By Emanuel Swedenborg, Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ

Daniel 7:13-14: I saw visions in the night, and behold, there was someone coming with the clouds of the heavens - someone like the Son of Humankind. He was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom. All peoples, nations, and tongues will worship him. His dominion is a dominion of an age that will not pass, and his kingdom is one that will not perish.

Revelation 21:1-2, 5, 9-10: I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And the angel spoke with me saying, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. "And [the angel] carried me away in the spirit to the top of a mountain great and high, and showed me the great city, holy Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

The One sitting on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new; and said to me, Write, because these words are true and trustworthy. "

[Author's] Table of Contents

Introduction: The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church

The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church in Both Universal and Specific Forms / 1-3

Chapter 1: God the Creator

The Oneness of God

1. The whole of Sacred Scripture teaches that there is one God, and therefore so do the theologies of the churches in the Christian world. / 6-7

2. The recognition that God exists and that there is one God flows universally from God into human souls. / 8

3. As a result, every nation in the whole world that possesses religion and sound reason acknowledges that God exists and that there is one God. / 9-10

4. For various reasons, different nations and peoples have had and still have a diversity of opinions on the nature of that one God. / 11

5. On the basis of many phenomena in the world, human reason is capable of perceiving and concluding, if it wants to, that God exists and that there is one God. / 12

6. If there were not one God the universe could not have been created or maintained. / 13

7. Those who do not acknowledge God are cut off from the church and damned. / 14

8. Nothing about the church is integrated in people who acknowledge many gods rather than one. / 15

The Underlying Divine Reality or Jehovah

1. The one God is called Jehovah from "being," that is, from the fact that he alone is [and was] and will be, and that he is the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega. / 19

2. The one God is substance itself and form itself. Angels and people are substances and forms from him. To the extent that they are in him and he is in them, to that extent they are images and likenesses of him. / 20

3. The underlying divine reality is intrinsic reality and is also an intrinsic capacity to become manifest. / 21-22

4. The intrinsic, underlying divine reality and intrinsic capacity to become manifest cannot produce anything else divine that is intrinsically real and has an intrinsic capacity to become manifest. Therefore another God of the same essence is impossible. / 23

5. The plurality of gods in ancient times, and nowadays as well, has no other source than a misunderstanding of the underlying divine reality. / 24

The Infinity of God: His Immensity and Eternity

1. God is infinite because he is intrinsic reality and manifestation, and all things in the universe have reality and manifestation from him. / 28

2. God is infinite because he existed before the world - before time and space came into being. / 29

3. Since the world was made, God has existed in space independently of space, and in time independently of time. / 30

4. God's infinity in relation to space is called immensity; in relation to time it is called eternity. Yet although these are related, there is nonetheless no space in God's immensity, and no time in his eternity. / 31

5. From many things in the world, enlightened reason can see the infinity of God. / 32

6. Every created thing is finite. The Infinite is in finite objects the way something is present in a vessel that receives it; the Infinite is in people the way something is present in an image of itself. / 33-34

The Essence of God: Divine Love and Wisdom

1. God is love itself and wisdom itself. These two constitute his essence. / 37

2. Because goodness comes from love and truth comes from wisdom, God is goodness itself and truth itself. / 38

3. Because God is love itself and wisdom itself, he is life itself in its essence. / 39-40

4. Love and wisdom are united in God. / 41-42

5. The essence of love is loving others who are outside of oneself, wanting to be one with them, and blessing them from oneself. / 43-45

6. These essential characteristics of divine love were the reason the universe was created, and they are the reason it is maintained. / 46-47

God's Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence

1. It is divine wisdom, acting on behalf of divine love, that has omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. / 50-51

2. We cannot comprehend God's omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence unless we know what the divine design is, and unless we learn that God is the divine design, and that he imposed that design on the universe as a whole and on everything in it as he created it. / 52-55

3. In the universe and everything in it, God's omnipotence follows and works through the laws of its design. / 56-58

4. God is omniscient; that is, he is aware of, sees, and knows everything down to the least detail that happens in keeping with the divine design, and by contrast is aware of, sees, and knows what goes against the divine design. / 59-62

5. God is omnipresent in his design from beginning to end. / 63-64

6. Human beings were created as forms of the divine design. / 65-67

7. The more we follow the divine design in the way we live, the more we receive power against evil and falsity from God's omnipotence, receive wisdom about goodness and truth from God's omniscience, and are in God because of God's omnipresence. / 68-70

The Creation of the Universe

None of us can get a fair idea of the creation of the universe unless some preliminary global concepts (which are listed) first bring our intellect into a state of perception. / 75

The creation of the universe is the topic of five memorable occurrences. / 76-78-80

Chapter 2: The Lord the Redeemer

1. Jehovah God came down and took on a human manifestation in order to redeem people and save them. / 82-84

2. Jehovah God came down as the divine truth, which is the Word; but he did not separate the divine goodness from it. / 85-88

3. In the process of taking on a human manifestation, God followed his own divine design. / 89-91

4. The "Son of God" is the human manifestation in which God sent himself into the world. / 92-94

5. Through acts of redemption the Lord became justice. / 95-96

6. Through those same acts the Lord united himself to the Father and the Father united himself to him. / 97-100

7. Through this process God became human and a human became God in one person. / 101-103

8. When he was being emptied out he was in a state of progress toward union; when he was being glorified he was in a state of union itself. / 104-106

9. From now on, no Christians will go to heaven unless they believe in the Lord God the Savior. / 107-108

10. A supplement about the state of the church before and after the Lord's Coming / 109

Redemption

1. Redemption was actually a matter of gaining control of the hells, restructuring the heavens, and by so doing preparing for a new spiritual church. / 115-117

