931. The symbolism of throughout all the days of the earth to come as all time, is established by the symbolism of a day as the times; see §§23, 487, 488, 493. So a day of the earth here is all time, as long as the earth lasts — that is to say, as long as an inhabitant remains on the planet. Inhabitants first come to an end when the church ceases to exist, because when the church is gone, humankind loses contact with heaven, and when that contact ends, every earth-dweller dies out.
The church is like a person's heart and lungs, as already mentioned. 1 As long we have a heart that is sound, and lungs, too, we are alive. The same is true of the church in relation to the universal human, which is the whole of heaven. 2 That is why the present verse says, "Throughout all the days of the earth, sowing and reaping and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night will not end."
This also indicates that the planet will not last forever but will have its end as well, since it says, "throughout all the days of the earth," that is, as long as the earth exists.
[2] People believe, though, that the end of the earth is the same as the Last Judgment mentioned in the Word, where the culmination of the age, the day of divine visitation, and the Last Judgment are dealt with. 3 They are wrong. A last judgment comes to every church when it goes through the process of devastation, which is the stage at which there is no longer any faith in it.
The earliest church had its last judgment when it perished, as it did among its final descendants, just before the Flood. The Jewish church had its last judgment when the Lord came into the world. A last judgment has yet to come, too, when the Lord comes into his glory. Not that the earth and the world will then be destroyed but that the church will. 4 Afterward, however, the Lord always brings a new church back to life. So at the time of the Flood, he raised up the ancient church, and at the time of his Coming, he raised up the early [Christian] church among non-Jews. It will be the same when the Lord comes into his glory.
This is also what "the new heaven and the new earth" means [Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; Revelation 21:1].
[3] The case resembles that of every regenerate person, who becomes a part of the church — becomes a church, in fact — after being created anew. The inner self of such people is called a new heaven and their outer self a new earth.
In addition, every individual also has a last judgment at death, because at that time, depending on how we behaved in the body, we receive a verdict of either death or life. 5
An indication that the end of the age, the cataclysm, and the Last Judgment have no other meaning and therefore do not imply the world's obliteration is clear from the Lord's words in Luke:
On that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. Two will be grinding together; one will be taken and the other left. Two will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. (Luke 17:34, 35, 36)
The last stage is called the night here because there will be no faith, that is, no charity. It says that some people will be left, which clearly indicates that the world will not be annihilated at that time.
Footnotes:
1. Strictly speaking, Swedenborg has not yet mentioned the lungs in these comparisons, which occur in §§468:2 and 637:1. His own index of Secrets of Heaven gives the present passage as the first relevant location in the work. However, he goes on to include the lungs with the heart in §§2054, 2853:3, 2913:3, 4217:3, 4423:1. In §§2913:3 and 4217:3 he specifically mentions §637 as the passage that supports his statement, and in §4423:1 he mentions §468 as well, so §§468:2 and 637:1 are clearly the passages he is thinking of here in §931:1. See also §§418, 9276:6, 9400:2; Heaven and Hell 328; Sacred Scripture 105; True Christianity 268. [SS]
2. This "universal human" is defined at §§550 and 911:2. For other discussion, see also notes 5, 209, 330, 354, 517. [LHC]
3. For passages that specifically mention "the culmination of the age," see Matthew 24:3; Luke 21:7; see also Daniel 9:27. For "the day of visitation," see Isaiah 10:3; Hosea 9:7. Although the phrase "Last Judgment" does not occur in Scripture, judgment scenes do appear in Daniel 7:9-14; Matthew 24:3-14; 25:31-46; Revelation 20:11-15. [JSR]
4. This comment foreshadows a crucial aspect of Swedenborg's later thought: the idea that the Last Judgment of the dispensation of the Christian Church took place in the spiritual world in 1757. He went on to describe this event in his 1758 work Last Judgment, but here he speaks of it in apparent unawareness of the central place the event would someday have in his own theology. (This passage, published in 1749, contains one of his first allusions to this judgment. Another early reference, written on February 13, 1748, appears in his journal Spiritual Experiences [Swedenborg 1998-2002] §765; there he relates a vision of the number 57, guessing at its connection with the year 1657.) According to Swedenborg, the Last Judgment essentially consists of a purgation of the world of spirits, which, since the time of Christ, had accepted those who were externally but not internally good. These people had managed to construct a kind of counterfeit heaven in their realm, which began to obstruct the communion of heaven and earth. Their expulsion from the world of spirits does not result in an apocalypse of the conventional sort, but enables heaven to communicate with earth in a more direct manner than was previously possible. This in turn lays the groundwork for the creation of a new church. [RS, LSW]
5. For more on how this individual judgment occurs, and the role of the individual's will in it, see Secrets of Heaven 4663:1; Heaven and Hell 545-549. [JSR]
