would go.

I remember an older friend of mine saying some years ago… indeed, pointing out the obvious… that in a hundred years from now everyone alive today, adults and children (with a few exceptions, of course) will be dead. And that wasn’t said as some kind of doomsday forecast or in any morbid way. It is a fact. We are all going to die. And it’s useful and healthy to talk calmly about the fact. But while the body dies and is discarded the mind or spirit within, which is the essential person we are, goes on living, just as the parable describes. And that doesn’t mean some disembodied existence. Lazarus and the rich man were just as much people after death as they had been before. The rich man remembered his brothers. “After the death of the body” wrote Swedenborg, “the spirit of a person appears in the spiritual world in a human form, altogether as it appeared in the natural world.”

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We all have a pretty clear idea of what “natural” means – it includes anything having to do with nature, the physical reality we live in, and extends to the impulses we have that arise from the natural world. So it’s natural for the sun to shine, for water to flow and for plants to grow. It’s natural for us to want food, water and shelter. And it’s natural for us to want want sex, wealth, children, respect, control over ourselves and even control over others – all things that serve the natural goals of surviving and passing on our genetics. In the modern world that extends to desires for success in our jobs, for physical attractiveness, for the ability to compete for a respected place in the world, and other basic urges.

If you think about it, most of those urges are ones shared by animals, and those that aren’t are extensions of desires animals do have. For instance, an animal would not desire a promotion at work, but they do desire enhanced social status and access to resources, which is a more general expression of the same thing.

That’s one way Swedenborg uses the term “natural” – it distinguishes the physical reality we’re aware of from the spiritual reality we’re not aware of. And he says that within that physical reality, we are pretty close to being animals, driven by basic urges and instinct. But Swedenborg also says that the human mind is a spiritual organ, that within our minds we can rise above nature to see things in spiritual light. That’s how we can perceive a better possibility for ourselves as spiritual beings, and can decide to act contrary to our urges and instincts in pursuit of more exalted goals – things that animals can’t do.

But Swedenborg also uses the word “natural” to identify the lowest level of spiritual reality, and the lowest level of heaven. Angels of the natural heaven love to understand what the Lord wants and to do it, and love each other equally to themselves. Their orientation is toward outward action, putting deeper ideas from other sources into play. The same could be said of the natural level we all have in our minds: That’s where the deeper spiritual concepts get translated into specific ideas that can be put into action. It’s also where gather natural knowledge – scientific knowledge and other ideas arising from the natural world – so that it can be used in our spiritual thoughts.

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Is your body “you”?

It sure doesn’t feel that way, does it? Your body is “yours,” you inhabit it, but the real “you” is inside, thinking and feeling and aware. “You” don’t sense “yourself” as something physical.

This is something that has confounded scientists and philosophers for centuries. That feeling is universal, and it’s awfully hard to say it’s not true, but there’s no way to demonstrate it scientifically or to even define its functions in concrete terms philosophically. If you’re not physical, then what are you made of? How does the “you” affect the physical world? How do “you” even control your own body?

There are no good answers from the natural world, so people have jumped to the hazy idea that there is a spiritual reality which parallels and interacts with natural reality, and the real “you” is a spirit, made of spiritual material.

Swedenborg says that not only is this true, but that spiritual reality – what he calls the “spiritual world” – is actually more real than the physical world, and is actually the source of physical reality. In fact, he says that every detail of the natural world is a sort of projection of a detail of the spiritual world, and if we understand those relationships we can see the spiritual reality within natural things, much as we see lines and curves on paper and understand them as words.

Often, then, the word “spiritual” is used by Swedenborg and on this website as a sort of catchall for non-material reality, everything about heaven and hell and our deeper loves and thoughts, when those loves and thoughts extend beyond physical things.

But Swedenborg also divides spiritual reality into three layers, and (somewhat confusingly) uses “spiritual” to describe the middle of those three layers.

The inmost level of spiritual reality is referred to as “celestial,” and is marked by a pure love of the Lord, which flows forth directly as wisdom. This is the highest state humans can reach, and is the state of the highest heavens, where people live in complete innocence and harmony from the Lord’s love.