2. Without that redemption no human being could have been saved and no angels could have continued to exist in their state of integrity. / 118-120

3. The Lord therefore redeemed not only people but also angels. / 121-122

4. Redemption was something only the Divine could bring about. / 123

5. This true redemption could not have happened if God had not come in the flesh. / 124-125

6. Suffering on the cross was the final trial the Lord underwent as the greatest prophet. It was a means of glorifying his human nature. It was not redemption. / 126-131

7. Believing that the Lord's suffering on the cross was redemption itself is a fundamental error on the part of the church. That error, along with the error about three divine Persons from eternity, has ruined the whole church to the point that there is nothing spiritual left in it anymore. / 132-133

Chapter 3: The Holy Spirit and the Divine Action

1. The Holy Spirit is the divine truth and also the divine action and effect that radiate from the one God, in whom the divine Trinity exists: the Lord God the Savior. / 139-141

2. Generally speaking, the divine actions and powerful effects meant by the Holy Spirit are the acts of reforming and regenerating us. Depending on the outcome of this reformation and regeneration, the divine actions and powerful effects also include the acts of renewing us, bringing us to life, sanctifying us, and making us just; and depending on the outcome of these in turn, the divine actions and powerful effects also include the acts of purifying us from evils, forgiving our sins, and ultimately saving us. / 142-145

3. In respect to the clergy, the divine actions and powerful effects meant by "the sending of the Holy Spirit" are the acts of enlightening and teaching. / 146-148

4. The Lord has these powerful effects on those who believe in him. / 149-152

5. The Lord takes these actions on his own initiative on behalf of the Father, not the other way around. / 153-155

6. Our spirits are our minds and whatever comes from them. / 156-157

A supplement to show that although the Holy Spirit is frequently mentioned in the New Testament, nowhere in the Old Testament do we read that the prophets spoke from the Holy Spirit; they spoke from Jehovah God / 158

The Divine Trinity

1. There is a divine Trinity, which is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. / 164, 165

2. These three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are three essential components of one God. They are one the way our soul, our body, and the things we do are one. / 166-169

3. This Trinity did not exist before the world was created. It developed after the world was created, when God became flesh. It came into existence in the Lord God the Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ. / 170, 171

4. At a conceptual level, the idea of a trinity of divine persons from eternity (meaning before the world was created) is a trinity of gods. This idea is impossible to wipe out just by orally confessing one God. / 172, 173

5. The apostolic church knew no trinity of persons. The idea was first developed by the Council of Nicaea. The council introduced the idea into the Roman Catholic church; and it in turn introduced the idea into the churches that have since separated from it. / 174-176

6. The Nicene and Athanasian views of the Trinity led to a faith in three gods that has perverted the whole Christian church. / 177, 178

7. The result is the abomination of desolation and the affliction such as will never exist again, which the Lord foretold in Daniel, the Gospels, and the Book of Revelation. / 179, 180, 181

8. In fact, if the Lord were not building a new heaven and a new church, the human race would not be preserved. / 182

9. Many absurd, alien, imaginary, and misshapen ideas of God have come into existence from the Athanasian Creed's assertion of a trinity of persons, each of whom is individually God. / 183, 184

Chapter 4: Sacred Scripture, the Word of the Lord

1. Sacred Scripture, the Word, is divine truth itself. / 189-192

2. The Word has a spiritual meaning that has not been known until now. / 193

(1) What the spiritual meaning is / 194

There is a heavenly divine influence, a spiritual divine influence, and an earthly divine influence that emanate from the Lord. / 195

(2) A demonstration that there is a spiritual meaning throughout the Word and in every part of it / 196, 197, 198

The Lord spoke in correspondences when he was in the world. While he was talking in an earthly way, he was also talking in a spiritual way. / 199

(3) It is the spiritual meaning that makes the Word divinely inspired and holy in every word. / 200

(4) The spiritual meaning has been unknown until now; but it was known to ancient peoples. They also knew about correspondences. / 201-207

(5) From this point on, the spiritual meaning will be given only to people who have genuine truths from the Lord. / 208

(6) The Word has amazing qualities because of its spiritual meaning. / 209

3. The Word's literal meaning is the foundation, the container, and the structural support for its spiritual and heavenly meanings. / 210-213

4. In the literal meaning of the Word, divine truth exists in its completeness, holiness, and power. / 214, 215, 216

(1) By their correspondence, the precious stones that constituted the foundations of the New Jerusalem mentioned in the Book of Revelation mean the truths in the Word's literal meaning. / 217

(2) The Urim and Thummim on Aaron's ephod correspond to the things that are good and true in the Word's literal meaning. / 218

(3) The precious stones from the Garden of Eden that the king of Tyre is said to have worn (see Ezekiel 28:12-13) mean the outermost kind of goodness and truth - the kind found in the Word's literal meaning. / 219

(4) The curtains, veils, and pillars in the tabernacle represented the same thing. / 220

(5) The same thing is also meant by the exteriors of the Temple in Jerusalem. / 221

(6) When the Lord was transfigured he represented the Word in its glory. / 222

(7) The Nazirites represented the power of the Word in its outermost form. / 223

(8) The Word has indescribable power. / 224

5. The church's body of teaching has to be drawn from the Word's literal meaning and supported by it. / 225, 229, 230

(1) The Word is not understandable without a body of teaching. / 226, 227, 228

(2) [A body of teaching has to be drawn from the Word's literal meaning and supported by it. / 229, 230]

