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).

41. So long as a person lives in the world, he cannot see what the Lord's church on earth is like, much less how it turned from good to evil in the course of time. This is because a person takes an external view while he lives in the world, and can only see what is plain to his natural man. What a church is like from a spiritual point of view, that is, from the point of view of its internals, cannot be seen on earth. But in heaven it can be seen as in bright daylight, since the angels think spiritually and also see spiritually, so that they see only what is spiritual. Moreover, all the people are gathered there who have been born in the world from the beginning of creation, as was shown above, and all are there divided into communities differing in the kinds of good of love and faith they have (see HEAVEN AND HELL 41-50). So it is that the states of a church and how it progresses are clearly to be seen by the angels in heaven.

[2] Now because Revelation in its spiritual sense describes the state of the church as regards love and faith, no one can know what lies hidden within its whole narrative, unless it has been revealed to him from heaven, and he has been allowed to know the internal or spiritual sense of the Word. I can declare with assurance that all the details there, down to the individual words, contain a spiritual sense, which provides a full description of everything to do with the church as regards its spiritual state from beginning to end. Since every single word in it has some spiritual meaning, none can be omitted without changing the train of ideas in the internal sense. That is why at the end of Revelation we read:

If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy God will take away ¹ his share in the book of life and in the holy city, and in what is written in that book. Revelation 22:19.

[3] It is much the same with the books of the Old Testament Word. In those each subject and each word contains an internal or spiritual sense; so neither there can any word be taken away. That is why by the Lord's Divine providence those books have been kept intact down to the last jot from the time when they were written by the care taken by many scribes who counted even the smallest details in them. This provision by the Lord was to guard the holiness which each jot, letter and word in them possesses.

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28. V. THE LAST JUDGMENT IS TO BE WHERE ALL ARE TOGETHER, AND SO IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, NOT ON EARTH.

The general belief about the Last Judgment is that the Lord accompanied by angels will appear in glory in the clouds of heaven, and He will then raise up from their graves all who have ever lived from the beginning of creation, clothe their souls with a body, and, when they have been summoned to meet, judge them, sending those who have lived good lives to everlasting life or heaven, and those who lived wicked lives to everlasting death or hell.

[2] The churches have taken this belief from the literal sense of the Word, and there was no possibility of removing it so long as it remained unknown that everything mentioned in the Word has a spiritual sense; and this sense is the real Word, the literal sense serving as its basis or foundation. Without this kind of literal sense the Word could not have been Divine, and have served both heaven and the world as a means of instruction on how to live and what to believe, and as a means of linking. So if anyone knows the spiritual facts corresponding to natural ones in the Word, he can know that the Lord's coming in the clouds of heaven does not mean His appearance there, but His appearance in the Word. The Lord is the Word, because He is Divine truth. The clouds of heaven in which He is to come are the literal sense of the Word, and the glory is its spiritual sense. The angels are heaven, from which He appears, and they are also the Lord as regards Divine truths. ¹ This makes plain the meaning of these words, namely, that when the church comes to an end the Lord will open up the spiritual sense of the Word, and thus reveal the essential nature of Divine truth. This will be a sign that the Last Judgment is at hand.

[3] For a demonstration that everything said in the Word, even every expression, contains a spiritual sense, and what this is like, see ARCANA CAELESTIA. This book expounds in full detail the contents of Genesis and Exodus in accordance with their spiritual sense. Some selected passages dealing with the Word and its spiritual sense may be found in my small work ON THE WHITE HORSE described in Revelation.

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