122. Maar men moet terdege weten dat de mens die boete wil doen, tot de Heer alleen moet schouwen. Indien hij schouwt tot God de Vader alleen, kan hij niet gezuiverd worden; noch indien hij ziet tot de Vader ter wille van de Zoon, noch indien tot de Zoon als alleen een mens. Immers, er is één God en de Heer is Hij, want het Goddelijke en het Menselijke van Hemzelf is één Persoon, zoals in de ‘Leer van Nova Hierosolyma over de Heer’ is getoond. Opdat ieder die boete wil doen tot de Heer alleen zal schouwen, is het Heilig Avondmaal door Hem ingesteld, hetwelk de vergeving van de zonden bevestigt bij hen die boete doen. Het bevestigt omdat in dat Avondmaal of die Communie ieder gehouden is tot de Heer alleen te schouwen.

274. 4. Doubts about divine providence may be raised by observing the widespread ignorance of the fact that we go on living as individuals after death, and also observing that this has not been disclosed before. The reason for this ignorance is that deep inside everyone who does not abstain from evils as sins there is a secret belief that we do not go on living after death and that therefore it does not matter whether you say that we go right on living after death or that we are resurrected on the day of the Last Judgment. If some belief in resurrection does occur, people say to themselves, "I am no worse than anyone else. Whether I go to hell or to heaven, I will have plenty of company."

But everyone who has any religion at all has an instinctive realization that we do live as individuals after death. The belief that we live as souls and not as individuals is not held by any people except those who have been deluded by their own intelligence. The following observations show that everyone who has any religion at all has this instinctive realization that we live as individuals after death.

1. Everyone thinks this when dying.

[2] 2. All who deliver eulogies over the dear departed raise them into heaven and describe them as among the angels, talking with them and sharing their joy; sometimes these speakers even deify the dead.

[3] 3. The common people all believe that if they have lived well, then when they die they will enter a heavenly paradise and be clothed with white robes and enjoy eternal life.

[4] 4. Clergy all say something like this to the dying; and they believe it while they are saying it--unless they happen to be thinking about the Last Judgment.

[5] 5. All believe that their [deceased] children are in heaven and that after their own death they will see the [deceased] spouse whom they love. No one believes that these dear ones are ghosts or, even worse, that they are disembodied minds floating around the universe.

[6] 6. No one raises any objections when something is said about the lot and state of people who have crossed from time to eternal life. I have told any number of people that this was the lot and state of one individual or another and I have never heard anyone reply that their state was nothing at this point and would not be anything until the Last Judgment.

[7] 7. When people see paintings or statues of angels, they believe that this is what they look like. No one then thinks that angels are bodiless spirits or breezes or clouds the way some scholars describe them.

[8] 8. Catholics believe that their saints are real people in heaven and that other people are somewhere else as well. Muslims believe this about their deceased; Africans especially do so; and so do most peoples. How can it be different for Protestants who know this from the Word?

[9] 9. This universal instinctive realization leads some people to strive for deathless fame, so that they translate their instinct into a form that makes them powerful heroes in times of war.

[10] 10. I have asked around in the spiritual world whether everyone has this instinctive realization and have discovered that it is there in the spiritual concepts of everyone's inner thinking, but not in the more material concepts of everyone's outer thinking.

We can tell from this that we need have no doubt about the Lord's divine providence because of the thought that it is only now being disclosed that we live after death. That is only our sensory self talking, the self that wants to see and touch in order to believe. People who cannot think on a higher level than that are in total darkness about the actual state of their lives.

154. It Is a Law of Divine Providence That We Should Be Led and Taught by the Lord, from Heaven, by Means of the Word, and Teaching and Preaching from the Word, and That This Should Happen While to All Appearances We Are Acting Independently

To all appearances, we are leading and teaching ourselves, while the truth is that we are being led and taught by the Lord alone. If we convince ourselves only of the appearance and not of the truth along with it, we cannot get rid of our evils as sins. On the other hand, if we convince ourselves of both the appearance and the truth, we can get rid of them, because getting rid of evils as sins is accomplished apparently by our own efforts, but actually by the Lord. In the latter case we can be reformed; in the former case we cannot.

[2] People who convince themselves of the appearance alone and not of the truth along with it are all idolaters on a deeper level. They actually worship themselves and the world. If they have no religion, they worship the material world and are therefore atheists. If they have any religion, then they worship individuals and images alike. These are the people in our own times who are intended in the first of the Ten Commandments, the ones who worship other gods. However, people who convince themselves of both the appearance and the truth worship the Lord because the Lord is raising them above that sense of self-importance that is caught up in the illusion; the Lord leads them into the light that surrounds truth and that is truth. This gives them a profound sense that they are being led and taught not by themselves but by the Lord.

[3] The rational processes of these two kinds of individual look alike to most people, but they are not. The rational processes of individuals who entertain both the appearance and the truth are spiritual, while the rational processes of people who entertain the appearance but not the truth are bound by the material world. These latter processes could be compared to a garden as we see it in the light of winter, while the former could be compared to a garden as we see it in the light of springtime.

There is more to be said about this next, in the following sequence.

1. We are led and taught by the Lord alone.

2. We are led and taught by the Lord alone through and from the angelic heaven.

3. We are led by the Lord through an inflow and taught by being enlightened.

4. We are taught by the Lord through the Word, and teaching and preaching from the Word, and therefore directly by the Lord alone.

5. Outwardly, we are led and taught by the Lord to all appearances as though we were leading and teaching ourselves.