New Christian Bible Study

Commentary

 

Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #531

Study this Passage

  
/ 962  
  

531. To this I will append the following account:

I was suddenly seized with an almost fatal illness. My whole head was weighed down. A toxic smoke emanated from the Jerusalem called Sodom and Egypt. I was half-dead with the fierce pain. I awaited the end. In that state I lay in my bed for three and a half days. Thus was my spirit afflicted, and because of it my body.

And then I heard about me voices saying, "Look, there he lies dead in our city's street, the one who preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins and Christ alone, a man." And they asked some of the clergy whether they ought to bury him.

The clerics said, "No. Let him lie there for people to see."

The people went to and fro, scoffing.

In truth this happened to me when I was expounding this chapter of the book of Revelation.

I heard then the sober words of the people scoffing, especially the following:

"How can one repent apart from faith? How can Christ, a man, be worshiped as God? Since we are saved by grace apart from any merit of our own, what need do we have then of anything but simply a faith that God the Father sent His Son to take away the condemnation of the Law, to impute His Son's merit to us and thus justify us in His sight, to absolve us of our sins through His emissary the priest, and to grant us then the Holy Spirit to bring about any goodness in us? Does this not accord with Scripture, and also with reason?"

At that the crowd standing around applauded.

[2] I heard this, but could not reply, because I lay almost dead. But after three and a half days my spirit recovered, and in the spirit I went from the street into the city and said again, "Repent and believe in Christ, and your sins will be forgiven you and you will be saved. If you don't, you will perish. Didn't the Lord Himself preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and for people to believe in Him? Didn't He command His disciples to preach this, too? The dogma attending your faith - is it not followed by a lack of concern over the way you live?"

But they said, "What nonsense are you prattling on about? Did not the Son make satisfaction? Did the Father not impute this to us and justify those of us who believe it? We are led, therefore, by the spirit of grace. What then is sin in us? What then does death have to do with us? Do you not comprehend this gospel, you preacher of sin and repentance?"

However, a voice was heard from heaven then, saying, "What is the faith of an impenitent person but a lifeless one? The end is coming. The end is coming upon you so unconcerned, so blameless in your own eyes, so justified in that faith of yours, you who are devils."

Then suddenly a chasm opened at the center of that city and widened, and one after another their houses fell and were swallowed up. And shortly water bubbled up from that broad gulf and flooded the devastated land.

[3] When they were thus covered with water and seemingly drowned, I wished to know their fate at the bottom, and I was told from heaven, "You will see and hear it."

And before my eyes then the water vanished - the water in which they were seemingly drowned, because bodies of water in the spiritual world are correspondent forms, which appear therefore around people who are caught up in falsities - and I saw them then in the sandy bottom. There were heaps of piled up stones there, and the people were running among them, lamenting the fact that they had been cast down from their great city. They kept crying out and bawling, "Why has this happened to us? Thanks to our faith in the world, are we not pure, just, and godly?"

And others cried, "Has our faith not cleansed us, purified us, justified and sanctified us?"

And still others, "Has our faith not made us such that in the sight of God the Father we appear, seem, and are regarded as clean, pure, just and godly, and declared to be so in the eyes of angels? Have we not been reconciled, restored to favor, and atoned for, and so freed, washed and cleansed of any sins? Has Christ not taken away the condemnation of the Law? Why, then, have we been cast down here as though condemned?

"A brazen preacher of sin told us in our great city, 'Believe in Christ and repent.' Have we not believed in Christ, since we believed in His merit? And have we not repented, since we confessed ourselves sinners? Why, then, has this befallen us?"

[4] At that they then heard from one side a voice speaking to them. "Are you aware of any sin gripping you? Have you ever examined yourselves? Have you as a result refrained from any evil as being a sin against God? Anyone who does not, remains caught up in it. Is not sin the devil? You are therefore the kind of people about whom the Lord says,

Then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.' But He will say, 'I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.' (Luke 13:26-27)

"And also the kind of people spoken of in Matthew 7:22-23. 1

"Go, therefore, each to his own place. You will see caves opening into caverns. Go in, and there each of you will be given his own work to do, and food then commensurate with the work. If you don't want to go in, still hunger will drive you to."

[5] After that a voice from heaven addressed some people aboveground who were outside that great city - people also mentioned in Revelation 11:13 - saying loudly, "Beware! Beware of allying yourselves with people like that. Can you not understand that evils called sins and iniquities render a person unclean and impure? How can a person be cleansed and purified of those evils except by actual repentance and faith in Jesus Christ? Actual repentance is to examine oneself, to recognize and acknowledge one's sins, to make oneself guilty of them, to confess them before the Lord, to implore His aid and power in resisting them, and so to refrain from them and lead a new life, doing all this as though of oneself. Do this once or twice a year when you go to Holy Communion; and afterward, when the sins of which you have made yourself guilty recur, say to yourselves, 'We refuse to do them because they are sins against God.' That is actual repentance.

