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).

72. How the first heaven passed away was first described earlier, where I dealt with the Last Judgment on the Mohammedans and the heathen (50-51) and on the Roman Catholics (61-63), because they too made up the first heaven in their own locations. It remains to say something about the Last Judgment on the Reformed, those also known as the Protestants and Evangelicals, and how the first heaven composed of them passed away. For, as I said above, judgment only took place on those who made up the first heaven.

After these had received a visitation and had their interior natures exposed, they were split up and divided into groups determined by their evils and resultant falsities and by their falsities and resultant evils, and thrown into hells corresponding to their loves. Their hells were on every side around the centre. For the Reformed were in the centre, the Roman Catholics around them and the Mohammedans around these, and the heathen in the outermost circle (see above 48). Those not thrown into hells were driven out into deserts. But some were taken down into the plains in the southern and northern quarters, to form communities in which they could be instructed and prepared for heaven. These are the ones who were preserved. But it is impossible to describe here in detail how all these events occurred, for the judgment on them took a long time and happened by successive stages. Since I then saw and heard much that deserves to be related, I should like to present these incidents in due order in the explanation on Revelation.

6144. 'Because the famine overwhelmed them' means because the desolation reached the point of despair. This is clear from the meaning of 'the famine' as desolation so far as things of the Church are concerned, dealt with in 5415, 5576. When it is said to 'overwhelm' them, it is despair, as in 5279, for the final stage of desolation is despair. Despair is the final stage of desolation and temptation, 5279, 5280, for a number of reasons, of which let only the following be advanced here: Through despair people are led in an effective and perceptible way to acknowledge that nothing true or good comes from themselves, and to acknowledge that what is their own has caused them to be damned but that with the Lord's aid they are delivered from damnation, with salvation entering in through what is true and good. Despair also exists to the end that life's bliss which the Lord imparts may be felt; for when people come out of that state of despair they are like those who have been condemned to death but then freed from prison. Periods of desolation and temptation also serve as the means by which people gain an insight into states contrary to heavenly life and from them are given a perception and insight into the bliss and happiness of heavenly life. For a perception and insight into bliss and happiness come in no other way than from a contrast with their opposites. Therefore so that they can have the one fully demonstrated as against the other, periods of desolation and temptation are protracted to the utmost, that is, to the point of despair.