957. Till the seven plagues of the seven angels should be consummated, signifies until evils and falsities have been rejected, and those who are in them cast into hell. This is evident from the signification of "being consummated," as meaning to be ended, but here to be rejected; also from the signification of "the seven plagues," as being all the evils and falsities that have devastated the church (See above, n. 949); also from the signification of "the seven angels," as being manifestation (See n. 949). Thus "till the seven plagues of the seven angels should be consummated" signifies until the evils and falsities that are made manifest are rejected. These words signify also until those who are in evils and falsities have been cast into hell, because they relate to the time before the Last Judgment was accomplished, and before the good had been separated from the evil, and the good had been raised up into heaven and the evil cast into hell, thus before the new heaven and new earth had been established. That "no one was able to enter into the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels should be consummated" signifies that until that time the Word was in obscurity before the understanding.

[2] But this arcanum must be more fully explained. The Divine truths that lie interiorly stored up in the Word could not be made manifest until after the Last Judgment had been accomplished; and for the reason that before that judgment the hells had prevailed, while since that judgment the heavens prevail; and man is placed in the middle between the hells and the heavens; consequently so long as the hells prevail the truth of the Word is either perverted or despised or rejected; but the reverse takes place when the heavens prevail. From all this it can be seen why Divine truths are now first disclosed and the spiritual sense of the Word revealed. This, then, is the meaning of the statement that the Word was in obscurity in regard to the understanding of it until those who were in evils and falsities had been cast into hell.

(Continuation respecting the First Commandment)

[3] The idea of God is the primary of all ideas; for such as this idea is such is man's communication with heaven and his conjunction with the Lord, and such is his enlightenment, his affection of truth and good, his perception, intelligence, and wisdom; for these are not from man but from the Lord according to conjunction with Him. The idea of God is the idea of the Lord and His Divine, for no other is the God of heaven and the God of earth, as He Himself teaches in Matthew:

All authority has been given unto Me in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18).

But the idea of the Lord is more or less full and more or less clear; it is full in the inmost heaven, less full in the middle, and still less full in the ultimate heaven; therefore those who are in the inmost heaven are in wisdom, those who are in the middle in intelligence, and those who are in the ultimate in knowledge. The idea is clear in the angels who are at the center of the societies of heaven; and less clear in those who are round about, according to the degrees of distance from the center.

[4] All in the heavens have places allotted them according to the fullness and clearness of their idea of the Lord, and they are in correspondent wisdom and in correspondent felicity. All those who have no idea of the Lord as Divine, like the Socinians and Arians, are under the heavens, and are unhappy. Those who have a twofold idea, namely, of an invisible God and of a visible God in a human form, also have their place under the heavens, and are not received until they acknowledge one God, and Him visible. Some in the place of a visible God see as it were something aerial, and this because God is called a spirit. If this idea is not changed with them into the idea of Man, thus of the Lord, they are not accepted. But those who have an idea of God as the inmost of nature are rejected, because they cannot help falling into the idea of nature as being God. All nations that have believed in one God, and have had an idea of Him as Man, are received by the Lord. From all this it can be seen who those are that worship God Himself and who those are that worship other gods, thus who live according to the first commandment of the Decalogue and who do not.