1853. That 'you will come to your fathers in peace' means that nothing of the goods and truths will suffer harm becomes clear from the meaning of 'fathers', also of 'coming to one's fathers', as well as of 'peace'. In the internal sense 'fathers' here has the same meaning as daughters and sons taken together. That 'daughters' means goods and 'sons' truths has been shown already in 489-491, 533, 1147, and therefore 'fathers' means those things meant by daughters and sons together. 'Coming to one's fathers' is passing over from the life of the body into the life of the spirit, or from the world into the next life. 'In peace' means that he will have lost nothing, and thus that nothing will suffer harm, for when a person passes into the next life he does not lose any of the things that he possesses as man. He retains and has with him every single thing except the body which has hampered the interior exercise of his capabilities. The fact that here, not death, or passing over to one's fathers, is meant by death, becomes clear from what follows immediately below.
True Christian Religion #795
795. This being so, and since I have day by day talked with nations and peoples of this world, not only those from Europe, but also those from Asia and Africa, as well as those of other religions, I shall add as a supplement to this book a short description of the condition of some of them. It needs to be grasped that the condition in the spiritual world both of each nation and people in general and of each individual in particular depends on their acknowledgment of God and their worship of Him. All who at heart acknowledge God, and from this time on who acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as God the Redeemer and Saviour, are in heaven. Those who do not acknowledge Him are below heaven, and are there taught; those who accept the teaching are raised to heaven. Those who reject it are cast down into hell; these include also those who, like the Socinians, have approached only God the Father, and those who, like the Arians, have denied the divinity of the Lord's Human. For the Lord said:
I am the way, truth and life; no one comes to the Father except through me.
And He said to Philip, who wanted to see the Father:
He who sees and knows me sees and knows the Father, John 14:6ff.
