545. The Lord Does Not Cast Anyone into Hell: Spirits Cast Themselves In

Some people cherish the notion that God turns his face away from people, spurns them, and casts them into hell, and is angry against them because of their evil. Some people even go so far as to think that God punishes people and does them harm. They support this notion from the literal meaning of the Word where things like this are said, not realizing that the spiritual meaning of the Word, which makes sense of the letter, is wholly different. So the real doctrine of the church, which is from the spiritual meaning of the Word, teaches something else. It teaches that the Lord never turns his face away from anyone or spurns anyone, never casts anyone into hell or is angry. ¹

Anyone whose mind is enlightened perceives this while reading the Word simply from the fact that the Lord is goodness itself, love itself, and mercy itself. Good itself cannot do harm to anyone. Love itself and mercy itself cannot spurn anyone, because this is contrary to mercy and love and is therefore contrary to the divine nature itself. So people who are thinking with an enlightened mind when they read the Word perceive clearly that God never turns away from us, and that because he does not turn away from us, he behaves toward us out of goodness and love and mercy. That is, he wills well toward us, loves us, and has compassion on us.

Enlightened minds also see from this that the literal meaning of the Word where things like this are said has a spiritual meaning concealed within it, a meaning needed to explain expressions that in the letter are adapted to human comprehension, things said in accord with our primary and general conceptions.

Footnotes:

648. Verses 7, 8. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them and kill them. And their bodies shall be upon the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

7. "And when they shall have finished their testimony," signifies in the end of the church, when the Divine of the Lord is no longer acknowledged, and thence there is no longer any good of love or truth of doctrine n. 649; "the beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them," signifies assault from infernal love n. 650; "and shall overcome them and kill them" signifies the consequent destruction of every good and truth of the church (n. 651).

8. "And their bodies shall be upon the street of the great city," signifies their extinction by the evils and falsities of doctrine n. 652; "which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt," signifies through the evils of the love of self, and the falsities therefrom (n. 653, 654); "where also our Lord was crucified," signifies by which, namely, by evils and falsities therefrom springing from infernal love, the Lord was rejected and condemned n. 655.