SWEDENBORG'S ESCHATOLOGY

BY THE REV. JOSEPH J. THORNTON, of Glasgow

International Swedenborg Congress, London, July 4 to 8, 1910

I. THE SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT.

AMONG theologians, the term "Eschatology" is commonly employed to mean the "Doctrine of the Last Things." It was not used by Swedenborg; but from its inclusive significance it conveniently describes the Christian belief in regard to death, the resurrection, the intermediate world of spirits, the last judgment, the second advent of the Lord, and the final states of the righteous and the wicked in heaven and hell.

Under this term are thus grouped a variety of subjects. Even this catalogue scarcely suffices; for many would still reckon the so-called "Millennium" as one of the last things.

Eschatology therefore implies a series of topics, each different in itself. Swedenborg did not attempt to treat of them all together. He has one book on the "Last Judgment,” and another on “Heaven and Hell." Nevertheless, there is a connection of the whole group: and it is possible to regard the series as links of one chain, leading from man to the Lord; so that as we pass from one to another we can accept the guidance He has afforded in His Word, now opened to the world by interpretations divinely given to His servant and seer. To men, whether believers or unbelievers, who seek the freedom of their minds from the traditions of older beliefs, and who desire to bind their religion and conscience to the life, a spiritual understanding of these revealed truths is of pre-eminent use.

Swedenborg approached each of these subjects from a standpoint distinctly remote from that of his own time. Being led by the Lord into an understanding of the internal sense of the Word and thus into its true Divine interpretation, the "last things," to him, assumed an entirely different aspect; and it is one of the remarkable features of his theological works that he presents entirely new conceptions of each subject in its turn; though he always sets forth every doctrine in its own true light, as that of the Divine Word.

With each subject waiting to be touched upon, for the purpose of briefly indicating the New Doctrine contained in his theological works, it is necessary to refrain from attempts to refer to the extensive literature of the last sixty years bearing on the same topics. A considerable portion of popular thought regarding man's future state has been manifestly influenced by Swedenborg; indeed few know how much the world owes to his treatises, though traces of their teachings are easily discovered in all Churches. But to follow such lines of investigation is not the business now in hand. Only one thing is here possible, that is, to state frankly and concisely a few of the most salient features rendered conspicuous in the eschatology given to Swedenborg; and it would be difficult to introduce even half of these. It is necessary, however, to show to some extent, as Swedenborg loved to do, that all these doctrines are drawn from, and based upon, the Word of the Old and New Testaments.

Perhaps the most revolutionary part of the doctrine he presents is that which relegates to the region of historic events the Last Judgment, the Consummation of the Age, and the Second Advent of the Lord. Although he wrote in the eighteenth century, he emphatically set aside the then prevailing idea of a great cosmic dissolution, described as the "end of the world." He had no hesitation in stating that the earth will endure, and no one need look forward to its perishing by any means. "Say among the nations that the Lord reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved" (Psalm xcvi. 10). (See L. J., 6.)

In face of these differences it is easy to see at once that the Eschatology of Swedenborg could not be made to fit into that of the great ecclesiastical theologians. It is divergent from all former preconceptions; but this never implies the least laxity in regard to the teaching of Divine revelation. Swedenborg never speculates; but with him all doctrine is drawn from the letter of the Word, and on that it stands foursquare and firm.

He comes before us as one who received Divine interpretations of the written Word from the Lord. Facts relating to the other life were also made known to him because they were necessary to enable mankind to understand the Word. In the work on the Last Judgment lie tells us (n. 65) that lest men should from age to age everlastingly expect the passing away of sky and land in the world of nature, the Lord had been pleased to open the spiritual sense of the Word, and to make known what is meant in Revelations xxi. 1 by “the passing away of the first heaven and the first earth."

In Holy Scripture, the Lord is His own interpreter, and He has made this plain, that the first heaven and the first earth which did pass away, were both of them products of disorderly conditions—that is, conditions temporarily permitted in the World of Spirits prior to the Last Judgment.

Swedenborg's Eschatology is not separable from his Exegesis. It is bound up with the interpretation of the Word in every book from Genesis to Revelation; and when the whole Word is unfolded and the seals of the book are loosed by the Lord, we are presented with a holy and rational conception of the last things, and a series of new and happy expectations.

[References, other than from the Holy Scriptures referred to in this article, are from the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth century scientist biography.  Swedenborg penned thirty-five volumes from things he heard and saw in the spiritual world for a period of more than twenty-five years.  This material is available online or in literature form. If I can be of assistance, feel free to contact me.]