20. To the seven churches. That this signifies to all those who are in truths from good, or in faith from charity, is evident from the signification of seven, as being all. For, seven in the Word, signifies a beginning and an end, thus an entire period and a full state, just as a week does (Arcana Coelestia 728, 6508, 9228). And because it signifies what is full, it also signifies all, because all make what is full; for fulness in respect to those who constitute any society, in this case the church, denotes all therefore, when magnitude is treated of in the Word, seven signifies what is full, and when multitude is treated of, seven signifies all. Three, also, in the Word signifies full and all (as may be seen, n. 2788, 4495, 7715); but where anything holy is treated of in the Word, seven is used, and in other cases three (n. 10127). Here, therefore, seven is used, because the subject treated of is truths from good, which are the holy things of the church. This also appears from the signification of churches, as denoting those who are in truths from good, or in faith from charity. The reason why such persons are meant by churches is, because those truths constitute the church with every one; for those who are not in truths from good, although born within the church, yet are not of the church, because no church exists in them. This is why the Lord's church consists of all those, wheresoever they are, who are the church, that is, who are in truths from good. (That the church, like heaven, is in man, and not outside of him, and hence that the man who is in truths from good is a church, may be seen, Arcana Coelestia 3884; and in the work, Heaven and Hell 53, 54, 57.) It is also said, "who are in faith from charity," because this is the same thing; for truth belongs to faith, and good to charity; that is to say, everything that a man believes is called truth, and everything that he loves is called good. (That all truth is from good, and everything of faith is from charity, may be seen in the small work, The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 84-107, 108-122, and The Last Judgment 33-39; as also in Heaven and Hell 364, 424, 482, 526.) He who knows nothing of the internal sense of the Word, believes nothing else, when he reads these things, than that by the seven churches are meant the seven churches afterwards named (verse 11); but churches are not meant, but all those who belong to the church; such being the spiritual sense of the Word.

526. I have occasionally talked with angels about this, and have told them that most of those in the world who live in evil, when they talk with others about heaven and eternal life, express no other idea than that entering heaven is merely being admitted from mercy alone. And this is believed by those especially who make faith the only medium of salvation. For such from the principles of their religion have no regard to the life and the deeds of love that make life, and thus to none of the other means by which the Lord implants heaven in man and renders him receptive of heavenly joy; and as they thus reject every actual mediation they conclude, as a necessary consequence of the principle, that man enters heaven from mercy alone, to which mercy God the Father is believed to be moved by the intercession of the Son.

[2] To all this the angels said that they knew such a tenet follows of necessity from the assumption that man is saved by faith alone, and since that tenet is the head of all the rest, and since into it, because it is not true, no light from heaven can flow, this is the source of the ignorance that prevails in the church at this day in regard to the Lord, heaven, the life after death, heavenly joy, the essence of love and charity, and in general, in regard to good and its conjunction with truth, consequently in regard to the life of man, whence it is and what it is; when it should be known that thought never constitutes any one's life, but the will and the consequent deeds; and that the life is from the thought only to the extent that the thought is derived from the will; neither is life from the faith except so far as the faith is derived from love. Angels are grieved that these persons do not know that faith alone is impossible in any one, since faith apart from its origin, which is love, is nothing but knowledge, and in some is merely a sort of persuasion that has the semblance of faith (see above, 482). Such a persuasion is not in the life of man, but outside of it, since it is separated from man unless it coheres with his love.

[3] The angels said further that those who hold to this principle concerning the essential means of salvation in man must needs believe in mercy apart from means, for they perceive both from natural light and from the experience of sight that faith separate does not constitute the life of man, since those who lead an evil life are able to think and to be persuaded the same as others; and from this comes the belief that the evil as well as the good can be saved, provided that at the hour of death they talk with confidence about intercession, and about the mercy that is granted through that intercession. The angels declared that they had never yet seen any one who had lived an evil life received into heaven from mercy apart from means, whatever trust or confidence (which is preeminently meant by faith) he had exhibited in his talk in the world.

[4] When asked about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and the apostles, whether they were not received into heaven from mercy apart from means, the angels replied that not one of them was so received, but everyone in accordance with his life in the world; that they knew where these were, and that they were no more esteemed there than others. They said that these persons are mentioned with honor in the Word for the reason that in the internal sense the Lord is meant by them - by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord in respect to the Divine and the Divine Human; by David the Lord in respect to the Divine royalty; and by the apostles the Lord in respect to Divine truths; also that when the Word is read by man the angels have no perception whatever of these men, for their names do not enter heaven; but they have instead a perception of the Lord as He has just been described; consequently in the Word that is in heaven (see above, 259) there are no such names mentioned, since that Word is the internal sense of the Word that is in the world. ¹

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