new church life: november/december 2016
On the face of it, this seems an
outrageous claim. The predictions in
the book of Revelation seem to call
for a whole new world. But John was
seeing a vision, and that vision revealed
a spiritual reality, a revolutionary
transformation of the spiritual
condition of humankind.
The Heavenly Doctrine asserts,
and the New Church believes, that this
revolution took place in 1757 – 259
years ago. One era in the history of the
world came to an end and a whole new
age began. But who noticed? Few, if
any, would have thought that the world
of 1758 was that much different than the world of 1756.
And the short work, the Last Judgment, published in 1758, acknowledges
this:
The Heavenly Doctrine
asserts, and the New
Church believes, that
this revolution took
place in 1757 – 259
years ago. One era in
the history of the world
came to an end and a
whole new age began.
The future state of the world will be just the same as it has been up to now; for the
mighty change which has taken place in the spiritual world does not cause any
change in the external appearance of the natural world. So just as before there
will be politics, peace treaties, alliances and wars, and all the other general and
particular features of society. (Last Judgment 73)
The state of the world would seem the same, but the spiritual state and the
state of the Church would now change, and change dramatically. The passage
continues
The future state of the church, however, will not be the same. It may seem much
the same in outward appearance, but inwardly it will be different. . . . People in the
church will henceforward have more freedom in thinking about matters of faith,
and so about the spiritual matters which have to do with heaven, because of the
restoration of spiritual freedom.
Does this explanation perhaps seem somewhat lame? Does it seem to
make an excuse whereby New Church teaching can evade the fact that no
dramatic change was observable back in 1758?
If our eyes could be opened to the spiritual realities, we would not think
so. If we could see the evidence of the spiritual upheaval that took place, we
would have no doubt. And this raises another radical idea of the Academy.
Many have supposed that the spiritual world – the abode of spirits and angels
– if it really exists at all, is a remote place and will be reached only some time
after we die. But the world view of the Academy was that the spiritual realm
surrounds us constantly and, indeed, affects everything that we think and do.
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