601. When We Have Been Regenerated, We Have a New Will and a New Intellect

When we have been regenerated we are renewed, or new. This is something the church of today knows, both from the Word and from reason.

We know this from the following teachings in the Word.

Make your heart new and your spirit new. Why should you die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel 18:31)

I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

From now on we regard no one on the basis of the flesh. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, she or he is a new creation. (2 Corinthians 5:16-17)

The new heart in these passages means a new will and the new spirit means a new intellect, since "heart" in the Word means the will and "spirit," when it appears alongside "heart," means the intellect.

From reason as well we know about our renewal: the person who has been regenerated must have a new will and a new intellect, because these two faculties are what make us human. They are the parts of us that are regenerated. The quality of these two faculties determines the quality of the human being. People who have an evil will are evil; if their intellect supports that will, they are even more evil. The opposite is true of good people.

Only religion renews and regenerates us. It is allotted the highest place in the human mind. Below itself it sees civic concerns that relate to the world. In fact, it rises up through these concerns the way the purest sap rises up through a tree to its very top, and surveys from that height the earthly things that lie below, the way someone looks down from a tower or a high point of land onto the fields below.

179. 7. The result is the abomination of desolation and the affliction such as has never existed before and will never exist again, which the Lord foretold in Daniel, the Gospels, and the Book of Revelation. In Daniel we read the following words:

In the end desolation [will fly in] on a bird of abominations; even to the close and the cutting down, it will drip steadily upon the devastation. (Daniel 9:27)

In the Gospel of Matthew the Lord says these words:

Then many false prophets will rise up and lead many astray. Therefore when you see that the abomination of desolation foretold by the prophet Daniel is standing in the holy place, let those who read note it well. (Matthew 24:11, 15)

Later in the same chapter we read,

Then there will be a great affliction such as has never existed since the world began until now and will never exist again. (Matthew 24:21)

This affliction and abomination are dealt with in seven chapters in the Book of Revelation. They are meant by the black horse and the pale horse that came out of the book whose seal the Lamb had opened (Revelation 6:5-8). They are meant by the beast that came up from the abyss and made war on the two witnesses and killed them (Revelation 11:7-10). They are meant by the dragon that stood by the woman who was about to give birth, that intended to devour her child, and that pursued her into the desert and cast water like a river out of its mouth to swallow her up (Revelation 12). Also by the beasts of the dragon, one from the sea and the other from the land (Revelation 13); and by the three spirits like frogs that came out of the mouth of the dragon, the mouth of the beast, and the mouth of the false prophet (Revelation 16:13).

In addition, the affliction and abomination are meant by these events: the seven angels poured out the bowls of God's anger that contained the seven last plagues, pouring them onto the earth, into the sea, into springs and rivers, onto the sun, onto the throne of the beast, into the river Euphrates, and finally into the air, and then a tremendous earthquake occurred unlike any that had happened since the creation of humankind (Revelation 16). An earthquake means the act of turning the church upside-down, which was caused by falsities and by falsified truths - this meaning parallels the meaning of the great affliction such as has never existed since the world began (Matthew 24:21).

The following words have a similar meaning:

The angel sent a sickle to harvest the vineyard of the earth and throw it into the great winepress of God's anger. The winepress was trampled and blood went out; sixteen hundred stadia away it was as high as a horses bridle. (Revelation 14:19-20)

Blood means falsified truth. There are many other examples in those seven chapters.