1850. The symbolism of I will judge as visitation and judgment is self-evident.
Judging, or a judgment, does not mean any Last Judgment, as common thought holds. People picture the destruction of earth and sky, the creation of a new sky and a new earth (as the prophets and the Book of Revelation predict [Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; Revelation 21:1]), and therefore the passing away of everything that exists. This view has become so widespread that it has laid hold of the imagination in even the best informed, and laid hold so strongly that people do not believe the dead will rise again until that time. Such a time was indeed predicted, yet people see that although many centuries have passed since the prediction it has not happened and does not seem imminent. These circumstances combine to strengthen the confident in their confidence that nothing of the kind can happen and therefore that they will not rise again.
It is important to know, however, that the Last Judgment and the obliteration of earth and sky does not mean anything of the kind. Such a picture does agree with the literal meaning but not with the inner meaning at all. According to the inner meaning, the Last Judgment means the church's final days. The sky and earth that will be destroyed mean the church, so far as its inward and outward worship goes, which becomes no church at all when charity fails.
[2] The last judgment of the very earliest church took place when all charity and faith died out and when perception ended. This happened just before the Flood. The same flood described earlier was the last judgment of that church [Genesis 6-8]. In it the sky and the earth — the church — were destroyed and a new sky and earth were created. In other words, a new church, called the ancient church, was created, and this church has also been discussed. 1 It too had a final period, specifically when all charity froze and all faith went dark, around the time of Eber. This period was the last judgment of that church, which was the sky and earth that were destroyed.
[3] The new sky and earth were the Hebrew church, which again had its final period, or last judgment, when it became idolatrous. So a new church was raised up, this time among Jacob's descendants. It was called the Jewish religion and was nothing more than a church that represented charity and faith. In that religion, among Jacob's descendants, there was no charity or faith, so there was also no church, but only a representation of a church. The reason was that direct communication of the Lord's kingdom in the heavens with any true church on earth was impossible, so indirect communication was set up through representations. The final period or last judgment of this "church" occurred when the Lord came into the world, because representative acts — specifically sacrifices and other rituals like them — came to an end at that point. The disappearance of these rituals was brought about by the expulsion of Jacob's descendants from the land of Canaan. 2
[4] Afterward, a new sky and earth were created. That is, a new church was created, which has to be called the nascent [Christian] church. It was started by the Lord and afterward grew gradually stronger, and in its early days it possessed charity and faith. The Lord predicts the death of this church in the Gospels, as does John in the Book of Revelation, and its death is what people call the Last Judgment. Not that heaven and earth will now be obliterated, but that a new church will be raised up in some region of the globe, leaving the current church to remain in its superficial worship, as Jews remain in theirs. The worship of these people is devoid of charity and faith, or in other words, of religion, as is fairly well known. Such is the Last Judgment in general.
[5] In particular, we each have an individual last judgment right after we die. We pass into the other world, where we come into the way of life we adopted in the body and receive a verdict of either death or life.
We have an even more particular last judgment if we receive a verdict of death. Absolutely everything in us then condemns us, since there is no detail of our thought or intent so small that it does not reflect our final judgment and drag us to our death. If we receive a verdict of life, it is the same: absolutely every detail of our thought and intent contains an image of our final judgment and carries us toward life. Our overall character is the same character we display in each of our thoughts and feelings.
This is what is meant by the Last Judgment.
Footnotes:
1. Swedenborg describes the ancient church throughout his treatment of Genesis 6-11 (§§547-1382). [LHC]
2. Apparently this refers to the ending of the priestly rituals of animal sacrifice with the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 c.e., though strictly speaking the Jewish people were not entirely displaced. [RS]
