Heaven and Hell #445

By Emanuel Swedenborg

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445. Our Revival from the Dead and Entry into Eternal Life

When someone's body can no longer perform its functions in the natural world in response to the thoughts and affections of its spirit (which it derives from the spiritual world), then we say that the individual has died. This happens when the lungs' breathing and the heart's systolic motion have ceased. The person, though, has not died at all. We are only separated from the physical nature that was useful to us in the world. The essential person is actually still alive. I say that the essential person is still alive because we are not people because of our bodies but because of our spirits. After all, it is the spirit within us that thinks, and thought and affection together make us the people we are.

We can see, then, that when we die we simply move from one world into another. This is why in the inner meaning of the Word, "death" means resurrection and a continuation of life. 1

Footnotes:

1. [Swedenborg's footnote] Death in the Word means resurrection because when we die, our life still goes on: 3498, 3505, 4618, 4621, 6036, 6222 [6221?].

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.