Apocalypse Explained (Whitehead) n. 1127

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1127. For strong is the Lord God who judgeth them, signifies through the Last Judgment. This is evident from the signification of "strong is the Lord God who judgeth her," as being the Last Judgment upon them. That the Last Judgment is meant by these words follows from what goes before, for it is said that "in one day her plagues shall come, death, mourning, and famine, and she shall be burned up in fire," which signifies that when they reach their last state, which is when there is no longer any good nor any truth but only evil and falsity from their diabolical love, they will then perish by the Last Judgment. That they did perish by the Last Judgment can he seen in the small work on The Last Judgment and on Babylon Destroyed.

(Continuation respecting the Athanasian Faith and respecting the Lord)

[2] That all things are from the life itself which is God and is Man, can be illustrated by man who was created, in that he is man as to his ultimates, as to his intermediates, and as to his inmosts; for a man who in the world has been merely corporeal and consequently stupid as to his life, appears nevertheless after the rejection of the material body as a man in the spiritual world. A man who as to his life in the world has been merely sensual or natural, thus who has known little about heaven although much about the world, nevertheless after death appears as a man. A man who as to his life in the world has been rational, and has thought rightly from natural light, when after death he becomes a spirit appears as a man. A man who as to his life in the world has been spiritual, when after death he becomes an angel appears as a man, perfect in the measure of his reception of life from the Lord. A man in whom the third degree of life has been opened, thus who as to his life in the world has been a celestial man, when after death he becomes an angel appears as a man in all perfection. [3] The life itself that is in him is the man, whether it be sensual or natural, or rational, or spiritual, or celestial, for so the degrees of life are called. Man in whom these degrees exist is only a recipient. As it is in the least types so it is in the greatest. The whole angelic heaven in every complex is a man. Each heaven by itself, the first, the second, and the third, is a man. Each society in the heavens, greater or less, is a man. Even the church on the earth in general is a man; likewise all assemblages that are called churches are by themselves men. It is said the church, but it is meant all in whom the church is in the complex; thus does the church on the earth appear to the angels of heaven. It so appears because the life that is from the Lord is Man. Life from the Lord is love and wisdom; consequently such as the reception of love and wisdom from the Lord is, such is the man. This shows in the first place that all things have been created from the life that is God and that is Man.


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