792. SUPPLEMENT ¹ I wrote a special book about the spiritual world called HEAVEN AND HELL, containing descriptions of many things in that world. Since every human being after death comes into that world, I also described the condition of people there. Everyone knows, or can know, that a person goes on living after death, because he is born a man, created an image of God, and because the Lord teaches this in His Word. But up to now no one has known what that life is like.

It has been believed that a person would then be a soul; and the idea held about this has been no different from that of ether or air, that is to say, that it is breath like that a person breathes out on dying, but still retaining its vitality, though devoid of the kind of sight the eye has, of the kind of hearing the ear has, or of the kind of speech the mouth has. Yet after death a person is just as much a person, and indeed so much so that he is unaware that he is no longer in his previous world. He can see, hear and speak, as in his previous world. He can walk, run and sit down, as in his previous world. He can lie down sleep and wake up, as in his previous world. He can eat and drink, as in his previous world. He can enjoy the delights of married life, as in his previous world. In short, he is in every single respect a person. It is obvious from this that death is not an extinction but a continuation of life, and it is merely a passing over.

Footnotes:

1843. That 'your seed will be strangers' means that charity and faith will be scarce is clear from the meaning of 'strange' and from the meaning of 'seed'. 'Strange' means not born in the land, thus not recognized as a native of it, and therefore looked upon as foreign. But 'seed' means charity and its attendant faith, as shown already in 255, 1025, and above at verse 3. Since that which is looked upon as foreign is called 'strange' and foreign describes what is not within the land or of the land, that which is scarce is consequently meant. The meaning here therefore is that charity and its attendant faith, meant by 'seed', will be scarce. It is the time just before the close - when there is 'great darkness', or falsities - that is the subject; at this time the seed will be 'strangers', that is, charity and faith, will be scarce.

[2] The fact that faith would be scarce in the last times was foretold by the Lord when He described the close of the age, in Matthew 24:4-end; Mark 13:3-end; Luke 21:7-end. Everything that is stated in these places implies that in those times charity and faith will be scarce, and that at length there will not be any at all. Something similar was foretold through John in the Book of Revelation, and also occurs many times in the Prophets, besides what appears in the historical sections of the Word.

[3] But by the faith that is going to perish in the last times nothing other than charity is meant. No other faith can possibly exist, except faith that is grounded in charity. The person who has no charity is incapable of possessing any faith at all, charity being the soil in which faith is implanted, its heart from which it derives its being and life. The ancients for this reason compared love and charity to the heart, and faith to the lungs, both of which lie inside the breast. That comparison is also a perfect simile; for to imagine a life of faith without charity is like imagining life from the lungs alone without the heart, which is an impossibility, as may become clear to anyone. The ancients therefore used to call all things that belonged to charity those of the heart, and all that belonged to faith devoid of charity those of the lips alone, that is, of the lungs passing by means of breath into speech. From this came the sayings of old about the need for goods and truths to go forth from the heart.