1. THE LAST JUDGMENT AND BABYLON DESTROYED

The Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed, Showing That at This Day All the Predictions of the Book of Revelation Have Been Fulfilled, Drawn from Things Heard and Seen

“Judgment Day” Does Not Mean the End of the World

1. If people have no knowledge of the Word’s spiritual meaning, ¹ they cannot help but understand the Last Judgment to mean the end of everything visible to the eye in this world, since it says that at that time both heaven ² and earth will pass away and that God will create a new heaven and a new earth. ³ They find further support for this interpretation in the fact that it says all people will then rise from their graves and that the good will then be separated from the evil, and so on [Matthew 25:31-46; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17; Revelation 20:11-15].

That, however, is what a literal reading of the Word says, because the literal meaning of the Word is earthly ⁴ and resides on the lowest level of the divine design ⁵ (though even there absolutely everything contains some spiritual meaning). As a result, people who understand the Word only in its literal meaning can be led to various conclusions, as has indeed happened throughout the Christian world ⁶ -resulting in any number of heresies, for each of which people find biblical support.

[2] Still, since no one has as yet realized that there is spiritual meaning throughout the Word and in every detail, or has even realized what spiritual meaning is, people who have held this opinion of the Last Judgment are to be forgiven. However, let them now know that the heavens we see above us are not going to pass away, and neither is this earth that we are living on. No, both of them are going to survive. And let them now know that the “new heaven” and “new earth” mean a new church ⁷ both in heaven and on earth. I speak of a new church in heaven since there is a church there just as there is on earth, because the Word and sermons exist in heaven as on earth and angels have a divine worship that is similar to ours. The difference, though, is that everything there is in a more perfected state because it exists in a spiritual world ⁸ rather than an earthly one. So all the people there are spiritual people and not earthly, the way they were in this world. On this subject, see my book about heaven, ⁹ especially where it discusses our union ¹⁰ with heaven through the Word (Heaven and Hell 303-310) and deals with divine worship in heaven (Heaven and Hell 221-227).

Footnotes:

39. The Christian world is unaware that where there is no caring there is no faith. It is unaware of what caring about one’s neighbor is. It is not even aware that our will is what makes us who we really are, or that our thinking does so only to the extent that it draws on our willing. In order, therefore, to bring these matters into the light of understanding, I would like to append some references concerning them from Secrets of Heaven by way of illustration.

From Secrets of Heaven

Faith. If people do not know that everything in the universe goes back to goodness and truth and that these two must be joined together if they are to accomplish anything, they also do not know that everything in the church goes back to faith and love and that these two must likewise be joined together: 7752-7762, 9186, 9224. Everything in the universe goes back to truth and goodness and to their being joined together: 2451, 3166, 4390, 4409, 5232, 7256, 10122, 10555. Truths are related to faith, and good actions are related to love: 4352, 4997, 7178, 10367.

[2] If people do not know that everything in us must-if we are to be truly human-go back to the will and the understanding and the joining together of these two, they can have no knowledge of the fact that everything in the church must go back to faith and love and the joining together of those two if there is to be any church within us: 2231, 7752, 7753, 7754, 9224, 9995, 10122. We have two basic faculties, one called understanding and the other called will: 641, 803, 3539, 3623. Our understanding is designed as a home for truths-and therefore the components of our faith-while our will is designed as a home for desires to do good-and therefore the components of our love: 9300, 9930, 10064. Thus it follows that love or caring constitutes the church; faith alone or faith separated from love and caring does not: 809, 916, 1798, 1799, 1834, 1844, 4766, 5826.

[3] Faith separated from caring is no faith at all: 654, 724, 1162, 1176, 2049, 2116, 2343, 2349, 3419, 3849, 3868, 6348, 7039, 7342, 9783. In the other life this kind of faith perishes: 2228, 5820. The teachings concerning faith alone are destructive of caring: 6353, 8094. In the Word, people who separate faith from caring are represented by Cain, Ham, Reuben, the firstborn of the Egyptians, and the Philistines: ¹ 3325, 7097, 7317, 8093. To the extent that caring wanes, the religion of faith alone gains strength: 2231. With the passage of time, the church strays away from caring toward faith, and eventually toward faith alone: 4683, 8094. In the last times of a church there is no faith because there is no caring: 1843, 3488. People who regard faith alone as ensuring salvation say that it is all right to live an evil life; yet those who devote themselves to leading evil lives actually have no faith, because there is no caring in them: 3865, 7766, 7778, 7790, 7950, 8094. Inwardly, they are consumed with false thoughts caused 7790, 7950. This means that goodness cannot be joined them: 8981, 8983. In the other life they are opposed to what is good and opposed to people who are engaged in doing anything good: 7097, 7127, 7317, 7502, 7545, 8096, 8313. People who are simple-hearted know better than the wise what it is to lead a good life and therefore know what caring is, and they cannot comprehend what faith would be apart from that: 4741, 4754.

