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The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine #106

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106. FROM THE ARCANA COELESTIA.

Heaven is distinguished into two kingdoms, one of which is called the celestial kingdom, and the other the spiritual kingdom; the love in the celestial kingdom is love to the Lord, and is called celestial love; and the love in the spiritual kingdom is love towards the neighbor, or charity, and is called spiritual love (n. 3325, 3653, 7257, 9002, 9835, 9961). Heaven is distinguished into two kingdoms, see the work on Heaven and Hell (n. 20-28); and the Divine of the Lord in the heavens is love to Him, and charity towards the neighbor (n. 13-19 in the same).

It cannot be known what good is and what truth is, unless it be known what love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor are, because all good is of love, and all truth is of good (n. 7255, 7366). To know truths, to will truths, and to be affected with them for the sake of truths, that is, because they are truths, is charity (n. 3876-3877). Charity consists in an internal affection of doing truth, and not in an external affection without an internal one (n. 2429, 2442, 3776, 4899, 4956, 8033). Thus charity consists in performing uses for the sake of uses (n. 7038, 8253). Charity is the spiritual life of man (n. 7081). The whole Word is the doctrine of love and charity (n. 6632, 7262). It is not known at this day what charity is (n. 2417, 3398, 4776, 6632). Nevertheless man may know from the light of his own reason, that love and charity make the man (n. 3957, 6273). Also that good and truth agree together, and that one is of the other, and so also love and faith (n. 7627).

The Lord is the neighbor in the highest sense, because He is to be loved above all things; and hence all is the neighbor which is from Him, and in which he is, thus good and truth (n. 2425, 3419 , 6706 , 6819 , 6823, 8124). The distinction of neighbor is according to the quality of good, thus according to the presence of the Lord (n. 6707-6710). Every man and every society, also our country and the church, and, in the universal sense, the kingdom of the Lord, are the neighbor, and to do good to them according to the quality of their state from the love of good, is to love the neighbor; thus the neighbor is their good, which is to be consulted (n. 6818-6824, 8123). Civil good, which is justice, and moral good, which is the good of life in society, and is called sincerity, are also the neighbor (n. 2915, 4730, 8120-8122). To love the neighbor does not consist in loving his person, but in loving that with him from which he is, consequently good and truth (n. 5028, 10336). They who love the person, and not that which is with him from which he is, love evil as well as good (n. 3820). And they do good to the evil as well as to the good, when nevertheless doing good to the evil is doing evil to the good, which is not loving the neighbor (n. 3820, 6703, 8120). The judge who punishes the evil that they may be amended, and that the good may not be contaminated by them, loves the neighbor (n. 3820, 8120-8121).

To love the neighbor is to do what is good, just, and right, in every work and in every office (n. 8120-8122). Hence charity towards the neighbor extends itself to each and every thing which man thinks, wills, and does (n. 8124). To do what is good and true is to love the neighbor (n. 10310, 10336). They who do this love the Lord, who in the highest sense is the neighbor (n. 9210). The life of charity is a life according to the commandments of the Lord; and to live according to Divine truths is to love the Lord (n. 10143, 10153, 10310, 10578, 10645).

Genuine charity is not meritorious (n. 2027, 2343, 2400, 3887, 6388-6393). Because it is from internal affection, consequently from the delight of the life of doing good (n. 2373, 2400, 3887, 6388-6393). They who separate faith from charity, in another life hold faith and the good works which they have done in the external form as meritorious (n. 2373). They who are in evils from the love of self or the love of the world, do not know what it is to do good without remuneration, thus what that charity is which is not meritorious (n. 8037).

The doctrine of the Ancient Church was the doctrine of life, which is the doctrine of charity (n. 2385, 2417, 3419-3420, 4844, 6628). Thence they had intelligence and wisdom (n. 2417, 6629, 7259-7262). Intelligence and wisdom increase immensely in the other life with those who have lived a life of charity in the world (n. 1941, 5859). The Lord flows in with Divine truth into charity, because into the essential life of man (n. 2063). The man with whom charity and faith are conjoined is like a garden; but like a desert with whom they are not conjoined (n. 7626). Man recedes from wisdom in proportion as he recedes from charity; and they who are not in charity, are in ignorance concerning Divine truths, however wise they think themselves (n. 2417, 2435). The angelic life consists in performing the goods of charity, which are uses (n. 454). The spiritual angels, who are they that are in the good of charity, are forms of charity (n. 553, 3804, 4735).

