180. The Gospel writers described the stages of decline and corruption that the Christian church would undergo (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21). Their reference to "a great affliction such as has never existed since the world began and will never exist again" [Matthew 24:21] means an attack by falsities against the truth until there is no truth left that has not been falsified and finished off. ("Affliction" has the same meaning in other passages in the Word as well.)

Their reference to "the abomination of desolation" means the same thing, as does "the desolation [flying] on a bird of abominations" and "the close and the cutting down" in Daniel [Daniel 9:27]. The events in the Book of Revelation listed in the previous section [179] also describe the same attack.

This attack came because the church saw God's unity in the Trinity and his Trinity in the unity in three persons instead of one. The church has been mentally based on picturing three gods and vocally based on confessing one God. People in the church have separated themselves from the Lord, even to the point where they no longer have any concept of divinity in relation to his human nature. Yet he is in fact God the Father in human form, which is why he is called "Father of Eternity" (Isaiah 9:6) and why he says to Philip, "Those who have seen me have seen the Father" (John 14:7, 9).

768. The Lord's Coming Is Not His Coming to Destroy the Visible Heaven and the Inhabitable Earth and to Create a New Heaven and a New Earth, As Many Have Supposed Because They Have Not Understood the Word's Spiritual Meaning

In the churches in existence today, there is a strongly held opinion about the Second Coming. They believe that when the Lord comes for the Last Judgment, he will appear in the clouds of heaven with angels and the sound of trumpets. He will gather together all the people who are living on the earth and also the people who have died. He will separate the evil among them from the good, as a shepherd separates the goats from the sheep. Then he will cast the evil (the goats) into hell, and lift the good (the sheep) into heaven. At the same time he will create a new visible heaven and a new inhabitable earth. He will send a city down onto this new earth, which will be called the New Jerusalem. Its structure will follow the description given in Revelation 21 That is, it will be made of jasper and gold. The foundations of its walls will be made of precious stones of every kind. Its height, breadth, and length will be equal, at twelve thousand stadia each. All the elect will be brought together into this city, including people who were still alive and also people who had died at any time since the world began. The elect will then return to their bodies and experience everlasting joy in that magnificent city, their heaven.

This is the belief concerning the Lord's Coming and the Last Judgment that is dominant in the Christian churches of today.