The Bible

 

John 5:28

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28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,

Commentary

 

The End is the New Beginning

By Junchol Lee


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We use a calendar that has 12 months and 365 days in it. As it nears December 31st, we feel as though something is getting close to an end, and yet on January 1st it feels like a new beginning. Our life is composed of many endings and beginnings. We may live one life, but within this one life we have many different journeys.

(References: Habakkuk 3:17)

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #6472

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6472. The nature of the influx of both kinds of life - the life of thought and the life of the will coming from the Lord - has been made known to me through revelation. That is to say, I have been shown that the Lord flows in in two ways - indirectly by way of heaven, and from Himself directly - and that the influx from Himself is both into the rational levels of a person's mind, which are his interior ones, and into the natural levels of it, which are his exterior ones. What flows in from the Lord is the good of love and the truth of faith, for what goes forth from the Lord is Divine Truth holding Divine Good within it. But the way a person receives them varies, that is to say, his particular character determines how they are received.

[2] The Lord does not compel a person to accept what flows in from Himself but leads him in freedom; and so far as the person allows He leads him by means of freedom to good. Thus the Lord leads a person in accordance with his delights. He also leads him in accordance with his illusions and resulting false assumptions; but from these He gradually leads him away, though it seems to the person as though he leads himself away. Thus the Lord does not shatter those assumptions, for that would violate the person's freedom, which must of necessity exist if a person is to be reformed, 1937, 1947, 2875, 2876, 2881, 3145, 3146, 3158, 4031. The fact that the Lord flows into a person in this way - not only indirectly by way of heaven, but also from Himself directly, both into the interior levels of a person's mind and into the exterior ones - is an arcanum that has remained unknown up to now.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.