545. The Lord Does Not Cast Anyone into Hell: Spirits Cast Themselves In

Some people cherish the notion that God turns his face away from people, spurns them, and casts them into hell, and is angry against them because of their evil. Some people even go so far as to think that God punishes people and does them harm. They support this notion from the literal meaning of the Word where things like this are said, not realizing that the spiritual meaning of the Word, which makes sense of the letter, is wholly different. So the real doctrine of the church, which is from the spiritual meaning of the Word, teaches something else. It teaches that the Lord never turns his face away from anyone or spurns anyone, never casts anyone into hell or is angry. ¹

Anyone whose mind is enlightened perceives this while reading the Word simply from the fact that the Lord is goodness itself, love itself, and mercy itself. Good itself cannot do harm to anyone. Love itself and mercy itself cannot spurn anyone, because this is contrary to mercy and love and is therefore contrary to the divine nature itself. So people who are thinking with an enlightened mind when they read the Word perceive clearly that God never turns away from us, and that because he does not turn away from us, he behaves toward us out of goodness and love and mercy. That is, he wills well toward us, loves us, and has compassion on us.

Enlightened minds also see from this that the literal meaning of the Word where things like this are said has a spiritual meaning concealed within it, a meaning needed to explain expressions that in the letter are adapted to human comprehension, things said in accord with our primary and general conceptions.

Footnotes:

986. And they repented not to give him glory. That this signifies that they were not willing to turn by living according to the Lord's precepts, is evident from the signification of repenting, as denoting to turn from evils and the falsities therefrom; in the present case, before the Last Judgment comes upon them, and also condemnation and punishment; and from the signification of giving glory to the Lord, as denoting to live according to His precepts (concerning which see above, n. 874).

Continuation concerning the Sixth Precept:-

[2] Because all the delights which a man has in the natural world are turned into corresponding delights in the spiritual world, so are the delights of the love of marriage and the delights of the love of adultery. The love of marriage is represented in the spiritual world as a virgin, whose beauty is such as to inspire the beholder with the delights of life; but the love of adultery is represented in the spiritual world by an old woman, whose hideousness is such as to inspire the beholder with coldness and torpor in every delight of life. This is why, in the heavens, the beauty of the angels is according to the quality of their conjugial love, and that, in the hells, the hideousness of the spirits is according to the quality of their love of adultery. In a word, with the angels of heaven, according to conjugial love, there is vitality in their faces, their bodily gestures, and in their speech; but with the spirits of hell, according to the love of adultery, there is deadliness in their faces. The delights of conjugial love in the spiritual world are sensibly represented by the fragrance of fruits and flowers of various kinds. But the delights of the love of adultery are there sensibly represented by the foul smells exhaling from dunghills and putrid substances of various kinds. The delights of the love of adultery are also actually turned into such things, because all the delights of adultery are spiritual filth. This is why the brothels in the hells exhale stenches that excite vomiting.

4225. In the first place it must be stated who are within the Grand Man and who are outside it. All who are governed by love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour, and who from their hearts do good to him in the measure that good is present in him, and who have a conscience of what is just and fair, are within the Grand Man, for they abide in the Lord and are consequently in heaven. Not so all who are governed by self-love and love of the world and therefore by their own very evil desires. These do good solely because laws require them to do it; they do it for the sake of personal position, worldly wealth, and reputation resulting from these. Thus they are ruthless interiorly, and being selfish and worldly-minded they are steeped in hatred of and revenge against their neighbour, and take delight in his injury when he does not favour them. These are outside the Grand Man; indeed they are in hell. They do not correspond to any organs or members within the body but to various defects and diseases induced into them, which too will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described from experience later on.

[2] Those outside the Grand Man, that is, outside heaven, cannot enter it since their lives are contrary to it. Indeed if they do gain any kind of entrance, as some on occasions do who during their lifetime have learned to impersonate angels of light (their entry into heaven being sometimes permitted to let them see what they themselves are really like), they are admitted no further than the first part of the way in, that is, no further than the part where those people are gathered who are still simple and have not yet been fully taught. Such people who come in impersonating angels of light are able to remain there for barely a few moments because the life there is that of love to the Lord and of love towards the neighbour. And because nothing there corresponds to their own life they are scarcely able to breathe; for spirits and angels too are beings who breathe, see 3884-3893. As a consequence those impersonating angels start to experience pain, because the act of breathing is directly related to one's freedom to live in one's own way; and what is remarkable, they are at length scarcely able to move but become such as are weighed down, inwardly seized with anguish and torment, as a result of which they cast themselves away from there headlong, even into hell where breathing and freedom of movement return to them. And this is why in the Word life is represented by movement.

[3] The breathing of those who are within the Grand Man however is free when the good of love is alive in them. Yet they are distinguishable any one from another according to the nature and the amount of that good; and this is the origin of so many heavens, which in the Word are called 'rooms', John 14:2. And anyone present in his own heaven leads the life that is his own and has the whole of heaven flowing into him. Everyone there is a focal point of all influxes, and because of that he experiences most perfect equilibrium, doing so in accordance with the amazing form heaven takes, which is received from the Lord alone, with much variety from person to person.