(3) The genuine truth in the Word's literal meaning, the truth that is needed for a body of teaching, becomes manifest only to those who have enlightenment from the Lord. / 231, 232, 233

6. The Word's literal meaning provides a connection to the Lord and association with angels. / 234-239

7. The Word exists throughout the heavens; it is the source of angelic wisdom. / 240, 241, 242

8. The church is based on the Word; the nature of the church in individuals depends on their understanding of the Word. / 243-247

9. There is a marriage between the Lord and the church, and therefore a marriage between goodness and truth, in the individual details in the Word. / 248-253

10. We may derive heretical ideas from the Word's literal meaning, but we are condemned only if we become adamant about those ideas. / 254-260

(1) Many things in the Word are apparent truths; real truths lie hidden inside them. / 257

(2) Becoming adamant about apparent truths leads to false ideas. / 258

(3) The Word's literal meaning is a protection for the genuine truths that lie inside it. / 260

(4) Angel guardians mean the Word's literal meaning; that is what they stand for in the Word. / 260

11. While in the world, the Lord fulfilled everything in the Word; by doing so he became the Word or divine truth even on the last or outermost level. / 261, 262, 263

12. Before the Word that exists in the world today, there was a Word that has been lost. / 264, 265, 266

13. Because of the Word, even people who are outside the church and who do not have the Word have light. / 267-272

14. If the Word did not exist, no one would know about God, heaven, hell, or life after death, still less about the Lord. / 273-276

Chapter 5: The Catechism, or Ten Commandments, Explained in Both Its Outer and Its Inner Meanings

1. The Ten Commandments were the holiest thing in the Israelite church. The text here also contains material about how holy the ark was considered to be because of the law that was kept inside it. / 283-286

2. In their literal meaning, the Ten Commandments contain general principles of faith and life; in their spiritual and heavenly meanings, they contain absolutely everything. / 287-290

3. The first commandment: There is to be no other God before my face. / 291-296

4. The second commandment: You are not to take the name of Jehovah your God in vain, because Jehovah will not hold guiltless someone who takes his name in vain. / 297-300

5. The third commandment: Remember the Sabbath day in order to keep it holy; for six days you will labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath for Jehovah your God. / 301-304

6. The fourth commandment: Honor your father and your mother so that your days will be prolonged and it will be well with you on earth. / 305-308

7. The fifth commandment: You are not to kill. / 309-312

8. The sixth commandment: You are not to commit adultery. / 313-316

9. The seventh commandment: You are not to steal. / 317-320

10. The eighth commandment: You are not to bear false witness against your neighbor. / 321-324

11. The ninth and tenth commandments: You are not to covet your neighbor's household; you are not to covet your neighbor's wife or his servant or his maid or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor's. / 325-328

12. The Ten Commandments contain everything about how to love God and how to love our neighbor. / 329-331

Chapter 6: Faith

Prefatory remarks: From the standpoint of time, faith is primary, but from the standpoint of purpose, goodwill is primary. / 336

1. The faith that saves us is faith in the Lord God our Savior Jesus Christ, / 337-339

because he is a God who can be seen, in whom is what cannot be seen. / 339

2. Briefly put, faith is believing that people who live good lives and believe the right things are saved by the Lord. / 340-342

The first step toward faith in him is acknowledging that he is the Son of God. / 342

3. The way we receive faith is by turning to the Lord, learning truths from the Word, and living by those truths. / 343-348

The underlying reality of this faith; the essence of this faith; the states of this faith; the form this faith takes / 344

Merely earthly faith is actually a persuasion that pretends to be faith. / 345-348

4. Having a quantity of truths that are bound together like strands in a cable elevates and improves our faith. / 349-354

The truths of faith can be multiplied to infinity. / 350

Truths of faith come together to form structures that are like fascicles of nerves. / 351

Our faith improves depending on the quantity of truths we have and how well they fit together. / 352, 353

However numerous these truths of faith are and however divergent they appear, they are united by the Lord. / 354

The Lord is the Word; the God of heaven and earth; the God of all flesh; the God of the vineyard, or the church; the God of faith; the light itself; the truth itself; and eternal life (includes quotations from the Word). / 354

5. Faith without goodwill is not faith. Goodwill without faith is not goodwill. Neither of them is living unless it comes from the Lord. / 355-361

(a) We are able to acquire faith for ourselves. / 356

(b) We are able to acquire goodwill for ourselves. / 357

(c) We are also able to acquire the life within faith and goodwill for ourselves. / 358

(d) Nevertheless, no faith, no goodwill, and none of the life within faith or goodwill come from ourselves; instead they come from the Lord alone. / 359

The difference between earthly faith and spiritual faith. When we believe in the Lord, our earthly faith has spiritual faith within it. / 360, 361

6. The Lord, goodwill, and faith form a unity in the same way our life, our will, and our intellect form a unity. If we separate them, each one crumbles like a pearl that is crushed to powder. / 362-367

(a) The Lord flows into everyone with all his divine love, all his divine wisdom, and all his divine life. / 364

(b) Therefore the Lord flows into everyone with the entire essence of faith and goodwill. / 365

(c) The qualities that flow in from the Lord are received by us according to our state and form. / 366

(d) If we separate the Lord, goodwill, and faith, however, instead of being a form that accepts these qualities we are a form that destroys them. / 367

7. The Lord is goodwill and faith within us. We are goodwill and faith within the Lord. / 368-372

(a) Our partnership with God is what gives us salvation and eternal life. / 369

(b) It is impossible for us to have a partnership with God the Father. What is possible is a partnership with the Lord, and through the Lord, with God the Father. / 370

