Redemption and Reading the
Heavenly Doctrines
The Rev. William H. Clifford
I
n my daily reading of the Heavenly Doctrines, the Lord nudges me to keep an
eye out for various series. Recently it was given me to see a series concerning
redemption. The series involved the three processes that make up redemption:
• The subjugation of the hells
• The ordering of the heavens
• The establishment of a new church
I was also led to reflect on how this series relates to the giving of the
Heavenly Doctrines, and how it might apply in our personal regeneration.
This series on redemption is treated of in True Christian Religion 115:
THE REAL REDEMPTION WAS THE CONQUEST OF THE HELLS AND THE
ORDERING OF THE HEAVENS, AND PREPARATION BY THIS MEANS FOR A
NEW SPIRITUAL CHURCH.
I can assert with complete certainty that these three events constitute redemption,
since the Lord is today too carrying on the process of redemption, which began
with the accomplishment of the Last Judgment in 1757. This redemptive process
has continued from that time down to the present. The reason is that today the
Second Coming of the Lord is taking place, and a new church is to be established,
something which could not happen unless the conquest of the hells and the
ordering of the heavens had taken place first. Since I have been permitted to witness
all that has happened, I am able to describe how the hells were conquered and how
a new heaven has been founded and arranged, but it would take a whole book to do
so. However, I did reveal how the Last Judgment was carried out, in a small book
[The Last Judgment] published in London in 1758.
[2] Redemption consisted in the conquest of the hells, the ordering of the heavens
and the establishment of a new church, because without them no one could have
been saved. This is their proper order: the hells had first to be conquered, before
a new heaven of angels could be formed, and this had to be formed before a new
church could be established on earth. For people in the world are so linked with the
angels in heaven and the spirits in hell, t hat in the interiors of their minds they are
identified with one party or the other. This subject will be discussed in detail in the
254