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:

44. Divine love and wisdom are substance and form in themselves, thus the one and only absolute. We have just established above that Divine love and wisdom are substance and form; and we have already said as well that the Divine being and expression are being and expression in itself. ¹ We cannot say that they are being and expression from itself, because this involves a beginning - and a beginning moreover from something in it which is being and expression in itself. Yet being and expression itself in itself exists from eternity. Being and expression itself in itself is also something not created, and everything that is created can exist only from something that is not created. Furthermore, whatever is created is also finite, and something finite can come into being only from something that is infinite.

Footnotes:

1825. That 'three years old' embodies all things of the Church as to periods and states is clear from the meaning of 'three' in the Word. Three means the whole time of the Church from start to finish, and so its total state. The final phase of the Church is therefore meant by the third day, by the third week, by the third month, by the third year, or by the third decade, ¹ all having the same meaning. As the state of the Church is meant by the number three, so also is the state of every individual who is a Church, and indeed everything that is part of the Church, as becomes clear from the meaning of that number in the places quoted from the Word in 720, 901.

[2] That 'a three year old heifer' accordingly means the whole time or state of the Church even to its end, that is to say, when it has been vastated, or laid desolate, also becomes clear in Isaiah,

My heart cries out upon Moab, his fugitives flee even to Zoar, a three year old heifer, for at the ascent of Luhith he will go up weeping, for on the road to Horonaim they will raise a cry of ruination. Isaiah 15:5.

Also in Jeremiah,

Gladness and exultation have been plucked from Carmel, and from the land of Moab, and I will make the wine cease from the winepresses. None will tread the hedad; the hedad will not be a hedad. ² From the cry of Heshbon even to Elealeh, as far as Jahaz they uttered their voice, from Zoar even to Horonaim, a three year old heifer, for the waters of Nimrim also will become desolations. Jeremiah 48:33-34.

Nobody could possibly perceive what these details mean unless he knew what is meant by Moab, Zoar, the ascent of Luhith, the shout of Heshbon even to Elealeh, Jahaz, Horonaim, the waters of Nimrim, and a three year old heifer. That a final vastation is meant is plainly evident.

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