328. These items need now to be presented in their sequence.

(a) Every religion eventually wanes and comes to completion. There have been several churches on our planet, one after the other, since wherever the human race exists there is a church. As already noted, heaven, which is the ultimate goal of creation, comes from the human race, and no one can get to heaven without the two universal principles of the church, belief in God and leading a good life (see 326 above). It follows that there have been churches on our planet from the earliest times all the way to the present day.

These churches are described in the Word, though only for the Israelite and Jewish church are we given historical accounts. There were several churches before them, but these are described only by the names of some people and nations and a few facts about them.

[2] The earliest church, the very first, is described by Adam and his wife Eve. The next church, called the early church, is described by Noah, his three sons, and their descendants. This was extensive, and spread through most of the nations of the Near East: the land of Canaan on both sides of the Jordan; Syria; Assyria and Chaldea; Mesopotamia; Egypt; Arabia; and Tyre and Sidon. They had an early Word that is discussed in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 101-103. The existence of the church in these kingdoms is witnessed by various statements about them in the prophetical books of the Word.

This church changed significantly with Eber, though, who marks the beginning of the Hebrew church. This was the point at which sacrificial worship was established. From the Hebrew church, the Israelite and Jewish church was born, formally established for the sake of the Word that would be authored in it.

[3] These four churches are meant by the statue that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, with its head of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of brass, and its legs and feet of iron and clay (see Daniel 2:32-33). This is exactly what is meant by the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages mentioned by ancient authors. It is well known that the Christian church followed after the Jewish church.

We can also see from the Word that each of these churches declined to its close, called a "consummation," with the passage of time. The consummation of the earliest church, brought about by eating from the tree of knowledge (meaning pride in our own intelligence) is described by the Flood [Genesis 3:6; ].

[4] The consummation of the early church is described by the destruction of the nations mentioned in the historical and prophetic books of the Word, and especially by the Israelites' expulsion of the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. The consummation of the Israelite and Jewish church is meant by the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, by the carrying off of the people of Israel into permanent captivity and of the nation of Judah into Babylon, and ultimately by the second destruction of the temple and Jerusalem and the scattering of the people. This consummation is foretold in many passages in the prophets, and in Daniel 9:24-27.

The Lord describes the eventual total destruction of the Christian church in Matthew 24 Mark 13 and Luke 21 but the consummation itself is found in the Book of Revelation.

This shows that with the passage of time the church wanes and reaches its consummation, as does its religion as well.

[5] (b) Every religion wanes and comes to completion by inverting the image of God within us. We know that we were created in the image of God and after the likeness of God (Genesis 1:26), but what is this image and what is this likeness of God? Only God is love and wisdom. We are created to be recipients of both, so that our volition may be a recipient of divine love and our discernment a recipient of divine wisdom.

I have already explained [324] that we have these two recipient vessels in us from birth, that they are what make us human, and that they are formed within us in the womb. Our being images of God is our being open to divine wisdom, and our being likenesses of God is our being open to divine love. This means that the vessel we call "discernment" is the image of God and the vessel we call "volition" is the likeness of God. This then means that since we have been created and formed to be vessels, it follows that we have been created and formed to have our volition accept love from God and our discernment accept wisdom from God. We do in fact accept them when we believe in God and live by his commandments. We do this to a lesser or greater extent, though, depending on what we know about God and his commandments from our religion. Specifically, our acceptance depends on what truths we know, since truths are what tell us what God is and how we are to acknowledge him, what his commandments are and how we are to live by them.

[6] God's image and likeness in us have not been actually destroyed, but they have been virtually destroyed. They are still there, innate within those two abilities called freedom and rationality that I have already said so much about. They become virtually destroyed when we make the vessel of divine love--our volition--a vessel for self-love and make the vessel of divine wisdom--our discernment--a vessel for our own intelligence. By so doing we invert the image and likeness of God. We turn the vessels away from God and toward ourselves. This is why they are closed on top and open on the bottom, or closed in front and open behind, even though they were created open in front and closed behind. Once they are opened and closed in this inverted fashion, then the vessel of love, our volition, is open to an inflow from hell or from our own sense of self-importance, as is the vessel of wisdom, our discernment. This has led to the birth in our churches of the worship of particular people in place of the worship of God, and a worship based on teachings of falsity rather than on teachings of truth, the latter from our own intelligence and the former from our love for ourselves.