[4] The goodness [of a thing] constitutes its underlying reality, and truth constitutes its manifestation, ² so the truth that belongs to religious faith gets the reality underlying its life from the doing of good in a spirit of caring: 3049, 3180, 4574, 5002, 9144. So the truth that belongs to religious faith comes to life when we do good actions out of caring, which means that caring is the life within faith: 1589, 1997, 2049, 4070, 4096, 4097, 4736, 4757, 4884, 5147, 5928, 9154, 9667, 9841, 10729. Faith is not alive in us when all we do is know about faith and think about it. Rather, faith comes to life when we will to do, and actively do, what it teaches: 9224. Our faith does not join us to the Lord; what joins us to the Lord is living according to faith, which means caring: 9380, 10143, 10153, 10578, 10645, 10648. Worship in a spirit of goodness and caring is true worship; worship that is devoid of goodness or caring and is inspired only by the truth that belongs to religious faith is a superficial act: 7724.

[5] Faith alone, separated from caring, is like the light of winter, in which everything in the earth is dormant and nothing is produced; but faith together with caring is like the light of spring and summer, in which everything blooms and bears fruit: 2231, 3146, 3412, 3413. In the other life, the light of winter, which is the light of faith separated [from caring], turns into deep darkness when light flows in from heaven; and people devoted to that kind of faith then become blind and stupid: 3412, 3413. People who separate faith from caring are in darkness; they do not know what truth is and are therefore mired in falsities, and these constitute [spiritual] darkness: 9186. They plunge themselves into false convictions and therefore into evil practices: 3325, 8094. The errors and false convictions into which they plunge themselves: 4721, 4730, 4776, 4783, 4925, 7779, 8313, 8765, 9224. The Word is closed to them: v3773, 4783, 8780. They do not pay attention to or even see all the many things the Lord said about love and caring: 1017, 3416 (which include examples). They do not know what goodness is or what heavenly love is or what caring is: 2417, 3603, 4136, 9995.

[6] Caring, and not faith separated from caring, is what constitutes the church: 809, 916, 1798, 1799, 1834, 1844. How good the church would be if caring were seen as first in importance: 6269, 6272. There would be one church-it would not be divided into many-if caring were its essential principle, and it would then not matter how people differed in the teachings of their faith and the forms of their worship: 1285, 1316, 2385, 2853, 2982, 3267, 3445, 3451, 3452. In heaven we are all evaluated on the basis of our caring; no one is evaluated on the basis of faith separated from caring: 1258, 1394, 2364, 4802.

[7] The Lord’s twelve disciples represented all the various forms of faith and caring that together constitute the church, as did the twelve tribes of Israel: 2129, 3354, 3488, 3858, 6397. Peter, James, and John represented faith, caring, and good actions that come from caring, respectively: preface to Genesis 18. Peter represented faith (preface to Genesis 22, §§4738, 6000, 6073, 6344, 10087), and John represented good actions that come from caring (preface to Genesis 18). The fact that in the last times of the church there would be no faith in the Lord because there would be no caring is represented by Peter’s denying the Lord three times before the rooster crowed for the third time; ³ in a symbolic sense, Peter in that passage means faith: 6000, 6073. Both “the crowing of the rooster” and “twilight” in the Word mean the last times of the church (10134), and “three” or “three times” means what is completed (2788, 4495, 5159, 9198, 10127). Much the same is meant by the Lord’s saying to Peter, when Peter saw John following the Lord, “What is that to you, Peter? Follow me, John.” ⁴ Because Peter had said of John, “What about him?” (John 21:21-22): 10087. Since John represented good actions that come from caring, he leaned on the Lord’s chest [John 13:23-25; 21:20]: 3934, 10087. All the names of individuals and places in the Word symbolize qualities in the abstract: 768, 1888, 4310, 4442, 10329.

[8] Caring. Heaven is divided into two kingdoms, one of which is called the heavenly kingdom and the other the spiritual kingdom. The love that characterizes the heavenly kingdom is love for the Lord and is called “heavenly love,” and the love that characterizes the spiritual kingdom is caring about one’s neighbor and is called “spiritual love”: 3325, 3653, 7257, 9002, 9835, 9961. On the division of heaven into these two kingdoms, see Heaven and Hell 20-28; and on the Lord’s divine presence in the heavens taking the form of love for him and caring about one’s neighbor, see §§13-19 of the same work.

[9] People cannot know what is good and what is true unless they know what love for the Lord and caring about our neighbor are, since all goodness comes from love and caring, and all truth comes from goodness: 7255, 7366. Caring is a result of knowing things that are true, being willing to do what they teach, and being moved by them for their own sake-that is, because they are true: 3876, 3877. Caring consists of an inner desire to do what truth teaches and not in an outer desire apart from an inner desire: 2439, 2442, 3776, 4899, 4956, 8033. So caring consists of doing useful things because they are useful things to do; the quality of our caring is proportional to the usefulness of what it does: 7038, 8253. Caring is a spiritual way of life for us: 7081. The whole Word is a body of teaching focused on love and caring: 6632, 7262. No one these days knows what caring is: 2417, 3398, 4776, 6632. Nevertheless the light of our reason could tell us that love and caring are what make us human (3957, 6273) and that goodness and truth are in harmony, each belonging to the other, so the same holds true for caring and faith (7627).

[10] In the highest sense, the Lord is our neighbor because he is to be loved above all else. So everything that comes from him and has him within it is our neighbor-in other words, goodness and truth: 2425, 3419, 6706, 6819, 6823, 8124. The type of neighbor someone is is identifiable by the nature of the good that he or she does, and therefore by the Lord’s presence in him or her: 6707, 6708, 6709, 6710. Every individual and every community, also our country and the church, and in the most universal sense the Lord’s kingdom, are our neighbor; and loving our neighbors is doing them good out of a love of what is good, according to the nature of their state; so our “neighbor” is the well-being of others, for which we are to be concerned: 6818-6824, 8123. Our “neighbor” includes civic goodness, too, which is whatever is fair; and moral goodness, which is what is good for our life together in community. 2915, 4730, 8120, 8121, 8122. Loving our neighbors is not loving the personality they project in public but loving what motivates them from within, therefore the goodness and truth they have: 5028, 10336. If we base our love on their public personality and not on what motivates them from within, we will have as much love for evil people as for good people (3820) and we will support both the evil and the good, even though supporting evil people is harming good people, which is not loving our neighbor (3820, 6703, 8120). Judges who punish the evil in order to correct them and to protect the good from them are loving their neighbor: 3820, 8120, 8121.

[11] Loving one’s neighbor is doing what is good, fair, and right in every task and in every function: 8120, 8121, 8122. So caring about our neighbor extends to every least thing that we think, intend, and do: 8124. Doing what is good and true for the sake of what is good and true is loving our neighbor: 10310, 10336. People who do this are loving the Lord, who is our neighbor in the highest sense: 9210. The life of caring is a life in accord with the Lord’s commandments; therefore to live by divine truths is to love the Lord: 10143, 10153, 10310, 10578, 10645.

[12] Genuine caring is not done to get something in return (2371, 2380, 2400, 3887, 6388-6393), because it comes from an inner desire to do what is good and therefore from a joy in doing it (2371, 2400, 3887, 6388-6393). If we separate faith from caring, then in the other life we want credit for our faith and for any outwardly good deeds that we have done: 2371.

[13] The teachings of the ancient church were teachings about how to live our lives, that is, teachings focused on caring: 2385, 2417, 3419, 3420, 4844, 6628. The ancients who were part of the church gave the good actions that embody caring a structure, divided them into categories, and gave each a name; and this was the source of their wisdom: 2417, 6629, 7259-7262. The wisdom and intelligence of people who have led caring lives in this world increase immensely in the other life: 1941, 5859. The Lord flows with divine truth into caring because he flows into our very life: 2363. We are like gardens when caring and faith are joined to each other within us and like deserts when they are not: 7626. The less we care, the less wise we are (6630); if we are not engaged in caring, we are ignorant of divine truths, no matter how wise we may think we are (2417, 2435). An angelic life consists of doing good deeds of caring, which are acts of service: 454. Spiritual angels are embodiments of caring: 553, 3804, 4735.

