SWEDENBORG'S ESCHATOLOGY

BY THE REV. JOSEPH J. THORNTON, of Glasgow

International Swedenborg Congress, London, July 4 to 8, 1910

IV. THREE LAST JUDGMENTS—GENERAL AND HISTORIC; AND THE MENTAL STATE DESCRIBED AS A "MILLENNIUM."

But no resume of Swedenborg's Eschatology could even approximate to general completeness that did not briefly state his doctrine concerning the THREE LAST JUDGMENTS at the ends of three successive dispensations. They have all become historic.

In his work on The Last Judgment Swedenborg says: "A Last Judgment has been effected upon the inhabitants of this earth twice before, and now a third time" (L. J., 67). This "now" meant the time when he wrote the work named, which was the year 1757, a memorable period, the real character of which was not then known by mankind in our world.

In expounding the Holy Word, according to its divine and internal sense, Swedenborg tells us that the first of these three great and general judgments took place at the end of the Most Ancient Church, the history of which is parabolically embodied in Genesis i.—viii. A Last Judgment is there described as the "flood, by which is represented a vast inundation of suffocating evils in the souls of men. A similar overwhelming of man's spirit, depriving the human race of respiration, would have taken place in a later age if the Lord had not intervened: "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side . . . then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul, then the proud waters had gone over our soul" (Psalm cxxiv. 2, 4, 5). In the case of the profane posterity of the Most Ancient Church, such a flood of diabolical evils did act upon men. Material waters were not meant; and are not to be understood in Genesis vii. and viii. The great truth underlying that parable is this: that when the last times of the first dispensation of religion arrived, the people living under it had become so horribly corrupt, and so profane, that "hardly anything of internal breathing remained; and, when there was none at all in the breast, they were suffocated from self " (Apoc. Exp., 1120). But, among a few of that posterity, the Lord changed the genius of the human race, distinguishing man's intellectual from his voluntary life; thus making it possible for mankind to think and understand independently of their own corrupt self-will; and thence to live according to a conscience formed by Him. The Second or Ancient Church, parabolically described by Noah and his household, was of that changed genius. It extended through much of the Asiatic world, and "was continued among the posterity of Jacob. Its end was when the Lord came into the world. A Last Judgment was then effected by Him upon all who belonged to that Church, from its first institution; and, at the same time, upon the residue of the first Church" (L. J., 46).

Here, again, the doctrine unfolded by Swedenborg is manifestly that of the Lord Himself, who said: "For judgment came I into this world" (John ix. 39); "Now is the judgment of this world: now is the prince of this world cast out" (John xii. 31); "These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace; . . . be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John xvi. 33). As John the Baptist had foretold, the Lord, at His first Advent, thoroughly cleansed His threshing-floor: He gathered His wheat into the garner: and burned the chaff in fire unquenchable (Matt. iii. 12).

When, by that Last Judgment, the Lord had cleared the World of Spirits, removing vast myriads, so that they no longer intercepted the flow of goodness and truth to the souls of men, redemption was accomplished; and, for a short time, our world again enjoyed new gleams of heaven's life in the self-denying love of the "little flock" to whom the Lord was delighted to give His kingdom (Luke xii. 32). The first Christian dispensation was then inaugurated. But its end was foretold, and the future need of yet another general and Last Judgment was made manifest.

The Book of Revelation, given to the early Church, foretold the third great and general Judgment. It again laid the scene of that transaction in the World of Spirits. The Lord had previously described Himself as again coming after "a long time" (Matt. xxv. 19) to reckon with His servants. He said: "Then shall He sit on the throne of His glory; and before Him shall be gathered all the nations; and He shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats" (Matt. xxv. 31, 32). In the same Gospel He say: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a testimony to all the nations, and then shall the end be" (Matt. xxiv. 14). Here, by the "world" is not meant the world of lands, but the Church in it (A. R., 551).

The Judgment foretold by the Lord in the Revelation was not effected on those already saved and in heaven; nor was it effected on those already condemned and in hell (A. R., 866). It was again, as before, a great and general judgment on those who had been permitted to tarry longer than others in the World of Spirits; that is, upon nominal Christians, Mohammedans and Gentiles, who were externally civil and moral, but not interiorly lovers of the Lord and their neighbour. Such persons—making a good external show—were allowed to establish for themselves habitations there; to abuse correspondences; and to increase the number of fictitious or pseudo heavens. They appeared to be angelic, and, for many centuries of the first Christian era, they remained there.

It was on these persons that the Last Judgment foretold in the Revelation was effected. The true heaven, where the Lord reigned, was then His "throne": "great" from the goodness of His Divine Love, active in judgments; and "white" from His Divine Truth with the angels. Of that heaven, represented as a throne, John wrote: "And I saw a great white throne.” By means of His own heaven, the Lord dispersed the fictitious heavens that had been established in the World of Spirits. The interior evils of those who dwelt in them were laid open to His light, as opened "books." From His face, that earth, and those fictitious heavens "fled away, and there was no place found for them" (Rev. xx. 11).

Swedenborg tells us that this Last Judgment, executed in the eighteenth century of our own Christian era, "was effected in the following order: first, upon those of the Papal religion; then upon the Mohammedans; afterwards upon the Gentiles; and, lastly, upon the Reformed" (L. J., 47). It took place in the year A.D. 1757; and of its actual execution, character, and order he was made the prepared witness.

One of the preliminary provisions made by the Lord for the safety and final exaltation of His faithful ones—a provision made before the time of the Last Judgment, is parabolically described in Rev. xx. by "a thousand years," during which they were preserved from communication with, and from contamination by, the seductive spirits then infesting the World of Spirits. A certain spiritual state was superinduced, in which the evil were separated, while the Lord led His faithful ones into the New Christian Heaven. Indeed, the Last Judgment was itself delayed, till those who had been faithful could be brought into blessed conjunction with the Lord, and with His heaven; and, in the meantime, He protected them; though they had been hated, abused, and rejected, because they had acknowledged the Deity of His Humanity, and had lived according to the commandments of His Word (A. R., 325). But, in the spiritual world, time, as measured by the revolutions of planets, has no place. In the other world there is no orbit of the earth round a natural sun. The Apostle Peter says: "Forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years" (2 Pet. iii. 8). The Millennium, therefore, was not a prolonged time, but a part of the Lord's spiritual provision for His faithful ones, prior to the Last Judgment in the eighteenth century. God's "thousands" are not measured time; and this thousand represented a quality in the state of the faithful. That quality, with all that it involved, was an indispensable preparation preceding the Judgment itself.  It existed because the Divine was with them.

[References, other than from the Holy Scriptures referred to in this article, are from the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth century scientist biography.  Swedenborg penned thirty-five volumes from things he heard and saw in the spiritual world for a period of more than twenty-five years.  This material is available online or in literature form. If I can be of assistance, feel free to contact me.]