What "Endures to Eternity" (01/20/24)
"What endures to eternity, this is; but what has an end, this relatively is not. What is, the Divine provides; but not what is not, except in so far as it conduces to what is." (Swedenborg, Secrets of
Heaven 10409). To believe and live this statement involves faith in the reality of the human spirit and in its eternal individual existence in the spiritual world. Further, it involves seeking for the spiritual and the eternal in every present state and situation.
[Swedenborg:] "I can testify through many years experience; for I have seen spirits a thousand times, heard them, and spoken with them."...It has been given me to speak with all whom I have known in the life of the body, who have died, and with so many others that I should come short if I reckoned them at an hundred thousand." [In our theology] naturalism and atheism are attributed
to ignorance and the denial of eternal life.
How important, then, is the doctrine of the life after death, and how essential it is to understand that only
eternal things are real! Intellectually this is not so difficult to accept; but to live it is another thing, and yet only those truths which we live become a part of us-make up our living faith.
What causes us to lose faith in eternal life? The Writings give the answer. "External things, which are worldly and corporeal [or bodily] things, occupy and fill the mind to such an extent that a person cannot be elevated into heavenly light. When worldly and corporeal things are as greatly loved as they are at this day, there results only shade concerning spiritual
things." (Swedenborg, Last Judgment 15)
This does not express an unattainable ideal, for it does not mean that we must give up any desire for worldly possessions and forego all corporeal pleasures. These are Divinely provided for our use and delight. What is referred to is an inordinate desire for them-giving them first place in our thoughts and affections. When we do so, we find that the things of the church can become unimportant, insipid, and even boring.
…What is important for us to see is that the eternal is not the future in time; it is the ever present. We will [often] find ourselves thinking of the eternal as a future life in heaven, and in external states this
is necessary; but in reality the kingdom of heaven is within you. It is here, now, all around and within us. Heaven is not a reward and hell a punishment that you can balance, the one against the other, and make your choice as between two things. Heaven is a state freely chosen by you in every moment of time and in every set of circumstances.
Every time you freely choose what is good and true in spiritual life, what is just and right in moral life, and what is fair in civil life, you are seeking the eternal in the temporal. Every time you refuse to cheat in order to win, you are choosing the eternal. Every time you refuse to profit by
some shady or dishonest act, you are choosing the eternal. This choice between the temporal and the eternal is present in every state and act of our lives, no matter how trivial. If we [seek to be] uplifted from spirits who would influence us to ignore these things, we must reflect on eternal life. This truth is given [in the work Secrets of Heaven] - "There is no life in those things which are not of eternal life, or which do not look to eternal life. Life that is not eternal is not
life, but in a brief time perishes. . . . Thus living and being are within those things only which are of the Lord . . . because all being and living to eternity is of Him. By eternal life is meant eternal happiness." (726)
The teaching is most practical. A word is not eternal, but the thought and affection from which it is spoken are. A deed is not eternal, but the love and intention in the deed are; and when the word or deed is a living and real expression of the thought and love, it also is eternal. Therefore our spiritual body is said to be from the honest and just things we do. (Swedenborg, Heaven and Hell 475)
-NCL, Acton 1966 (edited)