We can see from this that in the course of time a religion will wane and come to its conclusion by inverting the image of God within us.

[7] (c) This happens because of the constant increase of hereditary evil from generation to generation. I have already stated and explained [277] that we do not inherit evil from Adam and his wife Eve because they ate from the tree of knowledge; instead evil is gradually handed down and transplanted from parents to children, and so by constant increase gets worse with each generation. When this cumulative evil becomes strong enough among the majority, it spreads evil to even more people by its own momentum, since in every evil there is a compulsion to mislead, in some cases blazing with a rage against everything good, and so there is a consequent infectious evil. When this gets control of the leaders, managers, and chief representatives in the church, its religion is corrupted. Its means of healing, its truths, become defiled by distortions. This leads to an ongoing destruction of what is good and an abandonment of truth in the church until finally it is brought to its close.

[8] (d) The Lord still provides that everyone can be saved. The Lord provides that there will be some religion everywhere, and that in every religion there will be the two elements essential to salvation: belief in God, and not doing evil because it is against God. The other matters of intellect and thought, what we call the elements of faith, are offered to different people according to the way they live, since they are optional elements as far as living is concerned. If they are put first, we still do not receive life until we live them.

The Lord also provides that everyone who has led a good life and has believed in God will be taught by angels after death. Then people who have been devoted to the two essential principles of religion in the world accept the truths of the church as they are presented in the Word and recognize the Lord as God of heaven and of the church. They accept this more readily than Christians who have brought with them from the world a concept of the Lord's human nature as separated from his divine nature. The Lord has also provided that all the people who die in early childhood are saved, no matter where they were born.

[9] We are all given the means of amending our lives after death, if we can. The Lord teaches and leads us through angels, and since by then we know that we are living after death and that heaven and hell are real, we accept truths at first. However, if we have not believed in God and abstained from evils as sins in the world, before long we develop a distaste for truths and back away. If we have professed these principles orally but not at heart, we are like the foolish young women who had lamps but no oil. They begged others for oil and went off to buy some, but still they were not admitted to the wedding [Matthew 25:1-13]. The lamps mean the truths that our faith discloses and the oil means the good effects of our caring.

This shows that under divine providence everyone can be saved, and that it is our own fault if we are not saved.

[10] (e) He also provides that a new church will take the place of the one that has been razed. This has been going on from the earliest times: once a church has been razed, a new one succeeds the former one. The early church followed the earliest church, the Israelite or Jewish church followed the early one, and after that came the Christian church. After it there is going to be still another new church, the one foretold in the Book of Revelation. That is the meaning of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven [Revelation 21:2, 10].

For the reason the Lord provides a new church to take the place of an earlier one that has been razed, see Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 104-113.

1326. That 'therefore He called the name of it Babel' means such worship, namely that meant by 'Babel', is clear from what has been stated so far - about worship which inwardly contains self-love and therefore everything that is filthy and unholy. Self-love is nothing else than the proprium, and how filthy and unholy this is becomes clear from what has been shown already about the proprium in 210, 215. From philautia, ¹ that is, from self-love or the proprium, flow all evils, such as those of hatred, revenge, cruelty, adultery, deceit, hypocrisy, and irreligion. Consequently when self-love or the proprium is present in worship, such evils are present too - but the particular kind of evils and their intensity being determined by the extent and nature of what flows from that self-love. This is the origin of all profanation in worship. The fact of the matter is that insofar as self-love or the proprium introduces itself into worship, internal worship departs, that is, internal worship ceases to exist. Internal worship consists in the affection for good and in the acknowledgement of truth, but to the extent that self-love or the proprium intrudes or enters in, the affection for good and the acknowledgement of truth depart or go away. Holiness cannot possibly co-exist with unholiness, any more than heaven can with hell. Instead one must depart from the other. Such is the state and proper order existing in the Lord's kingdom. This is the reason why among the kind of people whose worship is called 'Babel' no internal worship exists, but instead something dead and indeed inwardly corpse-like is worshipped. This shows what their external worship which is inwardly such is like.