[6] "Who cannot understand that someone who does not examine himself and see his sins, remains caught up in them? For every evil is delightful from one's birth, inasmuch as it is delightful to take revenge, to be licentious sexually, to prey on others, to blaspheme, and most of all to dominate others from a love of self. Does delight not cause these to go unseen? And if by chance someone says they are sins, does not the delight you find in them cause you to excuse them, even to persuade you and by false arguments convince you that they are not sins, so that you remain caught up in them and go on doing them, afterward even more than before? And this until you do not know what sin is, indeed whether there is any such thing as sin.

"It is different with someone who repents actually. His evils that he recognizes and acknowledges, he calls sins, and therefore he begins to refrain from them and to be averse to them, and to feel the delight he had felt in them as undelightful. Moreover, to the extent that he does this, to the same extent he sees and loves goods, and finally feels delight in them, a delight which is one of heaven. In a word, to the extent someone casts the devil behind him, to the same extent he is adopted by the Lord and taught, led, withheld from evils by Him and kept in goods. This is the way, the only way, from hell to heaven."

[7] Surprisingly, it is a fact that the Protestant Reformed have a certain deep-seated resistance, opposition and aversion to actual repentance, which is so great that they cannot compel themselves to examine themselves and see their sins and confess them before God. It is as though a kind of horror besets them when they go to do it.

I have asked many of them in the spiritual world about this, and they have all said that it is beyond their power.

When they are told that Roman Catholics still do it, namely that they examine themselves and openly confess their sins to a monk, they are quite surprised, saying that the Protestant Reformed cannot do this in secret to God, even though they are likewise enjoined to do it before they take Holy Supper. Some of them there also inquired into why this was, and they found that faith alone produced in them such a state of impenitence and such a disposition.

They were then given to see, moreover, that Roman Catholics who worship the Christ and do not call on their saints, and who do not worship their so-called Vicar of Christ 2 or any of his keepers of the keys, are saved.

[8] After that I heard what sounded like thunder and a voice speaking from heaven, saying, "We are astonished. Tell the company of the Protestant Reformed, 'Believe in the Christ and repent and you will be saved.'"

So I said that, and also added, "Is not Baptism a sacrament of repentance and thus an initiation into the church? What else do the sponsors promise for the one being baptized than to renounce the devil and his works?

"Is not Holy Supper a sacrament of repentance and thus an initiation into heaven? Are the communicants not told to thoroughly repent before they approach?

"Any catechism containing the universal doctrine of the Christian Church, is it not a document teaching repentance? Does it not say there in reference to the six commandments of the second table that you must not do this or that evil, and say that you must do this or that good?

"You may know from this that to the extent someone refrains from evil, to the same extent he loves good; and that before then you do not know what good is, nor even what evil is."

Footnotes:

1. "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'" (Matthew 7:22-23)

2. I.e., the Pope.

  
/ 962  
  

Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #112

Study this Passage

  
/ 853  
  

112. The third experience.

I once woke up around dawn and went out into the garden in front of my house. I watched the sun rising in its splendour, and around it I saw a halo, first of all narrow and later projecting further, shining as if made of gold, and under its lower edge a cloud coming up, which glittered with the sun's fire like a ruby. This then led me to think about how the earliest people had legends which described the Dawn as having wings made of silver feathers and carrying gold in her mouth.

While my mind was taking pleasure in these thoughts, I passed into the spirit, and heard some people talking to one another. 'I wish,' they were saying, 'we could talk with that original thinker who has thrown the apple of Strife among the leaders of the church; many laymen have run after it, picked it up and held it before our eyes.' They meant by that apple my little book entitled: A BRIEF EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE NEW CHURCH. 'It is a new doctrine never before thought up, designed to divide the church,' they said. I heard one of them cry out: 'Divisive indeed, it is heretical!' But some of the bystanders answered: 'Be quiet, hold your tongue; it is not heretical. It quotes a large number of sayings from the Word which those who live with us - we mean laymen - pay attention to and support.'

[2] On hearing this, since I was in the spirit, I went up to them and said: Here I am. What is the trouble?'

