4237. 'And he called the name of that place Mahanaim' means the nature of that state. This is clear from the meaning of 'calling the name' as the essential nature, dealt with in 144, 145, 1754, 1896, 2009, 3421, and from the meaning of 'place' as state, dealt with in 2625, 2837, 3356, 3387. In the original language Mahanaim means the two camps, and 'the two camps' means both heavens, or both kingdoms of the Lord - the celestial and the spiritual - and in the highest sense the Lord's Divine celestial and Divine spiritual. From this it is evident that the nature of the Lord's state when His Natural was being enlightened by spiritual and celestial good is the meaning of 'Mahanaim'. But this - that is to say, the nature of that state - cannot be described because the Divine states which the Lord experienced when He made the Human within Him Divine do not fall within the mental grasp of any man, or indeed of any angel. They can be seen only by means of appearances when enlightened by the light of heaven received from the Lord, and by means of the states which a person experiences when being regenerated since the regeneration of man is an image of the glorification of the Lord, 3138, 3212, 3296, 3490.

2117. THE LAST JUDGEMENT

Few nowadays know what the Last Judgement is. They imagine that it is going to be accompanied by the destruction of the world; and this leads to conjectures that this earth, together with everything else in the visible world, is going to be destroyed by fire. They also conjecture that then for the first time the dead will rise again and appear for judgement, and the evil are to be cast into hell and the good to rise up to heaven. These conjectures are based on the prophetical parts of the Word where references are made to a new heaven and a new earth, and also to a New Jerusalem. Such people do not realize that the prophetical parts of the Word have a meaning altogether different in the internal sense from what appears in the sense of the letter, and that 'heaven' is not used to mean heaven, nor 'the earth' to mean the earth, but the Lord's Church in general, and as it exists with each individual in particular.