73. XI. THE FUTURE STATE OF THE WORLD AND THE CHURCH.

The future state of the world will be exactly the same as it has been up to now; for the mighty change which has taken place in the spiritual world does not cause any change in the external appearance of the natural world. So just as before there will be politics, peace-treaties, alliances and wars, and all the other general and particular features of society. When the Lord said:

There will be wars, and then nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues and earthquakes in various places. Matthew 24:6-7.

He did not mean such events in the natural world, but corresponding ones in the spiritual world. For the Word in its prophecies is not concerned with kingdoms on earth or the peoples on it, so not with their wars either; nor is it concerned with famine, plague and earthquakes on earth, but with the events in the spiritual world which correspond to them. The nature of these has been explained in ARCANA CAELESTIA, a collection of references to which may by seen at the end of the chapter. ¹

[2] The future state of the church, however, will not be the same. It may seem much the same in outward appearance, but inwardly it will be different. In outward appearance the churches will be divided from one another as before, their teachings will differ as before, and so will the religious systems of the heathen. But people in the church will henceforward have more freedom in thinking about matters of faith, and so about the spiritual matters which have to do with heaven, because of the restoration of spiritual freedom. For now everything in the heavens and the hells has been restored to order, and it is from there that all thought is influenced about Divine matters or against them; from the heavens when thought favours what is Divine, from the hells when it opposes it. But people will be unaware of this change of state, since they do not reflect on it, nor indeed do they know anything about spiritual freedom or influence from the spiritual world. However, in heaven this is perceived, and people after their deaths can do so too. It is because people have had their spiritual freedom restored that the spiritual sense of the Word has now been disclosed, and by this means Divine truths of a more inward kind have been revealed. For in their previous state people would not have understood them, and if anyone did so, he would have profaned them. It may be seen in HEAVEN AND HELL 597-603) that people's freedom depends upon an equilibrium between heaven and hell; and that people can only be reformed, if they enjoy freedom.

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598. The reason we cannot be reformed unless we have some freedom is that we are born into evils of all kinds, evils which need to be taken away if we are to be saved. They cannot be taken away unless we see them within ourselves, admit that they are there, then refuse them and ultimately turn away from them. Only then are they taken away. This cannot happen unless we are exposed to both good and evil, since it is from good that we can see evils, though we cannot see what is good from evil. We learn the good spiritual things we can think from infancy from the reading of the Word and from sermons. We learn the moral and civic values from our life in the world. This is the primary reason we need to be in freedom.

[2] The second reason is that nothing becomes part of us except as a result of some affection of love. True, other things can enter us, but no deeper than into our thought, not into our volition; and anything that does not enter our volition is not ours. This is because thinking is derived from our memory, while volition is derived from our life itself. Nothing is ever free unless it comes from our volition, or what amounts to the same thing, from a particular affection that stems from our love. Whatever we intend or love, we do freely. This is why our freedom and the affection of our love or intentions are one. So we also have freedom in order to be able to be moved by what is true and good, or to love them, so that they do become part of us.

[3] In a word, anything that does not enter us in freedom does not stay with us, because it does not belong to our love or intentions; and anything that does not belong to our love or intentions does not belong to our spirit. The actual reality of our spirit is love or volition - using the phrase "love or volition" because whatever we love, we intend. This is why we cannot be reformed except in a state of freedom.

But there is more on our freedom in the extracts from Secrets of Heaven below.

1664. That the wars in this chapter mean in the internal sense nothing other than spiritual conflicts, which are temptations, has been stated already in the preliminary section. ¹ Nor do the wars in the rest of the Word, especially in the Prophets, have any other meaning. Wars waged by men can have no place whatever in the internal parts of the Word, for such things as wars are not the spiritual and celestial things which alone constitute the Word. That 'wars' in the Word means conflicts with the devil, or what amounts to the same, with hell, becomes clear from the following places besides many others: In John,

They are spirits of demons, performing signs, to go out to the kings of the land and of the whole earth, to assemble them for the war of that great day of God Almighty. Revelation 16:14.

Here anyone may see that no other kind of war on the great day of God Almighty is meant.

[2] In the same book,

The beast that comes up from the Abyss will make war. Revelation 11:7.

Here 'the Abyss' is hell. In the same book,

The dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her seed, who kept the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus Christ. Revelation 12:17.

It ² was allowed to make war on the saints. Revelation 13:7.

All these wars are conflicts such as constitute temptations. Nor are the wars of the kings of the south and of the north, and the other wars of Daniel 8, 11, and also those involving Michael, Daniel 10:13, 21; 12:1; Revelation 12:7, anything different.

