Heaven and its Wonders and HellSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Heaven and its Wonders and Hell
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Future life -- Christianity -- Early work to 1800; Heaven -- Christianity; Hell -- Christianity
314. That heaven is from the human race can be seen also from the
fact that angelic minds and human minds are alike, both enjoying the
ability to understand, perceive and will, and both formed to receive
heaven; for the human mind is just as capable of becoming wise as the
angelic mind; and if it does not attain to such wisdom in the world
it is because it is in an earthly body, and in that body its
spiritual mind thinks naturally. But it is otherwise when the mind is
loosed from the bonds of that body; then it no longer thinks
naturally, but spiritually, and when it thinks spiritually its
thoughts are incomprehensible and ineffable to the natural man; thus
it becomes wise like an angel, all of which shows that the internal
part of man, called his spirit, is in its essence an angel (see
above, n. 57);{1} and when loosed from the earthly body is, equally
with the angel, in the human form. (That an angel is in a complete
human form may be seen above, n. 73-77.) When, however, the internal
of man is not open above but only beneath, it is still, after it has
been loosed from the body, in a human form, but a horrible and
diabolical form, for it is able only to look downwards towards hell,
and not upwards towards heaven.
{Footnote 1} There are as many degrees of life in man as there
are heavens, and they are opened after death in accordance with
his life (n. 3747, 9594). Heaven is in man (n. 3884). Men who
are living a life of love and charity have in them angelic
wisdom, although it is for the time hidden, but they come into
that wisdom after death (n. 2494). The man who receives from
the Lord the good of love and of faith is called in the Word an
angel (n. 10528).
315. Moreover, any one who has been taught about Divine order can
understand that man was created to become an angel, because the
outmost of order is in him (n. 304), in which what pertains to
heavenly and angelic wisdom can be brought into form and can be
renewed and multiplied. Divine order never stops midway to form there
a something apart from an outmost, for it is not in its fullness and
completion there; but it goes on to the outmost; and when it is in
its outmost it takes on its form, and by means there collected it
renews itself and produces itself further, which is accomplished
through procreations. Therefore the seed-ground of heaven is in the
outmost.
316. The Lord rose again not as to His spirit alone but also as to
His body, because when He was in the world He glorified His whole
Human, that is, made it Divine; for His soul which He had from the
Father was of Itself the very Divine, while His body became a
likeness of the soul, that is, of the Father, thus also Divine. This
is why He, differently from any man, rose again as to both;{1} and
this He made manifest to the disciples (who when they saw Him
believed that they saw a spirit), by saying:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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