Apocalypse Explained, volume 1 - Swedenborg Foundation

APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED 176affection. Merely from this it is clear that man has two states, andthat it is the latter state, not the former, that saves him; for manafter death is a spirit; therefore such as he was in the world inrespect to his spirit, such he remains after his departure out of theworld.[6] Moreover, it has been given me to know from muchexperience that the man of the church has these two states. Forafter death, man can be let into either state, and is also actually letinto both. Many of these, when they have been let into the formerstate, have spoken like Christians, and from such speech have beenbelieved by others to be Christians; but as soon as they wereremitted into the latter state, which was the real state of their spiritthey spoke like devilish spirits, and altogether in opposition to whatthey had spoken before (see Heaven and Hell, n. 491–498,499–511).[7] From this it can be seen how the statement is to beunderstood that the Lord has been at this day rejected by thosewithin the church; namely, that although it is held from doctrinethat the Divine of the Lord must be acknowledged and believed inthe same degree as the Divine of the Father, for the doctrine of thechurch teaches that “As is the Father so also is the son, uncreate,infinite, eternal, omnipotent, God, Lord, and neither of themgreater or less, before or after the other” (see the Creed ofAthanasius); yet they do not approach and worship the Lord andhis Divine, but the Divine of the Father; this they do when theypray to the Father to have mercy for the sake of the son; and whenthey say this they do not think at all of the Divine of the Lord, butthey think of his human as separated from the Divine, thus of hishuman as similar to the human of any other man; and then theyalso think not of one God, but of two, or three. To think in thisway of the Lord is to reject him; for by not thinking of his Divineat the same time that they think of his human, by the separationthey thrust out the Divine. Yet these are not two, but one person,and make one as soul and body do.