Resurrection, the first
'The first resurrection,' mentioned in Revelation 20:5, 6, does not mean a first resurrection, but the essence and primary part of resurrection, which is salvation and eternal life. There is only one resurrection to life. A second does not happen, and is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible.
(References: Apocalypse Explained 6; Apocalypse Revealed 851; Revelation 20:5-6)
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #247
247. The ancient churches. The first and earliest church on this planet was the one described in the first chapters of Genesis; it was a heavenly church, the finest of them all: 607, 895, 920, 1121, 1122, 1123, 1124, 2896, 4493, 8891, 9942, 10545. What the people of the earliest church are like in heaven: 1114-1125. They live in the best light: 1116, 1117. There were several churches after the Flood, which are collectively referred to as "the ancient church": 1126, 1127, 1128, 1327, 10355 (which contain further discussion of these churches). The ancient church was spread across all the countries of the Middle East: 1238, 2385. What the people of the ancient church were like: 609, 895. The ancient church was a representative church; 1 the symbols it used had been gathered together by certain people of the earliest church: 519, 521, 2896. There was a Word in the ancient church, but it has been lost: 2897. What the ancient church was like when it began to go into decline: 1128. The difference between the earliest church and the ancient church: 597, 607, 640, 641, 765, 784, 895, 4493. The earliest and ancient churches were present in the land of Canaan, and this is the source of the symbolism of its particular places: 3686, 4447, 4454. On the church that began with Eber and was called "the Hebrew church": 1238, 1241, 1343, 4516, 4517. The difference between the ancient church and the Hebrew church: 1343, 4874. The Hebrew nation began the practice of ritual sacrifices, a practice utterly unknown to the ancient churches: 1343. The inward aspects of the ancient churches agree with those of the Christian church, but the outward aspects do not: 3478, 4489, 4772, 4904, 10149. In the earliest church, revelation was direct; in the ancient church it came through correspondences; in the Jewish church it came by audible speech; and in the Christian church it came through the Word: 10355. The Lord was the God of the earliest church and was known as Jehovah: 1343, 6846. The Lord is heaven, and the Lord is the church: 4766, 10125, 10151, 10157. On the fact that the Lord's divine nature makes heaven, see Heaven and Hell 7-12, 78-86; so it also makes the church, since what makes heaven for us also makes the church, as stated earlier in these teachings [§§60, 241].
Footnotes:
1. In what Swedenborg calls a "representative church," all the details and circumstances of the rituals symbolically reflect an inner worship of the Lord and the heavenly and spiritual realities of his kingdom ( Secrets of Heaven 1437). See also Secrets of Heaven 4288[2] for the contrast between this kind of church and a representation of a church in which the outward forms have been retained but have lost their connection with inner worship. [GFD]
