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.

486. Verse 1. And when he opened the seventh seal, signifies the prediction respecting the last state of the church. This is evident from the signification of "opening a seal," as being to foretell and manifest the successive states of the church (as above, n. 352, 361, 369, 378, 390, 399); also from the signification of "seventh," as being what is full and consummated (of which above, n. 257, 299), thence also the last, for what is full and consummated is also the last. It is the last state of the church when there is no truth because there is no good, or what is the same, when there is no faith because there is no charity (that then is the last state of the church see in the small work on The Last Judgment 33-39); what took place in this state is predicted in what now follows.

[2] That which took place and is here predicted, occurred in the spiritual world before the judgment; for the state of the church in the spiritual world was then similar to that in the natural world, but under another appearance. In the spiritual world there are societies, distinguished according to the affections of good and truth and their varieties, and each one after death comes into one of these according to his affection. It is not so in the natural world. Because of these distinctions in the spiritual world, the church appears there such as it is on the earth, and the church in the two worlds also makes a one by correspondences. When it was the last state of the church in the spiritual world, all the things that are foretold in what now follows were accomplished; some of these shall be related in the following pages, because they were seen.