The outermost layer of spiritual reality is referred to as “natural,” and is marked by a love of doing the Lord’s will and a knowledge of what the Lord teaches. This level exists in all of us, and is where we put what we know and love into action, where everything becomes tangible. Those in the natural heaven live simply, loving to do what’s right and taking joy in understanding what’s right.

Between those two is the midde, or “spiritual,” layer of spiritual reality. It is marked by love of other people, and a love of exploring and understanding the things the Lord teaches, making it in a way the most intellectual of the three. Those in the spiritual heaven love to explore what is true for its own sake, and marry that to a love of those around them, a love of serving and being good to them.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 4286 [2]; De Verbo 3 [1-3]; Divine Love and Wisdom 174, 251; Doctrine of Life 86; The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 48)

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1 The Knowledge of the Afterlife

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1 The Knowledge of the Afterlife

“In My Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you.” John 14: 2

Few deny that man has a mind as well as a body. And since time immemorial it has been felt—in a parallel fashion— that there is an unseen realm of spiritual life, the abode of souls, the real home of the human mind, beyond or within, the material world.

But in this pragmatic century any mention of a “spiritual world” will likely cause embarrassment or misgivings unless the reference is simply to the familiar haunts of our own mind. Even from Christian pulpits the doctrine of man’s immortality is often spoken of only in apologetic whispers. And when the more conservative among the clergy speak at a funeral, it is only to announce in dolorous tones that the departed will sleep in the grave until a mythical day of general resurrection. Nothing is said of the bourne to which the deceased has departed, nor of the life-functions which might now become his, or the spiritual treasures which he takes with him. Since the churches are silent, it is not surprising to find a credulous multitude who draw a confused comfort from the report of mysterious and unusual happenings which they interpret as interventions by the spirits of the dead in our human affairs.

Nor is it any wonder that the respectable scientist shies off from the study of such a field—wherein fact and fancy seem to intertwine. When the imagination has once been aroused, a less cautious mind may easily overstep the evidence. Even science has bred a fiction of its own, and there has been a recrudescence of a specific brand of popular literature which solemnly gathers hearsay evidence not only about apparitions and “poltergeists” who play noisy havoc in haunted houses and spirits who at will assume “ecto-plastic” bodies, but about space-wanderers in “flying saucers” which defy gravity and dematerialize in a moment!

Such fantasies are enough to discourage sober minds from an acceptance of inconclusive claims. Yet the failure to prove the presence of spirits by sensual demonstrations does in no wise disprove the existence of a spiritual world which influences our lives intimately and in orderly ways, but which by its very nature eludes experimental approach. And although there is much self-delusion, and much trickery and deception among the so-called “mediums” who claim contact with spirits, there is also evidence at hand to show that mankind is still confronted with unsolved problems and that there are undiscovered depths within the human mind itself which transcend our rational analysis. Empirical science has not given any satisfying explanation even of the ordinary processes of our thought, memory, and emotion. Nor can it with any surety deny the visionary experiences of many who assert that they have “seen spirits.”

Revelations about the Spiritual World

Besides all this: Can we ignore the testimony of all the prophets, philosophers, saints and seers, many of whom we still reckon among the most enlightened of men, and who not only sincerely believed in guardian spirits but whose eyes were at times open to glimpses of the world of the hereafter ? Did not our Lord Himself confirm the age-long conviction of mankind when He said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions. If not, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you”? Yet He also intimated that the time was not yet ripe to speak openly of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. He could speak of them only in parables. “These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs,” He said, “but the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father” (John 16:25). “When the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13).

The promise of such an explicit revelation was fulfilled in an unexpected way. It was granted to Emanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish savant and philosopher of the eighteenth century, to become a citizen of two worlds for a period of twenty-seven years. Inspired by the Spirit of Truth he was given to write down his experiences gathered during his intercourse with spirits and angels in the spiritual world, and to publish the truth about the afterlife, lest the spirit of denial which was already then beginning to rule the worldly-wise should also corrupt the simple in heart and the simple in faith.1Only a Divine revelation could disclose to our race the truth about heaven and hell. At the same time Swedenborg, after diligent study of the Sacred Scriptures, was inspired to find its internal or symbolic meaning which accorded in every part with the doctrine known to the angels in heaven.

