1. True Christianity

Containing a Comprehensive Theology of the New Heaven and the New Church

The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church

THE faith of the new heaven and the new church is stated here in both universal and specific forms to serve as the face of the work that follows, the doorway that allows entry into the temple, and the summary that in one way or another contains all the details to follow. I say "the faith of the new heaven and the new church" because heaven, where there are angels, and the church, in which there are people, act together like the inner and the outer levels in a human being. People in the church who love what is good because they believe what is true and who believe what is true because they love what is good are angels of heaven with regard to the inner levels of their minds. After death they come into heaven, and enjoy happiness there according to the relationship between their love and their faith. It is important to know that the new heaven that the Lord is establishing today has this faith as its face, doorway, and summary.

771. As the chapter on the Sacred Scripture has shown, the Word's literal meaning was written in apparent truths and correspondences [193-209, 215, 226, 254-260]. As a result, there is a spiritual meaning within every detail. In that spiritual meaning, truth stands forth in its own light. The literal meaning is in the dark.

To prevent people in the new church from wandering off into the darkness of the Word's literal meaning the way the people of the old church have done - especially on the topics of heaven and hell, their own life after death, and the Lord's Coming - the Lord has chosen to open my spiritual sight and bring me into the spiritual world. He has allowed me not only to speak with spirits and angels, with friends and relatives, and even with monarchs and other political leaders, whose lives in the physical world had come to an end, but also to see the amazing conditions in heaven and the wretched conditions in hell. I have learned for a fact that after we die we do not spend time in some somewhere-or-other underground; and we do not fly around blind and mute in midair or deep space. We live on in a substantial body. If we come into the company of the blessed, we have a much better quality of life than we had while we were living in a physical body.

[2] Humankind now has the belief that the visible heaven and the habitable earth are going to be destroyed, and this affects people's thinking about the spiritual world. This belief is based on ignorance. In this state of ignorance, materialism and even atheism have begun to be rooted in the inner rational minds of the educated. The Lord wishes to prevent the human race from plunging still further into these views and to keep materialistic atheism from spreading further (like necrosis in flesh) among educated people; otherwise the outer minds of the educated and their statements before the public will be infected by it as well. Therefore he has commanded me to publish various things that I have heard and seen, both concerning heaven and hell and concerning the Last Judgment, and to explain the Book of Revelation. That book speaks of the Lord's Coming, the former heaven, the new heaven, and the holy Jerusalem. Anyone who reads and understands these works can see the true meaning of the Lord's Coming, the new heaven, and the New Jerusalem.

124. 5. This true redemption could not have happened if God had not come in the flesh. The preceding point showed that redemption was something only the Divine could bring about - for anyone other than God Almighty it would have been impossible. Furthermore, God could not have brought about this redemption if he had not taken on flesh (that is, become human), because in his infinite essence Jehovah God could not come near hell, let alone enter it. He exists in what is first and most pure. If Jehovah God as he is in himself were only to breathe on those who are in hell he would instantly kill them all. When Moses wanted to see him he said, "You cannot see my faces, because no human being will see me and stay alive" (Exodus 33:20). If Moses could not do this, still less could those who are in hell, where everyone exists in what is lowest, densest, and farthest away [from God]. Those who are earthly are the lowest. Therefore if Jehovah God had not taken on a human manifestation, clothing himself with a body that is on the lowest level, his undertaking any act of redemption would have been a waste of time.

We could not attack an enemy without being armed for battle and coming within range. We could not destroy or drive away the dragons, hydras, and basilisks in some desert without putting a breastplate on our body, a helmet on our head, and a spear in our hand. We could not catch whales at sea without a ship and whaling equipment. These examples are not actual parallels, but they do illustrate the fact that God Almighty could not have even attempted to battle hell without first putting on a human manifestation.

[2] It is important to know, however, that the Lord's battle with the hells was not some verbal to and fro like a philosophical debate or a legal battle. That kind of battle has no effect whatever on hell. It was a spiritual battle using the divine truth connected with divine good - the very vitality of the Lord. When this truth visibly flows in, no one in the hells is able to oppose it. There is so much power in it that when demons from hell merely sense that it might be present they run away, throw themselves down into deep places, and squeeze into underground shelters to hide. This phenomenon is the same thing described by Isaiah: "They will go into caverns in the rocks and into crevices in the dust, dreading Jehovah, when he rises to terrify the earth" (Isaiah 2:19); and in the Book of Revelation: "They will all hide themselves in caves in the rocks and in the rocks on the mountains, and they will say to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One sitting on the throne and from the anger of the Lamb" (Revelation 6:15-17).

[3] How much power the Lord exercised from divine goodness when he carried out the Last Judgment in 1757 is clear from the descriptions in the little work Last Judgment. For example, in the world of spirits there were mountains and hills occupied by hellish spirits that the Lord ripped from their moorings and moved far away; some he flattened. He flooded their cities, villages, and fields, and turned their land upside down. He threw those mountains and hills and their inhabitants into quagmires, ponds, and swamps; and more. The Lord alone accomplished all this using the power of divine truth connected with divine goodness.