(c) Our partnership with the Lord is reciprocal: we are in the Lord and the Lord is in us. / 371

(d) This reciprocal partnership between the Lord and us comes about through goodwill and faith. / 372

8. Goodwill and faith come together in good actions. / 373-377

(a) "Goodwill" is benevolence toward others; "good works" are good actions that result from benevolence. / 374

(b) Goodwill and faith are transient and exist only in our minds unless, when an opportunity occurs, they culminate in actions and become embodied in them. / 375, 376

(c) Goodwill alone does not produce good actions; even less does faith alone produce them. Good actions are produced by goodwill and faith together. / 377

9. There is faith that is true, faith that is illegitimate, and faith that is hypocritical. / 378-381

From its cradle, the Christian church was attacked and torn apart by schisms and heresies. / 378

(a) There is only one true faith; it is faith in the Lord God our Savior Jesus Christ. It exists in people who believe that he is the Son of God, that he is the God of heaven and earth, and that he is one with the Father. / 379

(b) Illegitimate faith is all faith that departs from the one and only true faith. Illegitimate faith exists in people who climb up some other way and view the Lord not as God but only as a human being. / 380

(c) Hypocritical faith is no faith at all. / 381

10. Evil people have no faith. / 382-384

(a) Evil people have no faith, because evil relates to hell and faith relates to heaven. / 383

(b) All people in Christianity who are dismissive of the Lord and the Word have no faith, no matter how morally they behave or how rationally they speak, teach, or write, even if their subject is faith. / 384

Chapter 7: Goodwill (or Loving Our Neighbor) and Good Actions

1. There are three universal categories of love: love for heaven; love for the world; and love for ourselves. / 394, 395, 396

(1) The will and the intellect / 397

(2) Goodness and truth / 398

(3) Love in general / 399

(4) Love for ourselves and love for the world in specific / 400

(5) Our outer and inner selves / 401

(6) People who are merely earthly and sense-oriented / 402

2. When the three universal categories of love are prioritized in the right way they improve us; when they are not prioritized in the right way they damage us and turn us upside down. / 403, 404, 405

3. All individual members of humankind are the neighbor we are to love, but [in different ways] depending on the type of goodness they have. / 406-411

4. The neighbor we are to love is humankind on a wider scale in the form of smaller and larger communities and humankind in the aggregate as a country of such communities. / 412, 413, 414

5. On an even higher level, the neighbor we are to love is the church, and on the highest level, our neighbor is the Lord's kingdom. / 415, 416

6. Loving our neighbor is not in fact loving the person but loving the goodness that is inside the person. / 417, 418, 419

7. Goodwill and good actions are two distinct things: wishing people well and treating them well. / 420, 421

8. Goodwill itself is acting justly and faithfully in our position and our work and with the people with whom we interact. / 422, 423, 424

9. Acts of kindness related to goodwill consist in giving to the poor and helping the needy, although with prudence. / 425-428

10. There are obligations that are related to goodwill. [Some of them are public]; some relate to the household; and some are personal. / 429-432

11. The recreations related to goodwill are lunches, dinners, and parties. / 433, 434

12. The first step toward goodwill is removing evils; the second step is doing good things that are useful to our neighbor. / 435-438

13. As long as we believe that everything good comes from the Lord, we do not take credit for the things we do as we practice goodwill. / 439-442

14. A life of goodwill is a moral life that is also spiritual. / 443, 444, 445

15. A bond of love that we form with others without considering their spiritual nature is damaging after death. / 446-449

16. There are such things as illegitimate goodwill, hypocritical goodwill, and dead goodwill. / 450-453

17. The bond of love between evil people is actually a deep mutual hatred. / 454, 455a and b

18. The connection between loving God and loving our neighbor. / 456, 457, 458

Chapter 8: Free Choice

1. The precepts and dogmas of the church of today regarding human free choice / 463, 464, 465

2. The fact that two trees - the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [Genesis 2:9] - were placed in the Garden of Eden means that free choice in spiritual matters has been granted to humankind. / 466-469

3. We are not life, but we are vessels for receiving life from God. / 470-474

4. As long as we are alive in this world, we are held midway between heaven and hell and kept in spiritual equilibrium there, which is free choice. / 475-478

5. The fact that evil is an option available to everyone's inner self makes it obvious that we have free choice in spiritual matters. / 479-482

6. If we had no free choice in spiritual matters, the Word would be useless and therefore the church would be nothing. / 483, 484

7. If we had no free choice in spiritual matters, there would be nothing in us that would allow us to forge a partnership with the Lord, and therefore [there would be] no ascribing [of goodness to us], only mere predestination, which is detestable. / 485

This section brings to light how horrible the notion of predestination is. / 486, 487, 488

8. If we had no free choice in spiritual matters, God would be the cause of evil, and we could not be credited [with goodwill or faith]. / 489-492

9. Every spiritual gift the church has to offer that comes to us in freedom and that we freely accept stays with us; what comes to us in other ways does not. / 493-496

10. Although our will and intellect exist in this state of free choice, the doing of evil is forbidden by law in both worlds, the spiritual and the earthly, since otherwise society in both realms would perish. / 497, 498, 499

11. If we did lack free choice in spiritual matters, then in a single day everyone on the whole planet could be induced to believe in the Lord; but in fact this cannot happen, because what we do not accept through our free choice does not stay with us. / 500, 501, 502

Miracles are not happening today because they are coercive; they take away our free choice in spiritual matters. / 501

Chapter 9: Repentance

1. Repentance is the beginning of the church within us. / 510, 511

2. The "contrition" that is nowadays said to precede faith and to be followed by the consolation of the Gospel is not repentance. / 512-515