Doctrinal Preliminaries

Since the present little book may find its way into the hands of readers who are not familiar with the doctrines of the New Church, it seems well at the outset to review some of the leading truths which New Church readers take for granted. These teachings, which must be postulated if we are to understand the Scriptures rationally and explain the phenomena of the mind and of nature, may be summarized as follows:

  1. The Divine purpose in creation is to provide a heaven from the human race.
  2. Man is a spirit or mind clothed, while on earth, with a material body.
  3. There are two distinct worlds—a material world in which men live as to their bodies, and a spiritual world where angels and spirits dwell. The spiritual world is substantial, yet independent of what we know as “space” and “time”—which are properties of nature.
  4. The spirit or mind of man is immortal. At death he lays aside his material body, never again to assume it.
  5. No angels were created directly into the spiritual world, nor did any spiritual beings exist before the creation of mankind. The spiritual world contains a heaven and a hell, both of which consist of the spirits of men who have been born on some earth in the vast universe. There are no angels, spirits, or devils who were not born as men.
  6. Between heaven and hell there is a “world of spirits,” which is the realm or state into which all spirits pass immediately after death to prepare for their chosen heaven or for their chosen hell. When evil becomes predominant in this intermediate realm, it is ordered by a general “last judgment.” The final of these judgments—symbolically predicted in the Book of Revelation—took place in the year 1757.
  7. The inhabitants of the spiritual world constantly exert an influence on the human race on earth analogous to the influence which a man’s own spirit exerts on his body.
  8. Nonetheless the two worlds are utterly separate in appearance and invisible to each other, lest the freedom of man or the progress of spirits be disturbed.
  9. It is therefore disorderly and injurious for men to seek open intercourse with spirits, and it is also forbidden for spirits to seek to obsess men.
  10. The only legitimate way to learn about the afterlife is through the teachings of Divinely appointed prophets and seers: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead” (Lu. 16:31). The doctrines given through Swedenborg constitute a final revelation granted for the sake of the restoration of a true Christian religion or a New Church.

The title of our book does not imply any claim that it covers all the relations of spirits and men. Nor is it our purpose here to describe the spiritual world or to define the nature of the soul and its life. But in the voluminous Writings of Swedenborg we have an inexhaustible field of information about the arcana of the spiritual world “from things seen and heard” and about the laws which govern the impact of that world upon our lives. There, also, are shown the different angelic influences which succeed each other as man advances along the path of regeneration.

What we here wish to stress is that man’s character is finally formed by the spiritual influences which he invites from the unseen world. It is often claimed that man is merely a product of his heredity and his environment. But while the parental strain determines the initial form of his mind and the more active loves and abilities with which he starts in life; and while his surroundings are at first predetermined and certainly limit his opportunities for knowledge and usefulness; yet within the range of these two factors of heredity and environment man exercises a choice which gradually builds within him a character quite individual and free. For as to his mind he moves in a spiritual environment which always corresponds to his own states of mind. The ability of man to become responsible for his own inner character and final destiny is due to the fact that he can—in freedom and according to his reason—choose what kind of spirits shall inspire his thoughts, purposes, and decisions. Although he feels at all times as if he were moved by his own affections, his spirit is actually held, unknowingly, in an equilibrium between influences from heaven and from hell, and is motivated either by the affections of angels or by the lusts of evil spirits. He does not live from himself. He is only a receptacle of a life which originates from God but which is mediated by the souls, good and evil, who inhabit the spiritual world.

And the purpose of the following essays is to examine some of the manifold ways in which our lives are moulded for good or ill by the influx of these invisible agencies.

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Celestial

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In some ways, the Lord is simplicity itself. Taken in His essence, He is love. His attitude toward us is also simplicity itself: He loves us. And He expresses that love in an unending stream that works completely and constantly to get us to freely accept and return His love. When you start looking at how that process works, it can start to seem complicated. But in essence, it could hardly be more simple.

