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

 

True Christian Religion #391

Study this Passage

  
/ 853  
  

391. The seventh experience.

I have become aware as the result of conversations in the spiritual world with many laymen and many clergy what desolation of the truth and theological poverty exists in the Christian world at the present time. There is such spiritual famine among the clergy that they hardly know anything beyond the existence of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the fact that faith alone saves. About the Lord Christ they know only the historical facts about Him related in the Gospels. The rest, however, of what either Testament of the Word teaches, as that the Father and He are one, that He is in the Father and the Father in Him, that He has all power in heaven and earth, that it is the Father's will that men should believe in the Son, and that he who believes in Him has everlasting life, and much else - all this is to them as unknown and remote as what lies on the ocean bed, or rather, what lies at the centre of the earth. When these statements are extracted from the Word and read, they stand as if listening but hear nothing. The words do not penetrate deeper into their ears than the sighing of the wind or the beating of a drum. The angels who from time to time are sent out by the Lord to visit the Christian communities in the world of spirits, that is, below heaven, complain bitterly. They say that such is their stupidity and as a result the darkness under which they labour in matters relating to salvation that it is almost like listening to a talking parrot. Even their learned men say that in spiritual matters and those relating to God they do not understand more than so many statues.

[2] An angel once told me of a conversation he had with two clerics, one whose faith was separated from charity and another whose faith was not so separated. With the one whose faith was separated from charity the conversation ran like this.

'Friend, what are you?' 'I am a Christian of the Reformed church,' he replied. 'What is your doctrine and thus your religion?' 'Faith,' he answered. 'What is your faith?' said the angel. 'My faith,' he replied, 'is that God the Father sent the Son to take upon Himself the damnation of the human race, and by this means we are saved.' Then he asked him, 'What more do you know about salvation?' He replied that salvation is achieved by that faith alone. Next he said, 'What do you know about redemption?' He replied that it was accomplished by the passion on the cross, and that Christ's merit is imputed by means of that faith. Next, 'What do you know about regeneration?' He replied that it is the result of that faith. 'Say what you know about love and charity.' He replied that they are the same as that faith. 'Tell me what you think about the Ten Commandments and the remainder of the Word.' He replied that they are contained in that faith. Then he said: 'So you will do nothing?' 'What can I do?' he replied, 'I cannot of myself do any good which is good.' 'Can you,' he said, 'have faith of yourself?' 'I don't enquire into that,' he answered, 'I shall have faith.' Finally he said, 'Do you know anything at all more about salvation?' 'What more is there,' he replied, 'when salvation comes solely by means of that faith?' The angel then said, 'Your answers are like someone playing a single note on the flute; I hear nothing but faith. If you know that and nothing else, you know nothing. Go away and look for your companions.' So he went away and came upon them in a desert where there was no grass. He asked there why this was, and was told it was because they had no church among them.

[3] The angel's conversation with the one whose faith was linked with charity went thus. 'Friend, what are you?' 'I am a Christian of the Reformed church,' he replied. 'What is your doctrine and so your religion?' 'Faith and charity,' he replied. 'These,' said the angel, 'are two.' 'They cannot be separated,' he replied. 'What is faith?' he asked. 'Believing what the Word teaches,' he replied. 'What is charity?' 'Doing what the Word teaches.' 'Have you only believed these things or have you also done them?' 'I have also done them,' he replied. The angel from heaven looked at him and said, 'My friend, come with me and live with us.'

  
/ 853  
  

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #75

Study this Passage

  
/ 535  
  

75. The first account:

When I was once meditating on conjugial love, my mind was seized with a desire to know what that love was like among the people who lived in the golden age, and afterwards what it was like among those who lived in the following ages which are named after silver, copper, and iron. And because I knew that all those people who lived well in those ages are now in heaven, I prayed to the Lord to be allowed to speak with them and be instructed.

Then suddenly an angel stood beside me, and he said, "I have been sent by the Lord to be your guide and companion. First I will guide and accompany you to the people who lived in the first age or period, which is called golden." He also added, "The way to them is difficult. It lies through a dark forest which no one can pass through without being given a guide by the Lord."

[2] I was in the spirit, and so I readied myself for the journey, and we turned our faces to the east. And as we went I saw a mountain, whose height extended beyond the level of the clouds.

We crossed a great desert, and we came to a forest thick with trees of various kinds and dark on account of their density, as the angel had predicted. However, the forest was intersected by many narrow paths, but the angel said they were all winding ways leading astray, and that, unless a traveler's eyes were opened by the Lord to see the olive trees covered with leafy vines and to make his way from olive tree to olive tree, he would wander off into infernal regions which surrounded the forest on each side. "This is what this forest is like," the angel said, "in order to guard the approach, for none but the earliest people dwell on that mountain."

[3] After we entered the forest, our eyes were opened, and here and there we saw olive trees entwined with vines, which had bunches of purplish-blue grapes hanging from them. Moreover, the olive trees were arranged in a continuous series of circles. Consequently we went around and around as each one came to view, until finally we saw a grove of tall cedars, with some eagles on their branches.

