41. Anything that is man's own has no life in it; and when depicted visually it looks like something hard as a bone and black. But anything that comes from the Lord does contain life. It has that which is spiritual and celestial within it, and when depicted visually it looks human and alive. It is perhaps incredible, but nevertheless absolutely true, that every expression, every idea, and every least thought of an angelic spirit is alive. In even the most detailed areas of his thought there is an affection that comes from the Lord, who is life itself. Consequently all that derives from the Lord has life within it, for it contains faith in Him, and is here meant by 'a living creature'. It then has the outward appearance of a body, meant here by that which is moving, or creeping. To man these matters remain arcana, but since the subject here is the living and moving creature, they ought at least to be mentioned here.

2117. THE LAST JUDGEMENT

Few nowadays know what the Last Judgement is. They imagine that it is going to be accompanied by the destruction of the world; and this leads to conjectures that this earth, together with everything else in the visible world, is going to be destroyed by fire. They also conjecture that then for the first time the dead will rise again and appear for judgement, and the evil are to be cast into hell and the good to rise up to heaven. These conjectures are based on the prophetical parts of the Word where references are made to a new heaven and a new earth, and also to a New Jerusalem. Such people do not realize that the prophetical parts of the Word have a meaning altogether different in the internal sense from what appears in the sense of the letter, and that 'heaven' is not used to mean heaven, nor 'the earth' to mean the earth, but the Lord's Church in general, and as it exists with each individual in particular.