267. 13. Because of the Word, Even People Who Are outside the Church and Who Do Not Have the Word Have Light.

No connection to heaven is possible unless somewhere on earth there is a church where the Word exists and where the Lord is known through that Word. This is because the Lord is the God of heaven and earth - without the Lord there is no salvation. (For the Word providing a connection to the Lord and association with angels, see 234-239 above.) It is enough if there is one church where the Word exists. Even if this church consists of comparatively few people, still the Lord is present throughout the world by means of the Word, since heaven is connected to the human race through the Word.

800. The Dutch in the Spiritual World

In Heaven and Hell I reported that Christian populations where the Word is read and where the Lord is known and acknowledged as the Redeemer and Savior are at the center of all the nations and peoples in the entire spiritual world. The reason for this is that the greatest spiritual light exists among them. That light radiates out from the center into all outlying regions, even the very farthest, as was shown above in 267-272 in the chapter on the Sacred Scripture.

Within this Christian central region, Protestants are assigned particular places depending on how receptive they are to spiritual light from the Lord. Among the Dutch, that spiritual light is more deeply and fully joined to their earthly light, and they are therefore more receptive than others to what is reasonable and rational. As a result, they are given homes within that Christian central region that are in the eastern and southern parts of it. They are in the east to the extent that they have a capacity for receiving spiritual heat, and in the south to the extent that they have a capacity for receiving spiritual light.

(For the points that the regions of the spiritual world are not like the regions in the physical world, that people live in this or that region in accordance with their receptivity to faith and love, and that people who have an exceptionally great amount of love live in the east and people who have an exceptionally great level of understanding live in the south, see Heaven and Hell 141-153.)

141. THE FOUR QUARTERS IN HEAVEN

Both in heaven and in the world there are four quarters, east, south, west and north, determined in each world by its own sun, in heaven by the Sun of heaven which is the Lord, in the world by the sun of the world. Yet there are great differences between them; FIRST, that in the world, the south is said to be where the sun is in its greatest altitude above the earth, the north where it is in its opposite position beneath the earth, the east where it rises at the equinox, and the west where it then sets. Thus, in the world it is from the south that all the quarters are determined. In heaven, however, the quarter where the Lord appears as a Sun is said to be the east. Opposite to this is the west, on the right in heaven is the south and on the left there the north, and this in every turning of face and body. Thus, in heaven it is from the east that all the quarters are determined. It is said to be the east (oriens) where the Lord is seen as a Sun, because all origin (origo) of life is from Him as a Sun. Moreover, so far as angels receive heat and light or love and intelligence from Him, the Lord is said to arise (exoriri) upon them. For the same reason, in the Word the Lord is said to be the East ¹ (Oriens).

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