3. By itself, an oral confession that we are sinners is not repentance. / 516-519

4. From birth we have a tendency toward evils of every kind. Unless we at least partly remove them through repentance, we remain in them, and if we remain in them we cannot be saved. / 520-524

What "fulfilling the law" really means / 523, 524

5. Having a concept of sin and then looking for sin in ourselves is the beginning of repentance. / 525, 526, 527

6. Active repentance is examining ourselves, recognizing and admitting our sins, praying to the Lord, and beginning a new life. / 528-531

7. True repentance is examining not only the actions of our life but also the intentions of our will. / 532, 533, 534

8. Repentance is also practiced by those who do not examine themselves but nevertheless stop doing evils because evils are sinful; this kind of repentance is done by people who do acts of goodwill as a religious practice. / 535, 536, 537

9. We need to make our confession before the Lord God the Savior, and also to beg for his help and power in resisting evils. / 538, 539, 560

10. Active repentance is easy for people who have done it a few times; those who have not done it, however, experience inner resistance to it. / 561, 562, 563

11. Those who have never practiced repentance or looked at or studied themselves eventually do not even know what damnable evil or saving goodness is. / 564, 565, 566

Chapter 10: Reformation and Regeneration

1. Unless we are born again and created anew, so to speak, we cannot enter the kingdom of God. / 572-575

2. The Lord alone generates or creates us anew, provided we cooperate; he uses both goodwill and faith as means. / 576, 577, 578

3. Because we have all been redeemed, we are all capable of being regenerated, each of us in a way that suits the state we are in. / 579-582

4. Regeneration progresses analogously to the way we are conceived, carried in the womb, born, and brought up. / 583-586

Some thoughts on the masculine and feminine sexes in the plant kingdom / 585

5. The first phase in our being generated anew is called "reformation"; it has to do with our intellect. The second phase is called "regeneration"; it has to do with our will and then our intellect. / 587-590

6. Our inner self has to be reformed first; our outer self is then reformed through our inner self. This is how we are regenerated. / 591-595

7. Once our inner self is reformed, a battle develops between it and our outer self; whichever self wins will control the other self. / 596-600

8. When we have been regenerated, we have a new will and a new intellect. / 601-606

9. People who have been regenerated are in fellowship with the angels of heaven; people who have not been regenerated are in fellowship with the spirits of hell. / 607-610

10. The more we are regenerated, the more our sins are laid aside; this relocating of them is the "forgiving of sins. " / 611-614

11. Regeneration would be impossible without free choice in spiritual matters. / 615, 616, 617

12. Regeneration is not possible without the truths that shape faith and are joined with goodwill. / 618, 619, 620

Chapter 11: The Assignment of Spiritual Credit or Blame

1. The faith of the church of today, which is claimed to be the sole thing that makes us just, and the belief that Christ's merit is assigned to us amount to the same thing. / 626, 627

2. The concept of assigning that is part of the faith of today has a doubleness to it: there is an assigning of Christ's merit, and there is an assigning of salvation as a result. / 628-631

3. The concept of a faith that assigns us the merit and justice of Christ the Redeemer first surfaced in the decrees of the Council of Nicaea concerning three divine persons from eternity; from that time to the present this faith has been accepted by the entire Christian world. / 632-635

4. The concept of a faith that assigns the merit of Christ was completely unknown in the apostolic church that existed before the Council of Nicaea; and nothing in the Word conveys that concept either. / 636-639

5. The merit and justice of Christ cannot be assigned to anyone else. / 640, 641, 642

6. There is an assigning of spiritual credit, but it is based on whether our actions have been good or evil. / 643-646

7. There is no way in which we can simultaneously hold the views of the new church and the views of the former church on faith and the assignment of spiritual credit; if we did hold both these views at once, they would collide and cause so much conflict that everything related to the church would be destroyed in us. / 647, 648, 649

8. The Lord ascribes goodness to everyone; hell ascribes evil to everyone. / 650-653

9. It is what our faith is united to that determines the verdict we receive. If we have a true faith that is united to goodness, the verdict is eternal life; if we have a faith that is united to evil, the verdict is eternal death. / 654-657

10. No spiritual credit or blame is assigned to us on the basis of what we think; it is assigned only on the basis of what we will. / 658, 659, 660

Chapter 12: Baptism

1. Without knowing that the Word has a spiritual meaning, no one can know what the two sacraments (baptism and the Holy Supper) entail and what they do for us. / 667, 668, 669

2. The washing called baptism means a spiritual washing, which is the process of being purified from evils [and falsities] and therefore the process of being regenerated. / 670-673

3. Baptism was instituted as a replacement for circumcision because circumcision of the foreskin symbolized circumcision of the heart; the intent was to create an internal church to replace the external church, which as a whole and in every detail was an allegory of that internal church. / 674, 675, 676

4. The first function of baptism is to bring people into the Christian church and at the same time to bring them into the company of Christians in the spiritual world. / 677-680

5. The second function [of baptism] is for Christians to know and acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as Redeemer and Savior, and to follow him. / 681, 682, 683

6. The third function of baptism, and its ultimate purpose, is to lead us to be regenerated. / 684-687

7. The baptism of John prepared the way so that Jehovah God could descend into the world and bring about redemption. / 688[-691]

Chapter 13: The Holy Supper

1. Without knowing about the correspondences of physical things with spiritual things, no one can know the functions and benefits of the Holy Supper. / 698-701

