New Christian Bible Study

Commentary

 

Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #25

Study this Passage

  
/ 853  
  

25. At this point I shall insert the following account of an experience. 1

Once on waking from sleep I fell into a profound meditation about God; and when I looked up, I saw in the sky above me a brilliant, oval-shaped light. When I fixed my gaze upon that light, it moved to either side and occupied the surrounding area. Then suddenly heaven lay open before me, and I saw wonderful sights, and angels standing in a ring on the south of the opening, talking among themselves. Because I was fired with a desire to hear what they were saying, I was first permitted to hear the sound of their voices, which was full of heavenly love, and later their speech, which was full of the wisdom which comes from that love.

They were talking among themselves about the one God, being linked with Him and salvation by this means. What they said was beyond words to express; most of it could not be put into the words of any natural language. But because on a number of occasions I had been in company with angels in heaven itself, and then, being in a like state, I could speak similarly with them, I was now able to understand them, and pick up a few points in their conversation which can be rationally expressed in the words of natural language.

[2] They were saying that the Divine Being is one, the same, the very self and indivisible. They illustrated this by spiritual ideas, saying that the Divine Being cannot be reduced to several, each of which is the Divine Being, and still remain one, the same, the very self and indivisible. For each would think from His own Being from Himself, and in each case through Himself; if He then thought from the others and through them in agreement, then there would be several gods of like mind, and not one God. For unanimity, being a consensus of several with each one agreeing of himself and through himself, is not consonant with the oneness of God, but with a plurality. They did not say 'of gods', because they were unable to, since the light of heaven which governed their thought, and the aura which carried their speech, offered resistance.

They said too that when they wanted to say the word 'Gods', and each as a Person by Himself, as soon as they attempted to say this it was instantly replaced by one, or rather the sole, God. They added that the Divine Being is the Divine Being in itself, not from itself, because from itself supposes Being in itself arising from another prior one. Thus it supposes a God arising from God, which is impossible. Anything arising from God is not called God, but Divine. For what is God arising from God, or God born of God from eternity, and what is God arising from God proceeding by means of God born from eternity but mere words totally devoid of heavenly light?

[3] They went on to say that the Divine Being, which is in itself God, is the same; not the same in a simple way, but infinitely the same, that is, the same from eternity to eternity. He is the same everywhere, the same with each person and in each person; but all the changes and differences occur in the person who receives Him, and it is his state which causes this.

To demonstrate that the Divine Being, which is God in itself, is very self they said: 'God is very Self, because He is love itself and wisdom itself, that is, because He is good itself and truth itself, and thus life itself. If these things were not the very Self in God, they would be as nothing in heaven and the world, because none of them would be related to the very Self. Every quality gets its quality from the fact that it is the self which is its source, and must be related to it to have that quality. This very Self, which is the Divine Being, is not in any place, but with and in those people who are located in accordance with their ability to receive it, since neither place nor movement from one place to another can be attributed to love and wisdom, or good and truth, and life from them, which constitute the very Self in God, or rather are God Himself. Hence God is omnipresent. That is why the Lord says that He is in the midst of them, and that He is in them and they in Him.

[4] 'Because God cannot be received by anyone such as He is in Himself, He appears as He is in essence, as the Sun above the heavens of the angels; the radiation emitted by Him as light is Himself as regards wisdom, and as heat is Himself as regards love. That Sun is not God Himself, but the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom coming forth most nearly from Him, all around Him, and these appear to the angels as the Sun. He Himself is in the Sun as a Man; He is our Lord Jesus Christ, both as regards the Divine origin and the Divine Human; since the very Self, which is Love itself and Wisdom itself, was His soul from the Father, and so Divine Life, which is Life in itself. This is different in the case of any person; in him his soul is not Life, but a receiver of life. The Lord teaches us this too, when He said:

I am the Way, Truth and Life, John 14:6.

and elsewhere:

Even as the Father has life in Himself, so too did He grant the Son to have life in Himself, John 5:26.

Life in Himself is God.'

