4229. 第32章

最后的审判 (续)

我们从第三卷 (系指拉丁文的第3卷) 开始解释主在马太福音 24章关于最后审判的预言. 这些解释被放在了那一卷最后几章的开头部分, 目前已解释到31节 (参看3353-3356, 3486-3489, 3650-3655, 3897-3901, 4056-4060节).

概括地说, 主的这些预言的内义从所给出的解释很清楚看出来, 即祂预言了教会的逐渐毁灭和最终一个新教会的建立, 其次序如下:

⑴教会成员不再知道何为良善与真理, 反而开始彼此争论它们.

⑵他们蔑视它们.

⑶他们从心里不承认它们.

⑷他们亵渎它们.

⑸由于信之真理和爱之良善仍存留在某些被称为 “选民” 的人当中, 故经上描述了那时信之真理所具有的状态.

⑹然后描述了仁的状态.

⑺最后论述了一个新教会的开始, 由最后所解释的那些话来表示, 即:

祂要差遣祂的使者, 用号筒的大声, 将祂的选民从四风, 从天这边到天那边, 都招聚了来. (马太福音 24:31)

这些话表示一个新教会的开始 (参看4060末尾节).

65. X. ON THE FORMER HEAVEN AND ITS ABOLITION.

We read in the book of Revelation:

I saw a mighty throne, and one sitting upon it, from whose sight earth and heaven fled, and their place was not found. Revelation 20:11.

And later:

I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Revelation 21:1.

I showed in the first chapter of this book and elsewhere in it that the new heaven and the new earth and the passing away of the former heaven and the former earth do not refer to the visible sky and the earth on which we live, but to the heaven of angels and the church. For the Word is in essence spiritual and therefore deals with spiritual matters, that is, those which have to do with heaven and the church. Natural things are used in the literal sense to stand for them, because what is natural serves what is spiritual for a base; and without such a base the Word would not be a work of God, because it would be incomplete. It is the natural, standing last in God's order, which completes and gives the interiors, which are spiritual and celestial, a base on which to rest, like a house on its foundations.

[2] Because people have thought about the contents of the Word from a natural instead of a spiritual point of view, they have taken heaven and earth in these and other passages to mean the sky in the natural world and the earth similarly. That is why everyone expects them to pass away and be destroyed, and new ones to be created. To prevent this expectation continuing for ever and being frustrated in each century, the spiritual sense of the Word has been opened up, so that the meaning of many expressions in the Word may be known, which cannot fall within our understanding as long as we think in a natural manner about them; and this includes the heaven and earth which will pass away.