Last Judgement #28 [Invitation to the New Church]

e-mail ^ | 1758 | Emmanuel Swedenborg

[DaveMSmith]

Last Judgment 28

V. THE LAST JUDGMENT IS TO BE WHERE ALL ARE TOGETHER, AND SO IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD, NOT ON EARTH

The general belief about the Last Judgment is that the Lord accompanied by angels will appear in glory in the clouds of heaven, and He will then raise up from their graves all who have ever lived from the beginning of creation, clothe their souls with a body, and, when they have been summoned to meet, judge them, sending those who have lived good lives to everlasting life or heaven, and those who lived wicked lives to everlasting death or hell.

The churches have taken this belief from the literal sense of the Word, and there was no possibility of removing it so long as it remained unknown that everything mentioned in the Word has a spiritual sense; and this sense is the real Word, the literal sense serving as its basis or foundation. Without this kind of literal sense the Word could not have been Divine, and have served both heaven and the world as a means of instruction on how to live and what to believe, and as a means of conjunction. So if anyone knows the spiritual things corresponding to natural things in the Word, he can know that the Lord's coming in the clouds of heaven does not mean His appearance there, but His appearance in the Word. The Lord is the Word, because He is Divine truth. The clouds of heaven in which He is to come are the literal sense of the Word, and the glory is its spiritual sense. The angels are heaven, from which He appears, and they are also the Lord as regards Divine truths.# This makes plain the meaning of these words, namely, that when the church comes to an end the Lord will open up the spiritual sense of the Word, and thus reveal Divine truth such as it is in itself. This will be a sign that the Last Judgment is at hand.

That there is a spiritual sense within each thing and expression in the Word, and what it is may be seen in the Arcana Coelestia. This book expounds in full detail the contents of Genesis and Exodus in accordance with their spiritual sense. Some selected passages dealing with the Word and its spiritual sense may be found in the small work About the White Horse described in Revelation.

# The Lord is the Word, because He is Divine truth in heaven (AC 2533, 2813, 2859, 2894, 3397, 3712). The Lord is the Word because the Word comes from Him and is about Him (AC 2859). It is about nothing but the Lord, especially in its inmost sense about the glorification of His Humanity, so that the Lord Himself is contained in it (AC 1873, 9357). The Lord's coming is His presence in the Word and the revelation of this (AC 3900, 4060). A cloud in the Word means the letter of the Word, or its literal meaning (AC 4060, 4391, 5922, 6343, 6752, 8106, 8781, 9430, 10551, 10574). Glory in the Word means Divine truth such as it is in heaven and in the spiritual sense (AC 4809, 5922, 8267, 8427, 9429, 10574). Angels in the Word mean Divine truths coming from the Lord, since angels are the means by which they are received, and they do not utter them of themselves but from the Lord (AC 1925, 2821, 3039, 4085, 4295, 4402, 6280, 8192, 8301). The trumpets and horns then blown by angels mean Divine truths in heaven and revealed from heaven (AC 8815, 8823, 8915).

[Natural Law]

"Unless the words in another language are very common, e.g. ad hominem - then include an English translation."

I'll try to follow all of the rules, even the dumb ones. ;-)

[boatbums]

Two words...plausible deniability. ;o)

[boatbums]

Are you asserting your interpretations are infallible?

Still with the trick questions? If the answer is, yes, you will ridicule and deny it. If he says, no, you will say, then we don't have to listen to you. The Pharisees tried the same kind of things with Jesus.

[boatbums]

A pope has only spoken "ex cathedra" two times. It was first formally invoked in 1854 by Pope Pius IX with the declaration of the Immaculate Conception. The second time was by Pope Pius XII when he affirmed the Assumption of Mary into Heaven in 1950.

Imagine that! Saving that special privileged dispensation of EX-CATHEDRA infallibility for two dogmas and they are both UNSCRIPTURAL!!!

[Natural Law]

"Still with the trick questions?"

It isn't a trick question at all, it merely points out the vacuousness of the foundations of the reformation. Ultimately, you have to admit that everyone else's interpretations are no better or worse than YOPIS, including that of every Catholic.

[Natural Law]

"Latin is a dead language."

That is the beauty of it and why it is also the language of law and science. Because Latin is dead it no longer changes and evolves. Unlike English, Greek, and even now Hebrew, its meanings are fixed permanently in time. Whoo hoo.

[Natural Law]

"Imagine that! Saving that special privileged dispensation of EX-CATHEDRA infallibility for two dogmas and they are both UNSCRIPTURAL!!!"

Are you speaking infallibly?

[boatbums]

It isn't a trick question at all, it merely points out the vacuousness of the foundations of the reformation. Ultimately, you have to admit that everyone else's interpretations are no better or worse than YOPIS, including that of every Catholic.

I see it as just a way to make anyone's understanding of Scripture purely existential. When you reduce it to that, one is no more "correct" than another. In fact, it must assume there is no correct way. Knowing where you are probably trying to drive this point to is in accepting that there MUST be only one "infallible" interpreter and it is the one you have insisted is the only divinely entitled one - your Magesterium. I think you have overplayed your hand.

