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Daniel 12:6

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6 Och en av dem sade till mannen som var klädd i linnekläder, och som stod ovanför flodens vatten: »Huru länge dröjer det, innan änden kommer med dessa förunderliga ting?»

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Sacred Scripture # 61

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61. I have been granted the opportunity to talk with any number of individuals after their death who had believed they were going to shine like stars in heaven because, they said, they had revered the Word, had read it through time and again, and had gained much from their reading that served to support the dogmas of their faith. All this led to their being celebrated as scholars, which in turn led them to believe they would become Michaels and Raphaels.

[2] However, many of them were examined to find out what love had inspired their study of the Word, and it turned out that for some it was self-infatuation, a desire to look important in the eyes of the world and therefore be revered as leaders in the church, while for others it was worldliness and a desire for wealth. When they were asked what they had learned from the Word, it turned out that they knew nothing that was really true. All they knew was distorted truth, which is essentially false. They were told that this was because they themselves and the world were their goals - or were what they loved the most, which amounts to the same thing - and not the Lord and heaven. If ourselves and the world are our goals, then when we read the Word our minds are stuck on ourselves and the world. This means that our thinking is constantly focused on our self-importance, which is in darkness with respect to everything that has to do with heaven. People in this state cannot be lifted out of their self-infatuation by the Lord and thus raised up into heaven’s light, so they are not open to any inflow from the Lord through heaven, either.

[3] I have seen them let into heaven, but when it was found that they were lacking in truths, they were expelled. Even so, they retained the prideful conviction that they were worthy.

It worked out otherwise for individuals who studied the Word from a desire to know what was true because it was true and because it could be put to use in their lives not only for their own benefit but for the benefit of their neighbor. I have seen them raised up into heaven and therefore into the light of divine truth there; and at the same time they have been lifted up into angelic wisdom and into its happiness, which is eternal life.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.

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Righteous

  
This stained-glass window in St. Peter’s, Clapham, London, is one of eight depicting the Beatitudes.

The word "righteous" has taken on a bit of negative shading in modern language. That may be because we hear it most often as part of the word "self-righteous," a rather scathing term for someone who thinks he is quite a good person -- almost certainly better than anyone around him -- and is in a position to judge others without being judged himself. The original word, however, is not negative at all: A righteous person is simply someone who does what is right. The spiritual meaning of "righteous" reflects that: people described as "righteous" act from a love of serving others, and that love is "righteousness." This is commonly described as "the good of charity," "charity" meaning a state of caring for others.