[2] That such worship is 'Babel' is clear from many parts of the Word where Babel is described, as in Daniel, where the description of the statue which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel saw in a dream - whose head was gold, breast and arms silver, belly and thighs bronze, legs iron, and feet partly iron and partly clay - means that true worship finally deteriorated into the kind of worship called 'Babel', and therefore also a stone cut out of the rock smashed the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold, Daniel 2:31-33, 44-45. The statue of gold which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel set up, and which people were to adore, had no other meaning, Daniel 3:1-end. The same applies to the description of the king of Babel with his nobles drinking wine from the vessels of gold that had come from the Temple in Jerusalem, of their praising the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and stone, and of writing therefore appearing on the wall, Daniel 5:1-end; to the description of Darius the Mede commanding that he be adored instead of God, Daniel 6:1-end; and to that of the beasts seen by Daniel in a dream, Daniel 7:1-end, as well as to that of the beasts and Babel in John's Revelation.

[3] That such worship was meant and represented is quite clear not only in Daniel and John but also in the Prophets: in Isaiah,

Their faces were faces of flames; the stars of the heavens and their constellations do not give their light The sun is darkened in its coming up and the moon does not shed its light Tziim lie down there, and their houses are full of ochim, and daughters of the owl dwell there, and satyrs dance there, and iim answer in its palaces, and dragons in its halls of pleasure. Isaiah 13:8, 10, 21-22

This refers to Babel and describes the internal aspect of such worship by 'faces of flames', which are evil desires; by 'the stars', which are truths of faith, 'not giving their light'; by 'the sun', which is holy love, 'being darkened'; by 'the moon', which is the truth of faith, 'not shedding its light'; by 'tziim, ochim, daughters of the owl, satyrs, dim, and dragons', which are the more interior aspects of worship. For such things belong to self-love or the proprium. This also is why Babel in John is called 'the mother of whoredoms and abominations', Revelation 17:5; and in the same book,

A dwelling-place of demons, ² and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. Revelation 18:2.

From these places it is evident that when such things are within, it is impossible for any good or truth of faith to be there, and that to the extent that those things enter in, the goods which are the objects of affection, and the truths of faith, depart. They are also called in Isaiah 21:9 'the graven images of the gods of Babel'.

[4] That it is self-love or the proprium which lies within their worship, or that it is worship of self, is quite clear in Isaiah,

Prophesy this parable against the king of Babel, You said in your heart, I will go up the heavens, above the stars of God I will raise my throne, and I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the uttermost parts of the north. I will go up above the heights of the cloud, I will make myself like the Most High. But you will be brought down to hell. Isaiah 14:4, 13-15.

Here, it is plain, Babel means the person who wishes to be worshipped as a god, that is, worship of self is meant.

[5] In the same prophet,

Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babel; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. You trusted in your wickedness, you said, No one sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray; you said in your heart, I am, and there is no one besides me. Isaiah 47:1, 10.

In Jeremiah,

Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, destroying the whole earth; and I will stretch out My hand over you and roll you down from the rocks and will make you into a mountain of burning. Though Babel rise up into the heavens, and though she fortify the height of her strength, yet from Me those who lay waste will come to her. Jeremiah 51:25, 53.

This again shows that 'Babel' is worship of self.

[6] The fact that such people have no light of truth, but only total darkness, that is, that they do not possess the truth of faith, is described in Jeremiah,

The word which Jehovah spoke against Babel, against the land of the Chaldeans, There will come up upon her a nation from the north, which will make her land a desolation, and none will dwell in it; both man and beast will scatter themselves, they will go away. Jeremiah 50:1, 3.

'The north' stands for thick darkness, or absence of truth. 'No man and no beast' stands for the absence of good. For more about Babel, see at verse 28 ³ below, where Chaldea is referred to.

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