1. I. THE LAST JUDGMENT HAS BEEN COMPLETED

My earlier work on THE LAST JUDGMENT dealt with the following subjects:

The day of the Last Judgment does not mean the destruction of the world (The Last Judgment 1-5).

The reproduction of the human race will never cease (6-13).

Heaven and Hell are from the human race (14-22).

All people who have ever been born since the beginning of creation and have died are in heaven or in hell (23-27).

The Last Judgment is to be where all are together, and so in the spiritual world, not on earth (28-32).

The Last Judgment takes place when a church comes to an end; and this happens when there is no faith because there is no charity (33-39).

All the predictions made in the Book of Revelation are today fulfilled (40-44).

The Last Judgment has taken place (45-52).

On Babylon and its destruction (53-64);

on the former heaven and its abolition (65-72);

on the future state of the world and the church (73-74).

41. So long as a person lives in the world, he cannot see what the Lord's church on earth is like, much less how it turned from good to evil in the course of time. This is because a person takes an external view while he lives in the world, and can only see what is plain to his natural man. What a church is like from a spiritual point of view, that is, from the point of view of its internals, cannot be seen on earth. But in heaven it can be seen as in bright daylight, since the angels think spiritually and also see spiritually, so that they see only what is spiritual. Moreover, all the people are gathered there who have been born in the world from the beginning of creation, as was shown above, and all are there divided into communities differing in the kinds of good of love and faith they have (see HEAVEN AND HELL 41-50). So it is that the states of a church and how it progresses are clearly to be seen by the angels in heaven.

[2] Now because Revelation in its spiritual sense describes the state of the church as regards love and faith, no one can know what lies hidden within its whole narrative, unless it has been revealed to him from heaven, and he has been allowed to know the internal or spiritual sense of the Word. I can declare with assurance that all the details there, down to the individual words, contain a spiritual sense, which provides a full description of everything to do with the church as regards its spiritual state from beginning to end. Since every single word in it has some spiritual meaning, none can be omitted without changing the train of ideas in the internal sense. That is why at the end of Revelation we read:

If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy God will take away ¹ his share in the book of life and in the holy city, and in what is written in that book. Revelation 22:19.

[3] It is much the same with the books of the Old Testament Word. In those each subject and each word contains an internal or spiritual sense; so neither there can any word be taken away. That is why by the Lord's Divine providence those books have been kept intact down to the last jot from the time when they were written by the care taken by many scribes who counted even the smallest details in them. This provision by the Lord was to guard the holiness which each jot, letter and word in them possesses.

Imibhalo yaphansi:

53. IX. BABYLON AND ITS DESTRUCTION.

All the predictions made in the book of Revelation have to-day been fulfilled (see above 40-44). The last chapter demonstrated that the Last Judgment has already taken place, and showed how it took place on the Mohammedans and the heathen. The next subject is how it took place on the Roman Catholics, who are what is meant by Babylon as mentioned in many passages of Revelation, and in particular its destruction in chapter 18. This is described thus:

The angel cried out in a loud voice, Fallen, fallen is Babylon and become the dwelling of demons, and the prison of every impure ¹ spirit, and the prison of every unclean and hateful bird. Revelation 18:2.

But before the story of how the destruction happened some preliminary remarks are needed:

(i) What is meant by Babylon and what it is like.

(ii) What the people from Babylon are like in the other life.

(iii) Where their dwellings have been up to now.

(iv) Why their presence there was tolerated up to the day of the Last Judgment.

(v) How they were destroyed and their dwellings turned into a desert.

(vi) Those of them who had an affection for truth arising from good were preserved.

(vii) The future state of those who come from earth from that source.

Imibhalo yaphansi: