115. 1. Redemption was actually a matter of gaining control of the hells, restructuring the heavens, and by so doing preparing for a new spiritual church. I can say with absolute certainty that these three actions are redemption, because the Lord is bringing about redemption again today. This new redemption began in the year 1757 along with a Last Judgment that happened at that time. The redemption has continued from then until now. The reason is that today is the Second Coming of the Lord. A new church is being instituted that could not have been instituted unless first the hells were brought under control and the heavens were restructured.

Because I have been allowed to see it all I could describe how the hells were brought under control and how the new heaven was built and put into the divine design, but that would be the subject of a whole work. In a little work published in London in 1758 I did lay out how the Last Judgment was carried out.

Gaining control over the hells, restructuring the heavens, and establishing a new church was redemption because without those actions no human being could have been saved. In fact, they follow in a sequence. The hells had to be controlled first before a new angelic heaven could be formed, and that heaven had to be formed before the new church on earth could be instituted, because people in the world are so closely connected to angels from heaven and spirits from hell that at the level of the inner mind they are one. This point will be taken up in the last chapter of this book, which specifically covers the close of the age, the Coming of the Lord, and the New Church [753-791].

369. (a) Our partnership with God is what gives us salvation and eternal life. Human beings were created with the capability of being in a partnership with God. We were created to be citizens of heaven and also citizens of the world. We are spiritual so we can be citizens of heaven and earthly so we can be citizens of the world. Our spiritual self is capable of thinking about God and perceiving things that relate to God. It is also capable of loving God and being moved by things that come from God. It follows that we are able to be in a partnership with God.

Our ability to think about God and to perceive things that come from God is completely beyond the reach of doubt. We are capable of thinking about God's unity; about God's underlying reality, which is Jehovah; about God's immensity and eternity; about the divine love and wisdom that constitute God's essence; and about God's omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. We are capable of thinking about the Lord our Savior, his Son, and about his redemption and mediation. We can also think about the Holy Spirit and about the divine Trinity. All these things relate to God; in fact, they are God. Beyond this, we can think about God's influence, which primarily takes the form of faith and goodwill, not to mention many things that emanate from faith and goodwill.

[2] The fact that we are capable of not only thinking about God but also loving God is clear from the two commandments of God himself that read like this:

You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like it: you are to love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-39; Deuteronomy 6:5)

We are also capable of doing what God commands, which is the same as loving God and being loved by God, as the following words show:

Jesus said, "The people who love me are those who have my commandments and follow them. Those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and manifest myself to them. " (John 14:21)

[3] In fact, what else is faith but a partnership with God by means of truths that shape our understanding and thought? What else is love but a partnership with God through goodness that shapes our intentions and desires? God's connection to us is a spiritual connection that comes to an earthly plane; our connection to God is an earthly connection that comes from a spiritual plane.

The ultimate purpose in creating us citizens of heaven and also citizens of the world was this partnership. As citizens of heaven we are spiritual and as citizens of the world we are earthly. Therefore if we become spiritual-and-rational and also spiritual-and-moral, we forge a partnership with God. Through this partnership we have salvation and eternal life.

On the other hand, if we are only earthly-and-rational and earthly-and-moral, God is indeed connected to us but we are not connected to him. The result of this is spiritual death (which by definition is earthly life without spiritual life), because spirituality, in which the life of God exists, has been extinguished in us.