It makes sense, then, that the best state we can achieve as humans is to receive the Lord’s love and love Him back. That’s the state Swedenborg means by “celestial”: It is the highest, best, most pure, most innocent and most joyful state human beings can experience, one powered by love of the Lord. It is also the state of the highest, inmost heaven, and is in some degree present in everyone as the recipient of the Lord’s love.

Not all of us receive and manifest the Lord’s love in the same way, though (in fact, none of us do), so the pure simplicity of the celestial state gets complicated as people open themselves up only partway to the Lord and redirect His love toward lesser things. Swedenborg’s works tell us that this results in three distinct “levels” of existence, based on what people love. The celestial is the highest of these levels, based on love of the Lord; the “spiritual” is based on love of other people, and the “natural” is based on the delight we feel in being good. The spiritual is more external and less pure then the celestial, and the natural is more external and less pure than the spiritual.

Each of those levels is further divided, however, between those who are led directly by the level’s defining love and those who are led by the ideas that spring from that love. Some celestial angels, then, are led by the love of the Lord itself, while others are led by the exquisite concepts that express love to the Lord. Unfortunately, Swedenborg also uses the words “celestial” and “spiritual” to identify that division, with “celestial” representing the love of each level and “spiritual” representing the truth and wisdom of each level. So the celestial level – centered on love of the Lord – has a celestial aspect and a spiritual aspect. The spiritual level – centered on love of other people – also has a celestial aspect and a spiritual aspect. And the natural level – centered on the delight of being good – has a celestial aspect and a spiritual aspect.

That might sound awfuly complicated – maybe even unnecessarily complicated – but it makes sense if you think about it. We all know people who are simply motivated by the desire to be good and to do things the “right” way. That’s an example of the natural level of existence, focused largely on external things, but aligned with the Lord’s wishes. Within that group, there are those who do what’s right pretty much by instinct, following their good affections; they would be the celestial natural. There are also those who like to know the rules and think about the instructions, so they can know intellectually that they are doing things right; they would be the spiritual natural. There are similar distinctions on the spiritual level and the celestial level.

One other thing is worth noting: Swedenborg’s works say that very few in the modern world are capable of reaching the celestial level, due to the amount of knowledge we have, the external nature of our lives and the need we have to use our minds to advance spiritually. The celestial heavens are largely populated by people from ancient times, who were able to live in closer, more direct communion with the Lord. As we understand the Lord’s wishes on a deeper and deeper level, though, we can open up greater possibilities for ourselves and for future generations.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 162, 1470, 1824, 3887, 9868; Arcana Coelestia 4286 [2]; Arcana Coelestia 9915 [2]; Arcana Coelestia 9993 [1-2]; Heaven and Hell 23, 31)

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The Five Churches

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In Swedenborgian theology, the term “church” usually doesn’t refer to a building – like St. Patrick’s Church on 10th Street – or to an organization, e.g. the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, a church is a state of spiritual belief, shared by a group of people, at a given time.

In the big picture, there have been 5 main churches in human history:

– The Most Ancient Church, represented by Adam in the Bible. It spanned the time from the dawn of human spirituality until the time represented by Noah, at around the time of the agricultural revolution. It didn’t have a written Word.

– The Ancient Church, represented by Noah in the Bible. It lasted from the rise of civilization until the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses mentions books from an Ancient Word from that church – the Book of Annunciations, the Book of Jasher, and the Wars of Jehovah.

– The Israelitish church, which lasted from the time of the Patriarchs until the birth of Jesus Christ. Its main role was to preserve the sacred scriptures that form the Old Testament, and to preserve, by adhering to external rituals, the embers of an internal worship whose real meaning was largely forgotten. The prophets of the Old Testament, through recording the history of the Israelitish people.

– The First Christian Church, which started at the time of the Lord’s ministry on earth. It gradually got corrupted by false understandings of the Trinity, which led to further confusion, and eventually the idea of salvation by faith separate from love.

– The New Christian Church, which has a new set of truths contained in Swedenborg’s works. Starting from 1770, it is restoring and fulfilling Jesus Christ’s original mission. The inner meaning of the Bible has been explained and clarified, and new concepts clear away the misunderstandings that hampered the First Christian Church.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 10248; True Christian Religion 786)

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