All spiritual truths regard charity as their beginning and end (n. 4353). The doctrinals of the church effect nothing unless they regard charity as their end (n. 2049, 2116).

The presence of the Lord with men and angels is according to their state of love and charity (n. 549, 904). Charity is the image of God (n. 1013). Love to the Lord, consequently the Lord, is within charity, although man does not know it (n. 2227, 5066-5067). They who live a life of charity are accepted as citizens both in the world and in heaven (n. 1121). The good of charity is not to be violated (n. 2359).

They who are not in charity cannot acknowledge and worship the Lord except from hypocrisy (n. 2132, 4424, 9833). The forms of hatred and of charity cannot exist together (n. 1860).

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.

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Arcana Coelestia #4424

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4424. What the Lord's words quoted above embody in the internal sense becomes clear without explanation, for at this point the Lord uses comparisons rather than representatives and meaningful signs. Only the meaning of the words of the final verse has to be stated - 'He will cut him off and assign him his part with the hypocrites, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth'.

He will cut him off means separation and removal from goods and truths, for people who have a knowledge of what is good and true, as those within the Church do, but who lead a life of evil are said to be cut off when that knowledge is removed from them; for in the next life their knowledge of good and truth is separated from them and they are restricted to evils and derivative falsities also. The reason why this takes place is so that they do not communicate with heaven through their knowledge of good and truth and with hell through their evil and consequent falsity, and thereby are left hanging between the two. A further reason is so that they do not profane goods and truths, as happens when these are mixed together with falsities and evils. The same is also meant by the Lord's words addressed to the one who hid his talent in the earth,

Take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten talents, for to everyone who has, it will be given, so that he may have in abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Matthew 25:28-29.

And what the Lord says elsewhere has the same meaning - Matthew 13:12; also Mark 4:25, and Luke 8:18.

[2] And assign him his part with the hypocrites means that his lot, meant by 'part', lies with those who outwardly give the appearance of knowing the truth so far as doctrine is concerned, and of cherishing good so far as life is concerned, but who inwardly have no belief at all in truth nor any desire at all for good, who are 'the hypocrites'. People like this have become 'cut off' in the sense described here. Consequently when external things are taken away from these people, as happens to all in the next life, they are seen to be what they are like internally - people devoid of faith and charity. Yet they have pretended to have these, so that, capturing the attention of others, they could earn themselves positions of importance, monetary gain, and reputation. Within the Church that has become ruined virtually everyone is like this, for they have things that are external but none that are internal. Hence the interior aspects of those people are engulfed in the deluge described immediately above in 4423.

[3] Where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth means their state in the next life, 'wailing' that state as regards evils, and 'gnashing of teeth' that state as regards falsities, for 'teeth' in the Word means lowest natural things - in the genuine sense truths going with these, and in the contrary sense falsities going with them. Teeth also correspond to those things. For these reasons 'the gnashing of teeth' means the clash of falsities and truths. People immersed in wholly natural things and governed by ideas resulting from sensory illusions, believing nothing which they do not see by means of these, are said to be where there is 'the gnashing of teeth', and in the next life seem to themselves to be there when they draw conclusions about the truths of faith on the basis of their own illusions. A Church in which good and truth have been brought to ruin teems with people such as these. The same is meant again in other places by the gnashing of teeth, as in Matthew,

The sons of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 8:12.

'The sons of the kingdom' means those within the ruined Church.

'Darkness' means falsities, 4418, for they are in darkness when surrounded by the dark cloud mentioned above. 'The gnashing of teeth' means the clash of falsities with truths there. The same matter occurs in other places, such as Matthew 13:42, 50; 22:13; 25:30; and Luke 13:28.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.