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 #926

Study this Passage

  
/ 962  
  

926. To this I will append the following account:

When I was engaged in explaining chapter 20 and thinking about the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, someone appeared to me and asked, "What are you thinking about?"

I said, "About the false prophet."

Then he said, "I will take you down to the place where those people reside who are meant by the false prophet. They are," he said, "the same people as those meant in chapter 13 by the beast from the earth, which had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon."

I followed him, and behold, I saw a crowd of people, and in their midst some priests who had taught that nothing else saves a person but faith, and that works are good, but not for salvation. Yet works, they said, must still be taught from the Word in order to keep the laity, especially the simple, more tightly in bonds of obedience toward their magistrates, and to compel them, as though by religion, thus from a deeper motive, to exercise a moral charity.

[2] One of the priests then, seeing me, said, "Would you like to see our chapel? We have an image representative of our faith there."

I went over and looked, and behold, it was magnificent. And at its center was the image of a woman, dressed in a scarlet garment, holding in her right hand a gold coin, and in her left a string of pearls. Both the chapel and the image, however, were produced by illusions. For spirits in hell can use illusions to represent magnificent things by closing the inner constituents of the mind and opening only its outer ones. But when I noticed that the spirits were such sorcerers, I prayed to the Lord, and suddenly the interiors of my mind were opened; and instead of a magnificent chapel I saw a building filled with cracks from the ceiling to the floor, with nothing in it holding together. And instead of the woman I saw in the building a statue hanging, with a head like that of a dragon, a body like that of a leopard, and feet like those of a bear, being thus like the description of the beast from the sea in the book of Revelation, chapter 13. Moreover, the floor was replaced by a swamp teeming with frogs. And I was told that beneath the swamp was a large hewn stone, under which lay the Word, well hidden.

[3] Seeing these changes, I said to the sorcerer, "Is this your chapel?" And he said it was.

But suddenly then his inner sight was opened too, and he saw the same changes I saw. And seeing them, he cried with a great cry, "What is this? And why did it happen?"

So I said that it was due to light from heaven, which exposes the true character of every form. "And in this case," I told them, "it is the character of your faith that is divorced from any spiritual charity."

Immediately then an eastern wind came and took everything there away; and it also dried up the swamp, and so laid bare the stone under which lay the Word. After that a spring-like warmth wafted over me from heaven, and behold, I saw in that same place a tent, simple in its outward form.

Then some angels who were with me said, "Behold, the tent of Abraham, as it was when the three angels came to him and announced the future birth of Isaac. It looks simple to the eye, but it becomes more and more magnificent in proportion to the influx of light from heaven."

It was given them then to open the heaven inhabited by spiritual angels, who are characterized by wisdom, and owing to the light flowing in from there the tent looked like a temple, like the one in Jerusalem. And when I looked inside, I saw a foundation stone beset with precious stones, under which the Word had been placed. From the precious stones flashed light like that of lightning on the walls, which had on them figures of cherubim, and it bathed them in beautifully variegated colors.

[4] While I was admiring these things, the angels said, "You will see something still more marvelous." And it was given them to open the third heaven, inhabited by celestial angels, who are characterized by love, and then, owing to the light flowing in from there, the temple completely vanished, and in its stead I saw the Lord alone, standing on the foundation stone, which was the Word, in an appearance like that in which John saw Him in chapter 1 of the book of Revelation. But because a reverence then filled the interiors of the angels' minds, which produced in them an urge to fall prostrate upon their faces, suddenly the Lord closed the course of the light from the third heaven and opened the course of the light from the second heaven, and therefore the earlier appearance of a temple returned, and also that of the tent, but in the temple.

These experiences served to illustrate what is meant by the words in this chapter,

Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them (verse 3, no. 882) 1

And by the words,

I saw no temple in (the New Jerusalem), for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple (verse 22, no. 918).

Footnotes:

1. In the original Latin, the word for tent and the word for tabernacle are the same.

  
/ 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

 

Divine Love and Wisdom #351

Study this Passage

  
/ 432  
  

351. People who believe that the Divine operates in every single element of nature can, from the many things which they see in nature, confirm themselves on the side of the Divine, just as well as and even more than those who confirm themselves on the side of nature. For people who confirm themselves on the side of the Divine pay heed to the marvels which they see in the propagations of both plants and animals.

In the propagations of plants, they note how a tiny seed cast into the ground produces a root, by means of the root a stem, and then in succession branches, leaves, flowers and fruits, culminating in new seeds - altogether as though the seed knew the order of progression or the process by which to renew itself. What rational person can suppose that the sun, which is nothing but fire, has this knowledge? Or that it can impart to its heat and its light the power to produce such effects, and in those effects can create marvels and intend a useful result?

Any person having an elevated rational faculty, on seeing and considering these wonders, cannot but think that they issue from one who possesses infinite wisdom, thus from God.

People who acknowledge the Divine also see and think this; but people who do not acknowledge the Divine do not see and think it, because they do not want to. Therefore they allow their rational faculty to descend into their sensual self, which draws all its ideas from the light in which the bodily senses are, and which defends the fallacies of these, saying, "Do you not see the sun accomplishing these effects by its heat and its light? What is something that you do not see? Is it anything?"

[2] People who confirm themselves on the side of the Divine pay heed to the marvels which they see in the propagations of animals - to mention here only those in eggs, as that in them lies the embryo in its seed or inception, with everything it requires to the time it hatches, and moreover with everything that develops after it hatches until it becomes a bird or flying thing in the form of its parent. Also that if one gives attention to the form, it is such that, if one thinks deeply, one cannot help but fall into a state of amazement - seeing, for example, that in the smallest of these creatures as in the largest, indeed in the invisible as in the visible, there are sense organs which serve for sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch; also motor organs, which are muscles, for they fly and walk; as well as viscera surrounding hearts and lungs, which are actuated by brains. That even lowly insects possess such component parts is known from their anatomy as described by certain investigators, most notably by Swammerdam 1 in his Biblia Naturae. 2

[3] People who attribute all things to nature see these wonders, indeed, but they think only that they exist, and say that nature produces them. They say this because they have turned their mind away from thinking about the Divine; and when people who have turned away from thinking about the Divine see wonders in nature, they are unable to think rationally, still less spiritually, but think instead in sensual and material terms. They then think within the confines of nature from the standpoint of nature and not above it, in the way that those do who are in hell. They differ from animals only in their having the power of rationality, that is, in their being able to understand and so think otherwise if they will.

Footnotes:

1. Jan Swammerdam, 1637-1680, Dutch anatomist and entomologist.

2. Published posthumously under Dutch and Latin titles, Bybel der Natuure; of, Historie der insecten... / Biblia Naturae; sive Historia Insectorum... (A Book of Nature; or, History of Insects...), with text in Latin and Dutch in parallel columns, Leyden, 1737 (vol. 1), 1738 (vol. 2).

  
/ 432  
  

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

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