Here we are in the 21st century. We know that the universe is an enormous place. We're just bursting with scientific knowledge. But how are we doing with the even-bigger ideas? Our human societies seem to be erasing them, or ignoring them - maybe we think we're too busy for them.

Here on the New Christian Bible Study site, we'll buck the trend. We want to explore the big ideas that give us a framework for living better lives. Here's a start on a list of big ideas from a New Christian perspective. For each idea, there is a footnote that lists some references in Swedenborg's theological works:

1. God exists. Just one God, who created and sustains the entire universe in all its dimensions, spiritual and physical. ¹

2. God's essence is love itself. It's the force that drives everything. ²

3. God's essence comes into being, that is, it exists, in and through creation. ³

4. There are levels, or degrees, of creation - ranging from spiritual ones that we can't detect with our physical senses or sensors, to the level of the physical universe where most of our awareness is when we're alive here. ⁴

5. The created universe emanates from God, and it's sustained by God, but in an important way it is separate from God. He wants it to be separate, so that freedom can exist. ⁵

6. God operates from love through wisdom - willing good things, and understanding how to bring them about. ⁶

7. The physical level of creation exists to provide human beings with an opportunity to choose in freedom, with rationality, whether or not to acknowledge and cooperate with God. ⁷

8. God provides all people everywhere, regardless of their religion, the freedom to choose to live a life of love to God and to the neighbor. ⁸

9. God loves everyone. He knows that true happiness only comes when we're unselfish; when we're truly motivated by a love of the Lord which is grounded out in a love of the neighbor. He seeks to lead everyone, but will not force us to follow against our will. ⁹

10. God doesn't judge us. He tells us what's good, and what's evil, and flows into our minds to lead us towards good. However, we're free to reject his leading, and instead opt to love ourselves most. Day by day, we create habits of generosity or of selfishness, and live out a life in accordance with those habits. Those habits become the real "us", our ruling love. ¹⁰

11. Our physical bodies die eventually, but the spiritual part of our minds keeps going. It's been operating on a spiritual plane already, but our awareness shifts - so that we become fully aware of spiritual reality. ¹¹

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24. It requires no further explanation to see that the statement that all people who have ever been born since the beginning of creation and have died are in heaven or in hell is the consequence of what has been said in the previous chapter, where it was shown that heaven and hell are from the human race. Up to now it has been generally believed that people will not go to heaven or to hell before the day of the Last Judgment, when souls will return to their own bodies so that they can enjoy what are believed to be the peculiar properties of the body. Simple people have been brought to believe this by those who have made a profession of being wise and have enquired into people's inner state. These have had no idea of the spiritual world, but only the natural one, and so no idea of the spiritual man either. They have therefore been unaware that the spiritual man, which everyone has within his natural man, has human form just as the natural man. Neither has it occurred to them that the natural man gets his human form from his spiritual man. Yet they could have seen that the spiritual man acts at will upon every detail of the natural man, who is unable to do anything of himself.

[2] It is the spiritual man who thinks and wills, for the natural man cannot do this of himself. And thought and will are all-in-all to the natural man, for he is acted upon as the spiritual man wills, and he speaks as the spiritual man thinks, so much so that action is nothing but willing and speech is nothing but thinking. For if you take away willing and thinking, speech and action come instantly to a stop. From this it is plain that the spiritual man really is the man, present in every detail of the natural man; so its outward form must be similar, since any part or particle of the natural man not subject to the action of the spiritual is lifeless. However, the spiritual man cannot become visible to the natural man, for the natural cannot see the spiritual, though the spiritual can see the natural. This is in accordance with the rules of order, but the reverse would be contrary to them, since it is possible for the spiritual to influence the natural (and this applies to sight, since it is a form of influence), but not the reverse. The spiritual man is what is called a person's spirit, which is seen in the spiritual world in complete human form and which lives on after death.

[3] Since intelligent people have, as I said before, known nothing about the spiritual world, and thus about a person's spirit, they have therefore got the idea that a person cannot have a personal life until his soul returns to his body and resumes its senses. This is the origin of such empty notions about personal resurrection, for instance, that although bodies have been eaten by worms or fishes or have collapsed into dust, they will by God's almighty power be brought together again and reunited with souls; or that these events will only occur at the end of the world, when the visible universe will come to an end; and many similar ideas, all of which are beyond our grasp and at first sight appear impossible and contrary to God's order. Consequently many people have their faith weakened by these ideas. For those who think wisely can only believe what they to some extent understand; one cannot believe the impossible, that is, what one judges to be impossible. So those who do not believe in life after death use this argument to infer a proof of their negative attitude. However, it may be seen in numerous chapters of HEAVEN AND HELL that people rise again at once after death, and are then endowed with complete human form. These remarks are intended as additional confirmation of the statement that heaven and hell are from the human race; from which it follows that all people who have ever been born from the beginning of creation and have died are in heaven or in hell.

