1. I. THE LAST JUDGMENT HAS BEEN COMPLETED

My earlier work on THE LAST JUDGMENT dealt with the following subjects:

The day of the Last Judgment does not mean the destruction of the world (The Last Judgment 1-5).

The reproduction of the human race will never cease (6-13).

Heaven and Hell are from the human race (14-22).

All people who have ever been born since the beginning of creation and have died are in heaven or in hell (23-27).

The Last Judgment is to be where all are together, and so in the spiritual world, not on earth (28-32).

The Last Judgment takes place when a church comes to an end; and this happens when there is no faith because there is no charity (33-39).

All the predictions made in the Book of Revelation are today fulfilled (40-44).

The Last Judgment has taken place (45-52).

On Babylon and its destruction (53-64);

on the former heaven and its abolition (65-72);

on the future state of the world and the church (73-74).

40. VII. ALL THE PREDICTIONS IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION ARE TO-DAY FULFILLED.

No one can know what is meant by and involved in the book of Revelation without knowing the internal or spiritual sense of the Word. The whole of its contents is written in a style similar to that of the prophetic books of the Old Testament, in which every expression has a spiritual meaning not to be seen in the literal sense. Moreover, the contents of Revelation can only be explained in their spiritual sense by those who know what happened to the church up to its end; and only in heaven can this be known. This is the subject of Revelation, for the spiritual sense of the Word everywhere deals with the spiritual world, that is, the state of the church both in the heavens and upon earth. That is why the Word is spiritual and Divine. The state of the church is there expounded in due sequence. This can serve to establish that the contents of Revelation could not be explained except by someone who had received a revelation of the successive states of the church in the heavens. There is equally a church in the heavens as on earth, and some remarks on it will follow.

4085. 'And the angel of God said to me in a dream, Jacob. And I said, Behold, here I am' means perception from the Divine, and presence within that obscurity. This is clear from the meaning of 'saying' in historical narratives of the Word as perceiving - often dealt with already; from the meaning of 'the angel of God' as from the Divine (for when mentioned in the Word 'an angel' means something essentially the Lord's, that is, something belonging to the Divine, 1925, 2319, 2821, 3039, the reason being that no angel speaks from himself but from the Lord, especially when he does so in a dream, as he does here to Jacob. What is more, angels are such that they are annoyed if anything of what is good and true spoken by them is attributed to themselves; and so far as possible they remove any such ideas existing in others, especially in man. For they know and perceive that everything good and true which they think, will, and carry into effect originates in the Lord, and so in the Divine. And from this it may be seen that in the Word something essentially the Lord's, that is, something Divine, is meant by 'angels'); and from the meaning of 'in a dream' as within obscurity, dealt with in 2514, 2528. Presence within the natural, where it dwells in obscurity, is the meaning of Jacob's reply.