Seeing them the angel said, "We are now on the mountain, not far from its summit."

We went on, and lo, beyond the grove, there was a circular field, where male and female lambs were grazing, which were forms representative of the state of innocence and peace of the people who dwelt on the mountain. We crossed this field, and suddenly tents appeared - tent after tent - reaching many thousands in number, in front and on each side, as far as the eye could see.

And the angel said, "We are now in an encampment. Behold the army of the Lord Jehovih! That is what they call themselves and their dwellings. When these most ancient people lived in the world, they dwelled in tents. Therefore they also live in tents now. But let us turn our way southward - where the wiser ones among them are - to find someone to talk with."

[4] As we went, I saw in the distance three boys and three girls sitting at the entrance of one of the tents. But when we drew near, they looked like men and women of average height.

And the angel said, "All the inhabitants of this mountain appear at a distance like little children, because they are in a state of innocence, and early childhood is the way innocence appears."

Seeing us, the men hurried over to us and said, "Where are you from, and how did you get here? Your faces are different from the faces of our mountain."

But the angel answered and told them how we were able to pass through the forest and the reason for our coming.

Hearing this, one of the three men invited us into his tent and led us inside. The man was dressed in a blue-colored robe and a tunic of very white wool. And his wife was dressed in a purple dress, with a blouse underneath of embroidered fine linen.

[5] Then because I had in my thought the desire to learn about the marriages of the most ancient peoples, I looked by turns at the husband and wife, and I observed a seeming unity of their souls in their faces.

So I said, "You two are one."

The man replied, "We are. Her life is in me, and my life is in her. We have two bodies, but one soul. The union between us is like the union of the two tabernacles in the breast which are called the heart and the lungs. She is my heart and I am her lungs. But since when we say heart here we mean love, and when we say lungs we mean wisdom, therefore she is the love of my wisdom, and I am the wisdom of her love. Therefore her love outwardly clothes my wisdom, and my wisdom is inwardly within her love. Consequently, as you have said, the unity of our souls appears in our faces."

[6] Then I asked, "If such is the union between you, are you able to look upon any other woman than your own?"

He replied, "I can, but because my wife is united to my soul, the two of us look together, and then not a trace of lust can enter. For when I look at other men's wives, I look at them through the eyes of my wife, who is the only one I am in love with. And because she, as my wife, can perceive all my inclinations, she acts as an intermediary and directs my thoughts, taking away anything discordant and at the same time inspiring a coldness and horror towards anything unchaste. As a result it is impossible for us here to regard any of our companions' wives with lust - as impossible as it would be to look at the light of our heaven from a state of infernal darkness. We have no mental concept among us, therefore, and not even any word in our speech for the temptations of libidinous love." He could not say free love, because the chastity of their heaven resisted it.

My angel guide then said to me, "You hear, now, the speech of the angels of this heaven, that it is a speech of wisdom, because they speak in terms of causes."

[7] After this I looked around, and seeing that their tent appeared covered with gold, I asked why this was.

The man replied that it was due to the flaming light, which glittered like gold. "It shines and strikes the curtains of our tent," he said, "whenever we are engaged in conversation on the subject of conjugial love. For the heat from our sun, which in its essence is love, then bares itself and tints the light, which in its essence is wisdom. It tints it with its own color, which is golden. This occurs because conjugial love in its origin is the interplay of wisdom and love, for man was born to be a form of wisdom, and woman to be a form of love for the wisdom in a man. From this come the delights of that interplay in conjugial love, and therefore between us and our wives.

"We here have seen, for thousands of years, that those delights become more excellent and exalted in abundance, degree and strength, according to the worship of the Lord Jehovih among us. That heavenly union or that heavenly marriage which exists between love and wisdom infuses itself as a result of that worship."

[8] When he said this, I saw a great light on a hill at the center amid the tents, and I asked where that light was coming from.

The man said, "It is coming from the sanctuary of our tabernacle of worship."

I then inquired whether we might go there, and he said we could. So I went, and I saw a tabernacle which, outside and in, exactly fit the description of the tabernacle which was built for the children of Israel in the wilderness, whose form was shown to Moses on top of Mount Sinai (Exodus 25:40, 26:30). And I asked what there was inside the sanctuary that was giving off so much light.

He answered, "There is a tablet, which bears the inscription, 'The Covenant Between Jehovah and Heaven.'" That was all he said.

[9] Then, because by that time we were getting ready to leave, I asked, "When you lived in the natural world, did any of you live with more than one wife?"

He replied that he did not know one person who did. "For we could not think of having more," he said. "Those who had had such thoughts told us that their states of heavenly bliss instantly receded from the inmost depths of their souls to the outmost parts of their bodies, even into their fingernails, and along with them the virtues of manhood. When others perceived this, they were exiled from our lands."

Having said this, the man hurried to his tent and returned with a pomegranate containing a number of seeds made of gold. He gave it to me and I took it away with me, as a memento to me that we had been with people who had lived in the golden age.

So then, after saying farewell, we departed and returned home.

  
/ 535  
  

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