7495. Exodus 9

1. And Jehovah said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh, and you are to tell him, Thus said Jehovah the God of the Hebrews, Send My People away, and let them serve Me.

2. For if you refuse to send them away and you still hold them back,

3. Behold, the hand of Jehovah will be on your livestock that are in the field, on the horses, on the asses, on the camels, on the herd, and on the flock - an extremely severe pestilence.

4. And Jehovah will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of the Egyptians, and nothing will die of all that belongs to the children of Israel.

5. And Jehovah set a fixed time, saying, Tomorrow Jehovah will do this thing in the land.

6. And Jehovah did this thing on the morrow, and all the livestock of the Egyptians died; and of the livestock of the children of Israel not one died.

7. And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not even one of the livestock of Israel had died. And Pharaoh's heart was stubborn, and he did not send the people away.

8. And Jehovah said to Moses and to Aaron, Take for yourselves in fistfuls ¹ the ashes of the furnace, and let Moses scatter them in the direction of heaven before Pharaoh's eyes.

9. And there will then be dust over all the land of Egypt, and there will be on man and on beast sores breaking out into pustules, in all the land of Egypt.

10. And they took the ashes of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses scattered them in the direction of heaven, and sores producing pustules developed, breaking out on man and on beast.

11. And the magicians could not stand before Moses on account of the sores; for there were sores on the magicians and on all the Egyptians.

12. And Jehovah made Pharaoh's heart unyielding, and he did not hear ² them, as Jehovah had spoken to Moses.

13. And Jehovah said to Moses, Rise up in the morning early, and stand before Pharaoh; and you are to say to him, Thus said Jehovah the God of the Hebrews, Send My people away, and let them serve Me.

14. For this time I am sending all My plagues onto your heart, and onto your servants, and onto your people, in order that you may know that there is none like Me in the whole earth.

15. For now I could stretch out ³ My hand, and strike you and your people with pestilence, and you would be cut off from the earth.

16. But yet for this reason have I caused you to stand ⁴ - for you to see My power, and in order that My name may be declared in the whole earth.

17. You go on exalting yourself against My people by not sending them away.

18. Behold, about this time tomorrow I am causing it to rain an extremely heavy hail, of which there has not been the like in Egypt from the day it was founded even until now.

19. And now send, assemble your livestock and all that you have in the field; every man and beast that will be found in the field and will not be gathered home, ⁵ the hail will come down on them and they will die.

20. And he that feared the word of Jehovah among the servants of Pharaoh caused his servants and his livestock to flee to the houses.

21. And he that did not take the word of Jehovah to heart left his servants and his livestock in the field.

22. And Jehovah said to Moses, Stretch out your hand towards heaven, and there will be hail in all the land of Egypt, on man and on beast, and on every plant of the field in the land of Egypt.

23. And Moses stretched out his rod towards heaven, and Jehovah gave forth voices ⁶ and hail, and fire ran down to the earth; and Jehovah caused hail to rain onto the land of Egypt.

24. And there was hail, and at the same time fire running down ⁷ in the midst of the hail, extremely heavy, of which there had not been the like in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.

25. And the hail struck in all the land of Egypt everything that was in the field, from man and even to beast; and the hail struck every plant of the field, and broke every tree of the field.

26. Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail.

27. And Pharaoh sent and called Moses and Aaron, and said to them, I have sinned this time; Jehovah is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.

28. Plead with Jehovah, there have been enough of God's voices' and of hail; and I will send you away, and you will not continue to remain.

29. And Moses said to him, As I am going out of the city I will spread out my palms towards Jehovah; the voices' will cease, and there will be no more hail, in order that you may know that the earth is Jehovah's.

30. And [as for] you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the face of Jehovah God.

31. And the flax and the barley were struck; for the barley was a ripening ear, and the flax a stem. ⁸

32. And the wheat and the spelt were not struck, for they were hidden. ⁹

33. And Moses went out from Pharaoh, from the city, and spread out his palms towards Jehovah; and the voices' and the hail ceased, and the rain was not poured on the earth.

34. And Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the voices ⁶ had ceased; and he continued to sin, and made his heart stubborn, he and his servants.

35. And Pharaoh's heart was made unyielding, and he did not send the children of Israel away, as Jehovah had spoken through the hand of Moses.

CONTENTS

This chapter continues to deal with the vastation of those who molest members of the spiritual Church. In the internal sense the chapter deals with the sixth, seventh, and eighth states or stages of their vastation, which the pestilence, the sores breaking out into pustules, and the rain in the form of hail describe. By these plagues is meant the laying waste of things of the Church present with them.

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