2. The following are some passages in the Word where it speaks of the end of heaven and earth:
Lift up your eyes to heaven and look on the earth beneath. The heavens will vanish away like smoke and the earth will grow old like a garment. (Isaiah 51:6)
Behold, I am going to create new heavens and a new earth, and the former ones will not be remembered. (Isaiah 65:17)
I will make new heavens and a new earth. (Isaiah 66:22)
The stars of heaven fell to the earth, and heaven receded like a scroll that is rolled up. (Revelation 6:13, 14)
I saw a great throne and the one who sat on it, from whose face earth and heaven fled away. And no place was found for them. (Revelation 20:11)
I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. (Revelation 21:1)
In these passages the “new heaven” does not mean the sky that we see with our eyes but heaven itself, where humankind is gathered in. Ever since the beginning of the Christian church a heaven has been gathered from the whole of humankind. The people in it were not angels, though, but spirits, 1 of various religions. This is the heaven meant by the first heaven that would pass away. There will be further detail about their situation in what follows [§§65-72]. I mention it here only so that the reader may know what is meant by the first heaven that would pass away.
Anyone who thinks with any rational enlightenment can perceive that this is not referring to the sky that has stars in it, the vast firmament of creation, but to heaven spiritually understood, where angels and spirits live.
Footnotes:
1. On the concepts of “angels” and “spirits” in Swedenborg’s works, see note 2 in New Jerusalem 25. [Editors]
