Bible. He was particularly disappointed with his contemporaries’ theories and
interpretations of the Book of Revelation. There had to be more.
In the Preface to Apocalypse Revealed, published in 1766, Emanuel
Swedenborg acknowledged such frustration and offered a whole new insight:
“Many people have toiled at an explanation of the Book of Revelation,
but since the spiritual meaning of the Word has been previously unknown,
they have been unable to see the arcana that lie hidden within it. For only the
spiritual meaning discloses these. Expositors have therefore produced various
conjectures, and most have applied the contents there to circumstances of
empires, mixing in as well some observations regarding matters affecting the
church.”
He adds that this final book of the Word, filled with apocalyptic symbols
and cataclysmic forecasts, “cannot possibly be explained except by the Lord
alone, for every single word in it contains arcana which would never be known
without a singular enlightenment and this revelation.”
We are blessed to have this enlightenment and revelation from the Lord
about the Last Judgment, the Second Coming, and the birth of the New
Church. Much of the rest of the world still is back with Newton, struggling to
find meaning in it all.
With just the literal sense to guide them it is no wonder, as Swedenborg
writes, that “Few nowadays know what the Last Judgment is. They imagine that
it is going to be accompanied by the destruction of the world; and this leads
to conjecture that then the dead will rise up again and appear for judgment,
and the evil are to be cast into hell, and the good rise up to heaven.” (Arcana
Coelestia 2117)
Those working with just the enigma of the literal sense of Revelation are
doomed in their efforts to find true spiritual meaning without real revelation to
guide them, but you have to admire their persistence in searching for answers.
The latest is a book by Billy Hallowell, The Armageddon Code: One Journalist’s
Quest for End-Times Answers.
In a sincere and scholarly attempt to find those answers he interviewed
many theologians – but obviously no New Church ministers. He acknowledges
that whatever it all means it is scary but we have to hope for the eventual
“Rapture” – the Second Coming of Christ.
A Christian reporter notes that people of good will may have many
different ideas about what it all means: “I think for me, it’s the understanding
that we won’t know every detail. We can always agree with Jesus coming back,
but we won’t know every detail. The gaps will be filled in later on when it
happens and we’ll understand it better when we can look back at it.”
How blessed we are to have been given the gift of the new revelation, to
know that the Last Judgment and the Second Coming already have occurred,
407