2. When we know correspondences, we realize what "the Lord's flesh" and "the Lord's blood" mean; we see that they mean the same thing as "bread" and "wine" do. That is, "the Lord's flesh" and "bread" mean the divine goodness that comes from his love and also all the goodness related to goodwill, and "the Lord's blood" and "wine" mean the divine truth that comes from his wisdom and also all the truth related to faith; "eating" them means making them our own. / 702-710

Passages from the Word are quoted:

to show the meaning of: "flesh"; / 704, 705

to show the meaning of "blood"; / 706

to show the meaning of "bread"; / 707

to show the meaning of "wine. " / 708

3. Understanding what has just been presented makes it possible to see that the Holy Supper includes all the qualities of the church and all the qualities of heaven, both generally and specifically. / 711-715

4. The Lord himself and his redemption are fully present in the Holy Supper. / 716, 717, 718

5. The Lord is present and opens heaven to those who approach the Holy Supper worthily; he is also present with those who approach it unworthily, but he does not open heaven to them. Therefore as baptism brings us into the church, so the Holy Supper brings us into heaven. / 719, 720, 721

6. We come forward worthily to take the Holy Supper when we have faith in the Lord and goodwill toward our neighbor - that is, when we have been regenerated. / 722-724

7. When we come forward worthily to take the Holy Supper, we are in the Lord and the Lord is in us; therefore through the Holy Supper we enter into a partnership with the Lord. / 725, 726, 727

8. When we come forward worthily to take it, the Holy Supper functions as [God's] signature and seal confirming that we have been adopted as his children. / 728, 729, 730

Chapter 14: The Close of the Age; the Coming of the Lord; and the New Church

1. The "close of the age" means the end of the church, when its time is over. / 753-756

2. Today the church is at its end; the Lord foretold and described this event in the Gospels and in the Book of Revelation. / 757, 758, 759

3. This, the Christian church's final hour, is the same kind of night in which the former churches came to an end. / 760-763

4. After this night comes the morning, which is the Lord's Coming. / 764-767

5. 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. / 768-771

6. The purpose of this coming of the Lord - his Second Coming - is to separate the evil from the good, to save those both past and present who believe in him, and to form them into a new angelic heaven and a new church on earth; if he did not do this, "no flesh would be saved" (Matthew 24:22). / 772-775

7. This Second Coming of the Lord is not taking place in person but in the Word, since the Word is from him and therefore he is the Word. / 776, 777, 778

8. This Second Coming of the Lord is taking place by means of someone to whom the Lord has manifested himself in person and whom he has filled with his spirit so that that individual can present the teachings of the new church on the Lord's behalf through the agency of the Word. / 779, 780

9. "The new heaven" and "the new Jerusalem" in the Book of Revelation chapter 21 mean this [Second Coming of the Lord]. / 781-785

10. This new church is the crown of all the churches that have ever existed on this planet. / 786-791

Additional Material

1. The nature of the spiritual world / 792-795

2. Luther in the spiritual world / 796

3. Melanchthon in the spiritual world / 797

4. Calvin in the spiritual world / 798-799

5. The Dutch in the spiritual world / 800-805

6. The British in the spiritual world / 806-812

7. Germans in the spiritual world / 813-816

8. Roman Catholics in the spiritual world / 817-821

9. Roman Catholic saints in the spiritual world / 822-827

10. Muslims in the spiritual world / 828-834

11. Africans, and non-Christians in general, in the spiritual world / 835-840

12. Jews in the spiritual world / 841-845

366. (c) The qualities that flow in from the Lord are received by us according to our form. "Form" here means our state in regard to love and wisdom. Therefore it includes the state of our desires to do good out of goodwill and the state of our insights about the truths of faith.

God is one indivisible entity that is the same from eternity to eternity. He is not the same simple thing; he is the same infinite thing. All variation is supplied by the object in which it occurs, as I showed above [364]. It is the receiving form or state that causes variations, as we can see from the life that is in little children, teenagers, young adults, middle-aged adults, and the elderly. Because we keep the same soul, we have the same life inside from infancy to old age; but as our state goes through life stages and different circumstances, we perceive the life inside us differently.

[2] God's life is present in all its fullness not only in people who are good and religious but also in people who are evil and ungodly. That life is the same in angels of heaven as it is in spirits of hell. The difference is that evil people block the road and shut the door to prevent God from coming down into the lower areas of their mind. Good people, on the other hand, smooth the road and open the door. They invite God to enter the lower areas of their mind since he already inhabits the highest areas of it. They change the state of their will so that love and goodwill may flow in, and change the state of their intellect so that wisdom and faith may flow in - they open themselves to God.

Evil people block that inflow with various bodily cravings and spiritual garbage that they spread around to prevent access. Nevertheless, God with all his divine essence still dwells in the highest parts of evil people and gives them the ability to will what is good and understand what is true. This ability is something that all human beings have, although it would not be theirs at all if life from God were not present in their soul. Many experiences have taught me that even the evil have this ability.

[3] The way we individually receive life from God depends on our form. This can be illustrated with comparisons to every kind of plant. Every species of tree, every species of bush, every type of shrub, and every type of grass receives the inflowing heat and light according to its own form. This is true not only for plants that serve a good purpose but also for those that serve an evil purpose. The sun and its heat do not alter the form of the plants. Instead the forms themselves alter the effects of the sun.

The same is true for substances in the mineral kingdom. Every different substance, whether it has high quality or little value, receives what flows in according to the form of the structure of its component parts. No two types of stone, no two minerals, no two metals receive the inflowing heat and light in the same way. Some of them dapple themselves with exquisitely beautiful colors; some transmit light without altering it; some scramble the light inside themselves or suffocate it.