[boatbums]

Are you speaking infallibly?

I can truthfully say that both of those dogmas are unscriptural, yes.

[Cronos]

1 Eph can be used for talking of predestination of the elect, but not of God pre-damning people to hell

The latter construct is purely a Calvinist one that is rejected by Lutherans, Pentecostals, Anglicans, Methodists and many Baptists etc. as being one that rejects the idea of a loving Christian God and creates a calvingod who pre-damns people to hell and pre-programs them to only commit evil

hence this is a calvingod who makes a robot (who has no free will), pre-programs them to do evil (note: the robot without free will does no evil, it is the programmer who has in a way done it), pre-chooses some to go to hell and then at the end laughs and sends this robot to everlasting torment.

[Cronos]

Ezekiel 33:11-16

11Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
12Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression: as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth.
13When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it.
14Again, when I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right;
15If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die.
16None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him: he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live.

[Elsie]

Isnt this the guy Joey Smith borrowed from ???

Wellllll...

He 'borrowed' from a LOT of places,
but they ALL got it from ME to begin with!

[Elsie]

Remember; institutions can be tempted as well!

Genesis 3:4-5
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman committee. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

[HarleyD]

The filioque is simply and completely unacceptable as a change to the Creed or the theology of The Church as expressed in the Creed, absent an ecumenical council making the change. As Kosta and I have said on many occasions here, unless Rome believes the exact same things as we do, there will be no communion among our bishops and theirs.

Then what this priest seems to be saying is in like mind with what you and Kosta is saying. Here is what the priest states again...

To this day, the Orthodox Church stands firm on the use of the Creed in its original form as declared at the first three Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church. .... It was this inclusion into the Creed that had so much bearing upon the eventual separation of the Roman Church 1054 AD, and, sadly, it is its continual use that proves to be such a major obstacle in any talks of reunion.” -Greek Orthodox Priest view on the Nicene Creed

Now what precisely is different about what this pedestrian priest states and what you stated above? I see absolutely no difference.

I am under no authority to "submit" myself to the teaching of any priest except when he, as the representative of the bishop, teaches the dogma or canonical discipline of The Church.

If I understand your position, I'm not sure that I see any difference in a Protestant church and a Catholic/Orthodox church on the matter of authority. If I were a member of a Baptist church, when I join the church there are certain things that I submit to in joining the Baptists. Depending on which Baptist group I belong to determines what are the "core" beliefs. A Southern Baptist is significantly different than a Freewill Baptist. If I went into either of these Baptist churches telling them I don't believe in the rapture, some might raise their eyebrows but that would be the extent of it. However, I can assure you that if I asked to have a statue of Mary wheeled in so that I could venerate and say my "Hail Mary's" before it, both the Southern Baptists and the Freewill Baptists would toss me out the door.

In the first case no one cares (for the most part) because there is no written doctrine on the rapture (some do include this in their doctrinal statements). On the other hand, wheeling a statue of Mary into the church would violate certain core beliefs held by all Protestants. The only way this would be allow is if all Protestants bend their position to have statues of the Virgin Mary prominently displayed in the lobby.

With regards to the filique, based upon your comments, someone will have to bend their position on the Nicene Creed, either the Orthodox or Rome. That means that someone will have to be willing to modify a core piece of doctrine. This isn't unlike allowing homosexuals to serve as priests/pastors in churches today. The church can only bend so far before it breaks.

[Elsie]

Swedenborg:   ( http://www.watchman.org/profile/swedenborgpro.htm )

---

He sought truth by way of meditations and “systematically opened his consciousness to inner influences.”

Through opening himself up in this manner, Swedenborg was contacted by a being who claimed to be Jesus Christ.

 

HMMmm...

 

 

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/js_h/1/15#15

 

 

15 After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was ^aseized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick ^bdarkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.

16 But, exerting all my powers to ^acall upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into ^bdespair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of ^clight exactly over my head, above the brightness of the ^dsun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.

17 It no sooner appeared than I found myself ^adelivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I ^bsaw two ^cPersonages, whose brightness and ^dglory defy all description, ^estanding above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My ^fBeloved ^gSon. Hear Him!

(Compare line 15 to alien abduction experiences...)

[Elsie]

Elsie, had you not come into the conversation....

...there would be a series lack of humor and sarcasm in this thread.

[Elsie]

I might suggest turning on your television during televangelist hour.

Oh!

THOSE folks!

I thought your said PASTORs!

[Elsie]

Is the RM also unlettered in the languages of Christain theology and likewise prone to jump into the middle of online conversations, thus missing the nature and content of the conversation?

GollY

The adults were talking and the kids have pestered them!

[Elsie]

...condescending at the very least, haughty and arrogant at the worst.

Why are all the kitchen help in the Great Room, haranging the invited guests?

[Elsie]

You're just saying that because Greek is the first language of the Church.

Damn!

All that money wasted on my Aramaic lessons!