[3] That wars have no other meaning is clear from the rest of the Prophets as well, as in Ezekiel,

You have not gone up into the breaches and made a hedge for the house of Israel, to stand in war on the day of Jehovah. Ezekiel 13:5.

This refers to the prophets. In Isaiah,

They will beat their swords into hoes, and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war any more. Isaiah 2:4.

Clearly no other wars [than spiritual wars] are meant here, and therefore instruments of war, such as swords, spears, shields, and many others, mean nothing else in the Word than things that belong to such wars.

[4] In the same prophet,

To the thirsty bring water; O inhabitants of the land of Tema, meet with his bread the fugitive, ³ for they will flee ⁴ before the swords, before the drawn sword, and before the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war. Isaiah 21:14-15.

In Jeremiah,

Shepherds and their flocks will come against the daughter of Zion, they will pitch their tents against her round about; they will graze, each off his own space. Declare a sacred war against her; arise and let us go up at noon. Jeremiah 6:3-5.

Here, since it is waged against 'the daughter of Zion', that is, the Church, no other kind of war is meant.

[5] In the same prophet,

How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city of My joy? Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, and all the men of war will be cut down on that day. Jeremiah 49:25-26.

'The city of praise and of joy' stands for the things that belong to the Church, 'the men of war' for those who fight.

[6] In Hosea,

I will make for them a covenant on that day, with the wild animals of the field, and with the birds of the air, ⁵ and with the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish ⁶ the bow, and the sword, and war from the land, and I will make them lie down in safety. Hosea 2:18.

Here similarly 'war' stands for conflicts, and the various instruments of war stand for the things belonging to spiritual conflict which are 'broken' when a person comes into the calmness of peace as evil desires and falsities come to an end.

[7] In David,

Behold the works of Jehovah who makes solitary places in the earth, making wars cease even to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow, and snaps the spear, He burns the chariots with fire. Psalms 46:8-9.

Here too the meaning is similar. In the same author,

In Salem is the dwelling-place of God, and His habitation in Zion. There He broke the bow's fiery arrows, the shield and the sword, and war. Psalms 76:2-3.

Because the priests represented the Lord who alone fights on man's behalf, their duties are called military service, Numbers 4:23, 35, 39, 43, 47.

[8] It is a constant truth that Jehovah alone, that is, the Lord, fights and overcomes the devil present with a person when he is involved in the conflicts brought by temptations, even though to that person this does not appear to be so. For evil spirits have no power at all to exert the slightest influence on man unless they are permitted to do so, and angels cannot act to avert anything at all unless enabled to do so by the Lord. Thus it is the Lord alone who endures every conflict and overcomes, something that was also represented at various times by the wars that the children of Israel waged against the nations. That He alone does so is also stated in Moses,

Jehovah your God is going ⁷ before you, He Himself will fight for you. Deuteronomy 1:30.

In the same book,

Jehovah your God is going ⁷ with you to fight for you with your enemies, to save you. Deuteronomy 20:4.

[9] So too in Joshua, such as 23:3, 5. For all the wars that were being waged at that time against the idolatrous inhabitants of the land of Canaan represented the Lord's conflicts with hell, and consequently the conflicts of His Church, and of members of the Church. This also accords with the following statements in Isaiah,

As the lion roars, and the young lion, over its prey (when a multitude of shepherds run towards him he is not dismayed by their voice nor daunted by the tumult they make) so Jehovah Zebaoth will come down to fight on Mount Zion and on its hill. Isaiah 31:4.

[10] For the same reasons also Jehovah, or the Lord, is called 'a Man of War', as in Moses,

Jehovah is a Man of War, Jehovah is His name. Exodus 15:3.

In Isaiah,

Jehovah will go forth as a Mighty Man, as a Man of Wars. He will stir up zeal; He will cry out, yes, He will shout aloud, He will prevail over His enemies. Isaiah 42:13.

This also is why many things that war entails are attributed to the Lord, such as 'crying out', and 'shouting aloud' here.

[11] Spirits and angels also appear as men of war, when a representation is being made, as in Joshua,

Joshua lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, a man was standing before him, with his sword drawn in his hand. He said to Joshua, I am the Prince of the army of Jehovah; and Joshua fell on his face ⁸ to the earth. Joshua 5:13-14.

These things were seen taking the form they did because they were representative, and this also is why descendants of Jacob called their wars the Wars of ]Jehovah.

It was similar in the Ancient Churches among whom there were books which also were called The Wars of Jehovah, as is clear in Moses.

It is said in the Book of the Wars of Jehovah. Numbers 21:14-15.

These were written about in a way not unlike the wars described in this chapter; but wars involving the Church were meant. Such a manner of writing was common in those times, for they were interior men and their thoughts were of more exalted things.

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