As you can see on the basis of these few examples, the sun in our world, along with its heat and light, is just as present in one object as it is in another, but the forms that receive it vary its effects; likewise the Lord is equally present to all, shining down from the sun in heaven, in whose midst he is, along with his heat (which is essentially love) and his light (which is essentially wisdom). It is our form as shaped by the state of our life that varies his effects. Therefore the Lord is not responsible for our failure to be reborn and saved; we ourselves are.

35. To these points I will add the following memorable occurrence.

At one point I was struck with amazement at the vast number of people who attribute creation - everything under the sun and everything beyond it as well - to nature. No matter what they see, they say with heartfelt conviction, "Surely this is nature's doing."

I have asked them why they say nature is responsible for everything, and why not God, especially since they repeatedly use the common expression, "God created nature," and therefore could as easily say that God, rather than nature, is responsible for what they see. Beneath their breath, in an almost inaudible voice, they reply, "What God is there except nature?"

Their conviction that the universe was created by nature - an insanity that seems like wisdom to them - makes them all feel so glorious that they look down on all who acknowledge that the universe was created by God. They picture these faithful people as ants that crawl on the ground and tread a well-worn path. Some they picture as butterflies that flit around in the air. "Dreams" - that is what they call the dogmas of the faithful, who see what they themselves do not see. "Who has seen God?" they say; "Who has not seen nature?"

[2] While I stood amazed at the vast number of such people, an angel appeared at my side and said, "What are you thinking about?"

I replied, "I'm thinking about the vast number of people who believe that nature exists from itself - that nature itself created the universe."

"All hell is made up of such people, the angel told me. There they are called satans and devils. The satans are those who have come to deny the existence of God because they have convinced themselves to believe in nature. The devils are those whose acknowledgment of God has been driven from their hearts because they have spent their lives committing crimes. I will take you to lecture halls in the southwest where there are people like this who are not yet in hell. "

The angel took me by the hand and led me there. I saw humble buildings that contained the lecture halls. In the middle I saw a building that looked like the main hall for the rest. It was built out of stones as black as tar that had been covered with little glasslike disks made to look as though they were sparkling with gold and silver, much like what we call selenite or mica; shiny seashells had also been worked in here and there.

[3] We went up to the building and knocked. Soon a man opened the door, saying, "Welcome!" Then he hurried over to a table and picked up four books [he had written]. He said, "These books contain wisdom that has now been hailed by a host of nations. This book here, this wisdom, has been hailed by many people in France; this one, by many people in Germany; this one, by some people in the Netherlands; and this one, by some people in Britain. " He added, "If you'd like to see it, I'll make these four books shine before your eyes!" Then he poured forth on all sides the glory of his own reputation, and soon the books seemed to gleam with light; but the light immediately disappeared before our eyes.

Then the angel and I asked what he was writing now. He replied that he was currently extracting matters of inmost wisdom from their hidden treasuries, in summary namely: (1) whether nature comes from life or life comes from nature; (2) whether the center comes from the expanse or the expanse from the center; and (3) a discussion of the center of the expanse and of life.

[4] After he said this, he sat back down on a chair at the table. We meanwhile wandered around his lecture hall, which was very spacious. Because no sunlight penetrated the building, only a light like that of a moonlit night, he had a candle on his table. To my amazement I saw the candle move around the building, illuminating it, although because the wick had not been trimmed it did not shed much light. As he was writing, we saw images of various kinds flying from the table toward the walls. In that light like a moonlit night, they looked like gorgeous indigo birds. In the light of day when we opened the door, though, they looked like the webbed-winged creatures that come out in the evening. They were in fact things basically true becoming false through his argumentation as he ingeniously chained them together.

[5] After seeing those visions we went over to the table and asked him what he was writing now. He said, "I'm on point one: whether nature comes from life or life comes from nature. " He said that he could argue this point either way and make it true; but because of some deeply hidden fear, he dared argue only that nature comes from and originates in life. He did not dare say that life comes from and originates in nature. We asked him in a kindly way what his deeply hidden fear was. He said he feared the possibility that clergy would call him a nature-worshiper, meaning an atheist, and that lay people would call him a man whose reason was not sound, since both lay people and clergy either believe on the basis of blind faith or adopt the perspective of those who argue for faith.

[6] At that point, feeling rather indignant because of our passion for the truth, we spoke to him and said, "Friend, you are seriously wrong. Your wisdom (which is really a genius for writing) has led you astray, and your glorious reputation has seduced you into arguing what you don't believe. Surely you are aware that the human mind can be raised above things on the sensory level - things taken into our thoughts from our bodily senses - and that when the mind is raised up, it sees above it things that relate to life, but below it things that relate to nature. What else is life but love and wisdom? What else is nature but a vessel to receive love and wisdom, through which they achieve results and accomplish useful things? Life and nature can become one only if life is the primary force and nature is its agent. Can light be one with the eye, or sound with the ear? Where do our sensations of light and sound come from if not from life? Where do the forms of our organs of sensation come from if not from nature? What else is the human body but an organ of life? Surely, all the things in the body have been formed into organs to carry out what love wants and what the intellect thinks. Aren't the organs of the body derived from nature? Aren't love and thought derived from life? Aren't they completely different from each other?

"Lift the focus of your genius just a little higher and you'll see that being moved and thinking come from life. Being moved has to do with love, and thinking has to do with wisdom. Both have to do with life, because love and wisdom are life, as we stated before.

"If you raise your intellectual faculty even a little higher, you will see that love and wisdom do not exist unless they have a source somewhere. Their source is love itself and wisdom itself, and therefore life itself. These are the God from whom nature comes. "

[7] Next we spoke with him about point two: whether the center comes from the expanse or the expanse from the center. The angel and I asked him why he was discussing this. He replied that his purpose was to arrive at a conclusion about the center and the expanse of nature and of life - about the origin, then, of one and the other.