They added that those who are at all spiritually enlightened can perceive from these statements that the Divine Being cannot exist in several, because it is one, the same, the very self and thus indivisible. If anyone were to say that this plurality was possible, there would be obvious contradictions in the qualities predicated.

Footnotes:

1. This is repeated from Apocalypse Revealed 961.

  
/ 853  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #567

Study this Passage

  
/ 853  
  

567. At this point I shall add some accounts of experiences, of which this is the first. 1

I was suddenly struck by a nearly fatal illness. My whole head became heavy. A pestilential fog assailed me from the Jerusalem, the name of which is Sodom and Egypt (Revelation 11:8). I was half-dead with savage pain, and awaited my end. I lay thus in my bed for three and a half days. My spirit underwent these pains, and so consequently did my body. Then I heard voices around me saying: 'Look, here there lies dead in a street in our city the man who preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and Christ the man alone as God.' They asked some of the clergy whether he deserved burial. They said he did not; 'let him lie there for people to see.' They kept going away, coming back and ridiculing me. This truly happened to me, when I was writing the explanation of the eleventh chapter of Revelation.

Then I heard serious charges brought against me by those who ridiculed me, in particular the following. 'How,' they said, 'can one repent without faith? How can Christ the man be reverenced as God? When we are freely given salvation without any merit on our part, what need have we of anything but faith that God the Father sent His Son to take away the condemnation imposed by law, to impute His own merit to us and so to justify us in His sight, to absolve us from our sins by a priest's proclamation, and then to give us the Holy Spirit, who performs all the good we do? Surely all this is in agreement with Scripture, and also with reason? The crowd standing round applauded this speech.

[2] I heard this, but was unable to reply, because I lay almost dead. But after three and a half days my spirit revived, and I went out from the street in the spirit into the city, and said again: 'Repent and believe in Christ, and your sins will be forgiven and you will be saved; if not, you will perish. Did not the Lord Himself preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and that men should believe in Him? Did He not command His disciples to preach the same? Does not the dogma of your faith lead to total lack of concern for how you live?'

'What nonsense!' they said. 'Did not the Son make satisfaction? And does not the Father impute that? He justifies us who have believed this. Thus we are led by the spirit of grace; what sin is there then in us? What has death to do with us? Do you understand this Gospel, you who proclaim sin and repentance?'

Then a voice came out of heaven, saying: 'What is the faith of the impenitent but a dead one? The end has come, the end has come upon you who feel secure and blameless in your own eyes, you satans who think yourselves justified by your faith.' Then suddenly a pit opened up in the middle of the city, gaped wide, and house after house fell into it, and they were swallowed up. A little while later water boiled up out of that broad whirlpool and flooded the devastated city.

[3] When they had been thus seen to be plunged and overwhelmed in a flood, I wanted to know what was their fate in the depths, and I was told from heaven that I should see and hear.

Then before my eyes the waters disappeared which had overwhelmed them, for waters in the spiritual world are correspondences, and therefore appear around those who have false beliefs. Then I saw them on a sandy bottom, where there were heaps of stones, among which they ran about bewailing their expulsion from their great city.

They kept shouting and crying: 'Why has this happened to us? Are we not through our faith clean, pure, righteous and holy? Have we not been by our faith cleansed, purified, justified and sanctified?' Others cried: 'Have we not been made through our faith fit to appear before God the Father, and to be seen, accounted and declared before the angels clean, pure, righteous and holy? Have not reconciliation, propitiation and expiation been accomplished for us, so that we are acquitted, washed and cleansed of sins? Has not Christ taken away our condemnation by the law? Why then have we been cast down here as damned? We heard a daring man denouncing sin in our great city cry "Believe in Christ and repent." Did we not believe in Christ, when we believed in His merit? Did we not repent, when we confessed ourselves to be sinners? Why then has this happened to us?'

