SWEDENBORG'S ESCHATOLOGY

BY THE REV. JOSEPH J. THORNTON, of Glasgow

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

VII. HEAVEN.

But while hell is a product of man's self-will in ascendency, and acting against the Divine, HEAVEN is in the order of God.

At the very basis of all Swedenborg's theology is his declaration that the universe, with its myriads of natural suns and solar systems, "is a coherent work," created by God for "one intended end—that was the production of an angelic heaven from the human race" (T. C. R., 13). Heaven, as a vast and innumerable company, gathered from all the inhabited earths of the universe, is the central and last fact in Swedenborg's Eschatology. The LORD JESUS CHRIST is the one God, and the Father of the human race; heaven is His house, the home of divine and mutual loves, toward which all tend; for which worlds were made; and to which all races of men are incessantly led.

Love's possession was the Lord's topic when He said, "In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so I would have told you" (John xiv. 2). There are other globes and earths besides our own, teeming with inhabitants, each of which is a seminary of heaven; for of each it may be said, God "created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited" (Isaiah xlv. 18). He made no planet but that it might be for man, and render some service in the outworks of His universe.

In the Arcana Coelestia we read: "All persons, throughout every globe of earth in the universe, are accepted and saved by the mercy of our Lord, who have lived in good, good being the very essential which receives truth, and the good of life being the ground of the seed, that is, of truth, which evil of life is incapable of receiving" (A. C., 2590).

In heaven there are not only men from our own globe, but from every earth in the universe. The Lord says, "They shall come from the east and the west, and from the north and the south" (Luke xiii. 29). John tells us that those who acknowledged the Lord's saving power in heaven were "out of every tribe and tongue, and people and nation" (Rev. v. 9). The Lord's heaven therefore is so "immense that it can never be filled to eternity"; and however many go thither, "yet there is room" (Luke xiv. 22).

This vast and inconceivably great heaven is one in which the Lord alone reigns; and it exists because it is the sphere wherein His love and wisdom are active. His omnipresence therein is effected by means of the nearest sphere immediately surrounding His glorified Humanity, the only spiritual sun of the whole spiritual universe.

But while the Lord is above the angels in His sphere of love, He is also in them by virtue of the love and wisdom that proceed from Him to them (D. P. 31). At times He is seen in His angelic form "out of" that living sun which encompasses His person, and He is then "distinguished by the Divine which shines in His face" (H. H, 121). And yet there must be harmony between the Giver and the receiver; and therefore no angel can enter heaven, so as to rejoice in it, unless he has heaven in him. To teach us that, the Lord says, "Behold, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke xvii. 21).

Every one in the heavens knows and really believes that, as a man, "he wills and does nothing good from himself, and that he thinks and believes nothing of truth from himself." The Lord is the only fountain of life. The angels live from Him. To open to mankind the same life, He says, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye, except ye abide in Me." . . . "Apart from Me ye can do nothing" (John xv. 4, 5).

The NEW DOCTRINE now given to the world tells us many things regarding the Heavens—their order and distinctions, their societies and uses, the employment of angels, their worship, their wisdom, their innocence and their love, their peace and their joy. We are taught that "they who are in heaven are continually advancing to the springtime of life" (H. H., 462); that "women who have died old and worn out with age, if they have lived in faith in the Lord, and in charity towards their neighbour, come with the succession of years, more and more into the flower of youth and early womanhood " (H. H. 414); that in heaven "marriage has its origin in the conjunction of two into one mind; and this is called in heaven `living together'; and it is said of such that they are not two but one; and so two consorts in heaven are not called two, but one angel" (H. H., 367); that "by spiritual weddings is meant conjunction with the Lord ; and when this is effected on earth, it is also effected in the heavens " (C. L. 41).

"Everywhere in heaven those who are alike are united." "Like are brought to like, not by themselves, but by the Lord." In heaven, they neither marry nor are given in marriage (Luke xx. 35, 36); for marriage there is not of the flesh, neither is it ordered, designed and arranged according to the will of men. They are as the angels; and because their unions are spiritual and according to the divine will, not man's will, the whole case of marriage is different: it is that of God-made oneness in the spirit; and angels therefore say, as the Lord said, "What therefore God bath joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matt. xix. 6). For the same reason also heaven itself is compared to a marriage (Matt. xxii. 2).

The angels, being led by the Lord, are organized and associated in societies; and, from the Divine Love within them, they seek not their own, but rather the welfare and peace of others. Indeed they love others more than themselves; and from the spontaneity of their love, their occupations give them unfailing delights. An angel's employment in heaven is not necessarily similar to that in which he was engaged on earth. It could not be so. A man's use in that world is that which most perfectly accords with his abilities, the tendencies and dispositions of his regenerating soul. "Their works do follow with them" (Rev. xiv. 13).

Heaven is human, because it is from the DIVINE HUMANITY of the Lord: that alone makes heaven. It is full of human loves, human associations, and human aspirations and joys, all originating in God. It is a kingdom of uses, and corresponds to the uses in God Himself, the Maker and Preserver of heaven and earth, the only Redeemer and Saviour of the world.

At the present moment, and in connection with this centenary, it is, no doubt, excusable for us to call these truths "Swedenborg's"; but the fact is, he was never more than the Lord's servant, when the Lord Himself unfolded them from His own Word. So far as this doctrine accords with the spirit of the Holy Word, it is the Lord's Eschatology, His divine doctrine concerning the last things; and, as we receive it, we would devoutly say, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth" (Rev. xiv. 13).

All these doctrines centre in the Lord God Jesus Christ;—in His saving power, His mercy, and His presence with mankind. They are profoundly evangelical; and full of good news for all those that look to Him. They lead to repentance and a new life: indeed the New Church, called the New Jerusalem, is the most evangelical Church in the whole world; and, rejoicing in the Holy Presence of the Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, it will for ever say, "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth."

To Jesus Christ, the Lord, be glory and dominion for ever and ever.

[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.]