When we asked what his position was, his answer was similar to the one he had given before: he could argue it either way, but because he feared losing his reputation he argued that the expanse comes from or originates in the center. "I know, though," he added, "that before the sun existed there was something. That something was throughout the expanse. Of its own accord it flowed together into some order, namely, the center. "

[8] Again indignant because of our passion for the truth, we spoke to him and said, "Friend, you are insane!"

When he heard this he pushed his chair away from the table and looked at us nervously. Then he gave us his attention again, but with a smile on his face.

"What is more insane," we continued, "than saying that the center comes from the expanse? When you say 'center,' we take you to mean the sun. When you say 'expanse,' we take you to mean the universe. You seem to be saying that the universe came into existence without the sun. Doesn't the sun make nature? Doesn't it make all the features of nature that depend solely on heat and light emanating from the sun through the atmospheres? Where were those things before [there was a sun]? (But we'll say where they came from in a moment.) Surely the atmospheres, and everything else on the earth, are like outer surfaces that have the sun as their center. What were all those things before the sun took shape? Could they have continued to exist for one moment? What would all those things do without the sun? Could they have come into being? Continuing to exist is the same as perpetually coming into being. Since the continued existence of all things in nature depends on the sun, it follows that their original coming into being also depended on the sun. Everyone sees this and acknowledges it from personal observation.

[9] As something subsequent comes into existence from something prior, so it also continues to exist from that something prior. If the outer surface came first and the center came later, something prior would be dependent on something subsequent for its continued existence. But that is against the laws of the divine design. How can things that come later produce things that come first? How can outer things produce inner things? How can denser things produce purer things? How then can the superficial things that make up the expanse produce the center? This is against the laws of nature, as anyone can see. We have presented these arguments from rational analysis in order to convince you that the expanse comes into existence from the center, and not the reverse, although anyone who thinks well sees this without these arguments.

"You said that the expanse of its own accord flowed together into the center. Was it just by accident, then, that it fell into such a miraculous and astounding design that one thing exists for the next, and they all exist for the sake of humankind and our eternal life? Is nature capable of drawing on some love and using some wisdom to find a purpose, make means available, and accomplish results so that things may come into existence in their own design? Can nature turn people into angels, make a heaven out of them, and provide that this heavens inhabitants will live to eternity? Give enough thought to these questions and you will let go of your idea that nature created nature. "

[10] After that we asked him what his past and current thinking was about point three: on the center and the expanse of nature and of life. We asked whether he believed that the center and the expanse of life was the same as the center and the expanse of nature. He said that he was now stuck. He had thought before that the inner energy in nature was life, that the love and the wisdom that essentially constituted human life came from nature, and that the sun's fire produced our life through the heat and light conveyed to us by the atmospheres. But now, from these points about human life after death, he was becoming uncertain. The uncertainty was causing his mind to go up one moment and down the next. When his mind was up, he was acknowledging a Center about which he had previously known nothing. When his mind was down, he was looking at the center that he had previously thought to be the only center. He was seeing that life comes from the Center about which he had previously known nothing, that only nature comes from the center that he had previously thought to be everything, and that both centers have expanses around them.

[11] We said that these realizations were good, provided he tried in addition to see the center and expanse of nature as coming from the center and expanse of life, and not the other way around. We explained to him that above the angelic heaven there is a sun that is pure love. It looks as fiery as the earths sun. From the heat that radiates from that sun, angels and people have volition and love; from its light they have understanding and wisdom. Things derived from that sun are called spiritual. Things derived from earths sun are containers or vessels of life; they are called physical.

We told him that the expanse around the center of life is called the spiritual world. That expanse has continued existence because of its sun. The expanse around the center of nature is called the physical world. It has continued existence because of its sun. Now, because units of space and time do not apply to love and wisdom, but states apply instead, it follows that the expanse around the sun of the angelic heaven is not physically extended. It is nonetheless present in the physical extension around the physical sun and is present with living entities in nature according to how receptive they are; they are receptive according to their forms and their states.

[12] Then he asked, "Where does the fire in the earths or nature's sun come from?"

"It comes from the sun of the angelic heaven," we replied, "which is not fire; it is divine love most closely emanating from God, who is within it. "

He was stunned by this, so we proved it as follows: "Love in its essence is spiritual fire. This is why fire in the Word's spiritual sense means love. This is why priests pray in church for heavenly fire to fill their hearts - they mean love. In the tabernacle among the Israelites, the fire on the altar and the fire of the lampstand represented divine love. The heat in blood, which is vital to us and to many animals as well, comes solely from the love that makes up our life. This is why we catch fire, up, and become inflamed when our love becomes impassioned or bursts into anger and blazing rage. From the fact that spiritual heat, which is love, produces physical heat in us even to the point that our faces and limbs become hot and inflamed, it stands to reason that the fire of the physical sun came into being from no other source than the fire of the spiritual sun, which is divine love.

[13] "To sum up: As we just said, the center is the origin of the expanse, and not the reverse. The center of life, which is the sun of the angelic heaven, is divine love most closely radiating from God, who is within that sun. The expanse around that center, called the spiritual world, is from that sun. The earths sun is also from that sun, and the expanse called the physical world is from the earths sun. From all these points it is clear that the universe was created by God. "

After that we went away, and he came with us beyond the entrance to his lecture hall, speaking to us about heaven and hell and God's guidance with a new keenness of mind.