115. (i) 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 to-day 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 to-day 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 published in London in 1758. ¹

[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, that in the interiors of their minds they are identified with one party or the other. This subject will be discussed in detail in the last chapter of this book, dealing with the Ending of the Age, the Lord's Coming and the New Church.

Footnotes:

126. (vi) THE PASSION ON THE CROSS WAS THE LAST TEMPTATION WHICH THE LORD UNDERWENT AS THE GREATEST PROPHET; THIS WAS THE MEANS BY WHICH HE GLORIFIED HIS HUMAN, THAT IS, UNITED IT WITH HIS FATHER'S DIVINE; SO THIS WAS NOT IN ITSELF THE REDEMPTION.

The Lord had two purposes in coming into the world, redemption and the glorification of His Human; and by these He saved both men and angels. These two purposes are quite distinct, but still they are combined in effecting salvation. The nature of redemption was shown in the preceding paragraphs to be a battle against the hells, their subjugation and afterwards the ordering of the heavens. Glorification, however, is the uniting of the Lord's Human with His Father's Divine. This took place by stages and was completed by His passion on the cross. For every person ought for his own part to approach God, and the more nearly he does so, the more closely does God on His side enter into him. It is similar to the building of a church: its construction by human hands must come first, and then afterwards it must be consecrated, and finally prayers must be said for God to be present and unite Himself with its congregation. The reason why the actual union was fully achieved by the passion on the cross is that it was the last temptation which the Lord underwent in the world; and temptations create a link. In temptation it looks as if a person is left to himself, but he is not, since God is then most closely present in his inmost, and secretly gives him support. When therefore anyone is victorious over temptation, he is most inwardly linked with God, and in this case the Lord was most inwardly united with God His Father.

[2] The Lord's being left to Himself, when He suffered on the cross, is evident from His cry then:

O God, why have you abandoned me? [Matthew 27:46]

as well as from these words of the Lord:

No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it back; this charge I received from my Father, John 10:18.

These passages then can prove that the Lord did not suffer in His Divine, but in His Human, and then a most inward and complete union took place. An illustration of this might be the fact that while a person is suffering physical pain, his soul feels nothing but is merely distressed. But when the victory is won, God takes away that distress, wiping it away as one does tears from the eyes.