Swedenborg_Heaven_01

Heaven
The Introduction


1. When in the presence of His disciples the Lord speaks concerning the consummation of the age, which is the last period of the church, at the close of the predictions concerning its successive states of love and faith, He says, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a trumpet and a great voice, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other” (Matt. 24. 29-31). Those who understand these words only according to the sense of the letter, imagine that at the final period which is called the last judgment all these events will come to pass according to the literal account. They therefore believe, not only that the sun and moon will be darkened and that the stars will fall from heaven, that the sign of the Lord will appear in heaven, that they shall see Him in the clouds, together with angels with trumpets, but also, in accordance with predictions in other places, that the whole visible universe will perish, and that afterwards there will exist a new heaven and a new earth. Such is the belief of most men in the church at the present day.
But those who so believe do not understand the mysteries which lie concealed in all the particulars of the Word; for in every particular of the Word there is an internal sense, which treats of spiritual and celestial things and not of such natural and worldly things as appear in the sense of the letter. This is true not only of the sense of several expressions taken together, but also of every particular expression; for the Word is written by pure correspondence, in order that every particular expression may contain an internal sense.
The nature of that sense may be seen from everything that has been stated and set forth concerning it in the Arcana Coelestia; reference may also be made to the collection of quotations from that work in the explanation of the White Horse mentioned in the Apocalypse. The words which the Lord spoke in the passage above quoted concerning His coming in the clouds of heaven are to be understood according to that sense. By the sun, which shall be darkened, is signified the Lord as to love; by the moon, the Lord as to faith; by the stars, the knowledges of good and truth or of love and faith; by the sign of the Son of man in heaven, the manifestation of Divine Truth; by the tribes of the earth which shall mourn, all things relating to truth and good or to faith and love; by the coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven with power and glory, His presence in the Word and revelation; by clouds, the sense of the letter of the Word; by glory, the internal sense of the Word; while angels with a trumpet and a great voice signify heaven as the source of Divine Truth. Hence it is evident that these words of the Lord mean that at the end of the church, when there is no love remaining and consequently no faith, the Lord will disclose the internal sense of the Word and reveal the mysteries of heaven.
The mysteries revealed in the following pages relate to heaven and hell and also to man’s life after death. Members of the church at this day know scarcely anything of heaven and hell or of their life after death, although these things are all described in the Word. Indeed, many who are born within the church deny their existence, saying in their heart, “Who has come from that world and told us?” Lest, therefore, such a spirit of denial as prevails especially among those who have much worldly wisdom, should also infect and corrupt the simple in heart and the simple in faith, it has been granted me to associate with angels and to talk with them as one man with another; and also to see what exists in the heavens and in the hells, and this for thirteen years; and to describe them from the evidence of my own eyes and ears in the hope that ignorance may be enlightened, and unbelief dispelled. Such direct revelation is now made, because this is what is meant by the coming of theLord.

Source:
HEAVEN and its Wonders, and HELL: From Things Heard & Seen by EMANUEL SWEDENBORG,
Everyman’s Library
LONDON & TORONTO, 1909.