74. I had various talks with angels about the future state of the church. They said that they did not know what would happen, because the Lord alone knows the future. What they did know was that the servitude and captivity, in which people in the church have up to now been held, had been taken away, so that now through the restoration of freedom they could better perceive interior truths, if they wished to do so, and thus, if they wished, become interior people. But they said that they still had only faint hopes of the people in the Christian church, though much better hopes of a people far removed from the Christian world and sheltered from its attackers, since it was of a nature able to receive spiritual light and become celestial-spiritual people. They said that at the present time interior truths are being revealed among that people, and they are being received with spiritual faith, that is, in the way they live and in their hearts; and they worship the Lord.

694. And Thy anger is come, and the time of the dead to be judged, signifies the Last Judgment upon those who inwardly possess with themselves nothing of good and truth. This is evident from the signification of "anger" as being, in reference to the Lord, the Last Judgment (of which above, n. 413. This is evidently the signification of "anger" here, for it is added, "and the time of the dead to be judged." Also from the signification of "the dead," as being those who inwardly possess with themselves nothing of good and truth. Such are called "dead" because the essential life of man is his spiritual life, for it is through this that he is a man and is distinguished from beasts, which have only natural life. In man the natural life without the spiritual life is dead, since it has not in itself heaven, which is called "life" and "eternal life," but has hell, which is spiritually called "death." In the Word, the "dead" mean those who live a natural life only, and not at the same time a spiritual life (as may be seen above, n. 78; also "death," in reference to man, means a lack of the faculty of understanding truth and perceiving good (See above, n. 550); and this lack exists when the internal spiritual man has not been formed, for this is formed by means of truths from good. In that internal man the ability to understand truth and perceive good has its seat, for that man is in heaven and in its light, and he who is in the light of heaven is a living man. But when the natural man only has been formed, and not at the same time the spiritual, there is no faculty of understanding and perceiving the truths and goods of heaven and the church, because that man has no light from heaven. For this reason such a man is called "dead." That those who inwardly possess with themselves nothing of good and truth are here meant by "the dead who are to be judged," can be seen from what has been said before about the separation of the evil from the good before the Last Judgment, and that the evil, when they have been separated, come into their interiors, which swarm with mere evils and falsities; from which it is clear that inwardly they were dead, although in external form they appeared to be living.