[4] Then a voice was heard close by saying to them: 'Do you know any sin that is in you? Have you ever examined yourselves, and therefore shunned any evil as a sin against God? Anyone who does not shun it remains in it. Is not sin the devil? You therefore are those of whom the Lord says:

Then you will begin to say, We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets. But he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all who do iniquity, Luke 13:26-27; also those described in Matthew 7:22-23.

Depart, therefore, each of you to his own place. You see the openings leading to caves. Go in there, and there each of you will be given work to do, and you will receive food in proportion to the work you do. Even if you refuse, hunger will none the less force you to go in.'

[5] Afterwards a voice came from heaven to some people on the earth's surface, who had been outside that great city (and those too are mentioned in Revelation 11:13), saying loudly: 'Beware! Beware of associating with such people. Can you not understand that it is the evils called sins and iniquities that make a person unclean and impure? How can anyone be cleansed and purified from them, except by real repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Real repentance is examining oneself, recognising and acknowledging one's sins, accusing oneself and confessing them before the Lord, asking for help and power to resist them, and so desisting from them, leading a new life, and doing all this as if of oneself. Do this once or twice a year, when you go to Holy Communion, and thereafter, when the sins you accused yourselves of recur, you should say to yourselves, "We do not want to do those things because they are sins against God." This is real repentance.

[6] 'Can anyone fail to understand that a person who does not examine himself and see his sins continues in them? For from birth we find every evil pleasant. It is pleasant to take revenge, commit fornication, cheat, blaspheme, and particularly to control others out of self-love. Does not the pleasure cause them not to be seen as sins? And if perhaps someone says that they are sins, would not the pleasure they give make you excuse them, or even use false arguments to prove that they are not sins? Thus you continue in them and do them afterwards more than before; and this goes on until you do not know what a sin is, or rather, whether there is such a thing as sin. The case is different with anyone who has really repented, He calls his evils, which he has recognised and acknowledged, sins, and therefore begins to shun them and turn away from them; and he ends by feeling the pleasure they give as distasteful. In so far as this happens, he sees and loves what is good, and ends by feeling the pleasure that gives, and this is the pleasure experienced by the angels in heaven. In short, in so far as anyone casts the devil behind his back, he is adopted by the Lord, who teaches and guides him, restrains him from evils and keeps him in good deeds. This and no other is the way from hell to heaven.'

[7] It is extraordinary that the Reformed have some inborn resistance, contrariety and aversion for real repentance. This is so strong that they cannot bring themselves to examine themselves, and to see their sins, and to confess them before God. A kind of horror grips them when they form such an intention. I have questioned very many in the spiritual world on the subject, and they all said that this is beyond their powers. On hearing that the Roman Catholics none the less do this, that is, examine themselves and openly confess their sins before a monk, they were very surprised; and they said too that the Reformed are unable to do this secretly before God, although this duty is imposed equally on them, before coming to the Holy Supper. Some people there enquired why this was, and discovered that it was the dogma of faith alone that had produced such a state of impenitence and made their hearts like this. Then they were allowed to see that those Roman Catholics who worship Christ, and do not invoke the saints, are saved.

[8] After this a clap of thunder was heard and a voice speaking from heaven, saying: 'We are astonished. Tell the gathering of the Reformed: "Believe in Christ, and repent, and you will be saved."' So I told them, and went on: 'Is not baptism a sacrament of repentance and so an introduction into the church? What else do the godparents promise on behalf of the person to be baptised, but to abjure the devil and his works? Is not the Holy Supper a sacrament of repentance and so an introduction to heaven? Are not communicants told that they must at all costs repent before they present themselves? Is not the Catechism the universal doctrine of the Christian church, and does it not teach repentance? Is it not said there in the six commandments of the second table, "You are not to do this or that evil act," not "You are to do this or that good act." From this you may know that in so far as anyone abjures and turns away from evil, so far does he strive after and love good; and that before this he does not know what good is, nor even what evil is.'

Footnotes:

1. This passage is repeated from Apocalypse Revealed 531.

  
/ 853  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

©2025 New Christian Bible Study Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed from <span style="text-decoration:underline;">newchristianbiblestudy.org</span>