1. I. THE LAST JUDGMENT HAS BEEN COMPLETED

My earlier work on THE LAST JUDGMENT dealt with the following subjects:

The day of the Last Judgment does not mean the destruction of the world (The Last Judgment 1-5).

The reproduction of the human race will never cease (6-13).

Heaven and Hell are from the human race (14-22).

All people who have ever been born since the beginning of creation and have died are in heaven or in hell (23-27).

The Last Judgment is to be where all are together, and so in the spiritual world, not on earth (28-32).

The Last Judgment takes place when a church comes to an end; and this happens when there is no faith because there is no charity (33-39).

All the predictions made in the Book of Revelation are today fulfilled (40-44).

The Last Judgment has taken place (45-52).

On Babylon and its destruction (53-64);

on the former heaven and its abolition (65-72);

on the future state of the world and the church (73-74).

33. VI. THE LAST JUDGMENT TAKES PLACE WHEN A CHURCH COMES TO AN END, AND THIS HAPPENS WHEN THERE IS NO FAITH BECAUSE THERE IS NO CHARITY.

There are many reasons why the Last Judgment takes place when a church comes to an end. The primary one is that the equilibrium between heaven and hell then begins to be destroyed, and together with it man's true freedom. When man's freedom is destroyed, he can no longer be saved. For then his loss of freedom carries him to hell, and he cannot be brought in freedom to heaven. No one can be reformed without freedom, and a person's freedom is wholly dependent upon the equilibrium between heaven and hell. This can be established from the two chapters in HEAVEN AND HELL, which deal with the equilibrium between heaven and hell (589-596) and man's freedom being maintained by this equilibrium (597-603). It is also shown there that no one can be reformed except in freedom.

198. Shall be clothed in white garments, signifies intelligence and wisdom according to truths and their reception. This is evident from what was said above (n. 195-196), where it was shown that "white garments" are Divine truths. "To be clothed with them" signifies intelligence and wisdom according to truths and their reception, because all intelligence and wisdom are from Divine truths according to the perception of them and their reception in the life. To see truths, and to see what they are, is of perception; and to live according to them is of reception; and according to perception and reception there is intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence and wisdom which are not from Divine truths, but from worldly things only, are not intelligence and wisdom but merely knowledge [scientia] and thence a faculty to reason; for intelligence is seeing inwardly in oneself whether a thing be true or not; but they who are wise from worldly things only do not see truths inwardly in themselves, but from others; and to see from others is merely to know [scire]; and such things come no farther under the mind's vision than that they may be confirmed. In such a state are most persons at this day within the church who make faith alone, separate from life, to be saving; consequently truths do not enter into their spirit, but merely into the memory of the natural man; and yet the light of heaven, which is Divine truth, can enter by no other way with man than by the way of his spirit which is also the way of his soul; and man's spirit is such as his life is, but not such as his memory apart from his life is; and the light of heaven enters into man's spirit when he is in the good of love and of charity from the Lord, and when he is in that good he is also in faith. (That man has no faith where there is no love or charity, see in the small work on The Last Judgment 33-40. Moreover, what true intelligence is, what spurious, and what false, see in the work on Heaven and Hell 346-356.)