At once one of them, a German as I learned later, a native of Saxony, said in an authoritative tone of voice: 'How have you the nerve to upset the mode of worship established for so many centuries throughout the Christian world, namely, the invocation of God the Father as the Creator of the universe, and of His Son as Mediator, and of the Holy Spirit as Worker? You are banishing the first and the last God from our Trinity of Persons, although the Lord Himself says: "When you pray, pray like this: Our Father, who art in the heavens, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come." Is this not an instruction to us to invoke God the Father?'

This speech produced silence, and all his supporters took up their stand like the brave fighters on warships when the enemy fleet comes into view, ready to shout: 'Now let us fight, victory is surely ours.'

[3] So I began my speech by saying: 'You all know that God came down from heaven and became man, because we read: "The Word was with God and the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh." You know all of you,' and here I looked hard at the Evangelical party, to which the spokesman who had addressed me belonged, 'that in Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary God is man, and man is God.' There was an uproar from the assembly at this, so I said: 'Do you not know this? It is in accordance with the doctrine of your sect called the Formula of Concord; it states this and adds many proofs in support of it.'

Then the spokesman turned to the assembly and asked whether they knew this. They replied: 'We paid too little attention to what that book says about the Person of Christ; but we worked hard at the section on justification by faith alone. Still, if that is what it says, we are content.' Then one who could remember it said: 'Yes, it does say that; and it adds further that Christ's human nature was raised to Divine majesty and all its attributes, and also that Christ is seated in Divine majesty at the right hand of His Father.'

[4] When they heard this, they fell silent. So having got them to agree to this, I said: 'If this is so, is not the Father then the Son, and the Son also the Father?' But since this again offended their ears, I went on: 'Listen to the Lord's actual words, and if you paid no heed to them before, do so now. He said: "The Father and I are one; the Father is in me and I in the Father; Father, all things of mine are yours, and all of yours are mine; He who sees me sees the Father." How can you understand these sayings, except as meaning that the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, and that they are one like soul and body in man, so they are one Person? You will find that this is part of your faith too, if you believe the Athanasian Creed, which says something very much like this. But take from what I have quoted just this one utterance of the Lord: "Father, all things of mine are yours, and all of yours are mine." What does this mean, if not that the Father's Divine belongs to the Son's Human, and the Son's Human to the Father's Divine? Consequently in Christ God is man and man is God, and thus they make one as soul and body make one.

[5] Everyone can say the same things about his soul and body. Each person can say: all things of yours are mine, and all of mine are yours; you are in me and I in you; he who sees me sees you, we are one in person and have one life. The reason is that the soul pervades the whole and every part of the person, for the life of the soul is the life of the body, and is possessed by them in common. It is plain from this that the Father's Divine is the Son's soul, and the Son's Human is the Father's body. Where can a son's soul come from, if not from his father, and where can his body come from, if not from his mother? When we say the Father's Divine we mean the Father Himself, since He and His Divine are the same; this is also one and indivisible. The truth of this is established by the words with which the angel Gabriel addressed Mary: "The power of the Most High will overshadow you, and the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the holy thing that shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God." Shortly before He is called "the Son of the Most High," and elsewhere "the only-begotten Son." You, however, who call Him only the Son of Mary, destroy the idea of His divinity; but the only ones who do this are some of the learned clergy and well-educated laymen, who, when they lift their thoughts above the level of the bodily senses, have in view the enhancement of their reputations. This not only casts a shadow, but actually puts out the light, through which the glory of God comes in.

[6] 'But let us go back to the Lord's Prayer, which says: "Our Father, who art in the heavens, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come." Those of you who are present here understand by these words the Father in His Divine alone; but I understand Him in His Human, and this too is the Father's name. For the Lord said: "Father, glorify your name," that is, your Human. When this happens, the kingdom of God comes. The instruction to use this prayer has been given us for the present time, that is, so that God the Father may be approached through His Human. The Lord also said: "No one comes to the Father except through Me," and the prophet said: "A child is born for us, a Son is given to us, whose name is God, Hero, the everlasting Father;" and elsewhere: "You, Jehovah, are our Father, your name is our Redeemer from of old." There are thousands of other passages where the Lord our Saviour is called Jehovah. This is the true explanation of those words in the Lord's Prayer.'

[7] On finishing this speech I looked at them and noticed that their faces had changed in accordance with the change in their mental state. Some of them supported me and were watching me; some did not, and they turned their faces away. Then I saw on the right a pearly-coloured cloud, and on the left a murky cloud, from both of which rain was falling. The rain from the dark cloud was like a shower in late autumn, that from the other like dew in early springtime. Then suddenly I passed from the spirit into the body, and so returned from the spiritual world into the natural one.

  
/ 853  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

©2024 New Christian Bible Study Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed from newchristianbiblestudy.org