Secrets of Heaven #1011

1011. The fact that will have their own blood shed symbolizes their damnation is established by the things said.

From the literal meaning comes the idea that one who sheds blood, or a murderer, should be sentenced to death. In the inner meaning, though, we find that the verse condemns to death — that is, hell — those who hate their neighbor. In Matthew the Lord teaches the same thing:

Any who say, "Idiot!" to their brother or sister will be subject to fiery Gehenna. (Matthew 5:22)

This is because when charity has been eliminated, we are left to ourselves and our own devices. No longer does the Lord rule us through the inner restraints of conscience but through external restraints that the law lays on us and that we subject ourselves to in our drive for power and riches. When the latter chains are loosened, as does happen in the other life, we plunge into the cruelest and most obscene behavior and so into our own damnation.

"Those who shed blood will have their own blood shed" is a retaliatory law that was very familiar to ancient people. It was the standard they used in judging evildoing and crime, as is clear from many passages in the Word. ¹ This legal principle derives its origin from the universal law that we must do to our neighbor only what we would want others to do to us (Matthew 7:12). It also results from the pattern that everything in the next life follows, in which evil actually punishes itself, as does falsity, so that evil and falsity carry their own punishment. Since this is the pattern — that evil punishes itself or, what is the same, incurs a penalty mirroring itself — from it ancient people also drew their law of retaliation. The current verse symbolizes the same thing by saying, "Those who shed blood will have their own blood shed" — that is, they will plunge into damnation.

V: