4229. 第32章

最后的审判 (续)

我们从第三卷 (系指拉丁文的第3卷) 开始解释主在马太福音 24章关于最后审判的预言. 这些解释被放在了那一卷最后几章的开头部分, 目前已解释到31节 (参看3353-3356, 3486-3489, 3650-3655, 3897-3901, 4056-4060节).

概括地说, 主的这些预言的内义从所给出的解释很清楚看出来, 即祂预言了教会的逐渐毁灭和最终一个新教会的建立, 其次序如下:

⑴教会成员不再知道何为良善与真理, 反而开始彼此争论它们.

⑵他们蔑视它们.

⑶他们从心里不承认它们.

⑷他们亵渎它们.

⑸由于信之真理和爱之良善仍存留在某些被称为 “选民” 的人当中, 故经上描述了那时信之真理所具有的状态.

⑹然后描述了仁的状态.

⑺最后论述了一个新教会的开始, 由最后所解释的那些话来表示, 即:

祂要差遣祂的使者, 用号筒的大声, 将祂的选民从四风, 从天这边到天那边, 都招聚了来. (马太福音 24:31)

这些话表示一个新教会的开始 (参看4060末尾节).

75. BRIEF ANALYSIS

It was seen above, 73, that the successive stages of decline and corruption of the Christian Church are foretold and described by the Lord in the 24th chapter of Matthew. There, also, after having spoken of false prophets that should arise, and of the abomination of desolation wrought by them, verses 11, 15, He says:

Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. Matthew 24:21.

From this it is evident that by great affliction, in this and in other places in the Word, is meant the infestation of truth by falsities until there remains no genuine truth drawn from the Word which is not falsified, and so consummated. This has come to pass because the Churches have not acknowledged the Unity of God in the Trinity, and His Trinity in Unity, in one Person, but in three; hence they have founded a Church in the mind upon the idea of three Gods, and in the mouth upon the confession of one God. By so doing they have separated themselves from the Lord, and at length to such a degree that they have no idea left of the Divinity in His Human Nature (see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 294); when yet the Lord, as to His Human, is Divine Truth itself, and Divine Light itself, as He abundantly teaches in His Word. From this comes the great affliction so prevalent at this day; which, as will be seen in the following pages, has been brought about principally by the doctrine of justification and of imputation through the medium of faith alone.