[14] Will and understanding. We have two abilities, one called understanding and the other called will: 35, 641, 3539, 10122. It is these two abilities that make us truly human: 10076, 10109, 10110, 10264, 10284. Our nature depends on the nature of these two abilities of ours: 7342, 8885, 9282, 10264, 10284. These two abilities are also what distinguishes us from animals, because our understanding can be lifted up by the Lord and see divine truths, and our will, too, can be lifted up and perceive divine goodness. And so our partnership with the Lord is made possible by these two abilities that make us who we are-which is not the case with animals: 4525, 5302, 5114, 6323, 9231. And since we surpass animals in these abilities, we cannot die with respect to our deeper levels-the levels that constitute our spirit; rather, we live to eternity: 5302.

[15] Everything in the universe goes back to goodness and truth; likewise everything in us goes back to our will and our understanding (803, 10122), because our understanding is the part of us that receives truth and our will is the part of us that receives goodness (3332, 3623, 5835, 6065, 6125, 7503, 9300, 9930). Whether you say “truth” or “faith” it amounts to the same thing, because faith and truth are mutually dependent; and whether you say “goodness” or “love” it amounts to the same thing, because love and goodness are mutually dependent; whatever we believe we call true, and whatever we love we call good: 4353, 4997, 7178, 10122, 10367. It therefore follows that our understanding is the part of us that can have faith and our will is the part of us that can have love: 7178, 10122, 10367. And since our understanding can accept faith in God and our will can accept love for God, we are capable of being joined to God by faith and love; and anyone who can be joined to God by love and faith cannot die to all eternity: 4525, 6323, 9231.

[16] Our will is the true underlying reality of our life because it is the part of us that receives love or what is good, while our understanding is the consequent manifestation of our life because it is the part of us that receives faith or what is true: 3619, 5002, 9282. So the life of our will is our primary life, and the life of our understanding comes from it (585, 590, 3619, 7342, 8885, 9282, 10076, 10109, 10110) the way light comes from fire or a flame (6032, 6314). Whatever enters both our understanding and our will becomes part of us, but what enters only our understanding does not: 9009, 9069, 9071, 9182, 9386, 9393, 10076, 10109, 10110. Whatever is accepted by our will becomes part of our life: 3161, 9386, 9393. It follows then that we are human because of our will and our consequent understanding: 8911, 9069, 9071, 10076, 10109, 10110. We are all loved and valued by others according to how good our will is and only secondarily how good our understanding is. We are loved and valued if both our intentions and our understanding are good; we are rejected and considered worthless if our understanding is good but our intentions are not: 8911, 10076. Even after death we retain the nature of our will and our consequent understanding: 9069, 9071, 9386, 10153. Those things that are in our understanding but not in our will then vanish because they are not within us: 9282. Or to put it another way, after death we retain the nature of our love and the faith that comes from that love-the nature of our goodness and the truth that comes from that goodness-and then anything that is a matter of our faith but not of our love (or of truth in us but not of goodness) vanishes because it is not within us and therefore does not belong to us: 553, 2364, 10153. We are capable of grasping intellectually things that we would not do willingly; that is, we can understand things that run counter to our love and we have no will to do: 3539. Why it is hard for us to tell the difference between thinking and willing: 9995.

[17] How distorted our state is when our understanding and our will are not acting as one: 9075. This is the kind of state we find among hypocrites, con artists, flatterers, and imposters: 3527, 3573, 4799, 8250.

[18] Every act of will to do what is good and every consequent understanding of what is true comes from the Lord, but this is not the case for an understanding of what is true that is divorced from any act of will to do what is good: 1831, 3514, 5482, 5649, 6027, 8685, 8701, 10153. Our understanding is what is enlightened by the Lord: 6222, 6608, 10659. Our understanding is enlightened to the extent that our will accepts truth-that is, to the extent that we will ourselves to act in accord with it: 3619. Light from heaven gives enlightenment to our understanding just the way light from this world does to our eyesight: 1524, 5114, 6608, 9128. The nature of our understanding depends on the nature of the love-based truths from which it is formed: 10064. Understanding results from truths that arise from living a good life, not from falsities that arise from living an evil life: 10675. Understanding is seeing, on the basis of our experience and information, things that are true, the causes of events, their connections, and how they follow from each other: 6125. The faculty of understanding is seeing and perceiving that something is true before considering it proven; it is not the ability to prove anything we choose: 4741, 7012, 7680, 7950, 8521, 8780. Seeing and perceiving whether something is true before considering it proven is possible for us only when we love truth for its own sake-that is, when we are in spiritual light: 8521. The light that comes from corroboration is an earthly light that is available to evil people as well: ⁵ 8780. Any dogma, even a false one, can be supported in such a way that it seems to be true: 2385, 2477, 5033, 6865, 7950.

Footnotes: