118. (ii) BUT FOR THAT REDEMPTION NO PERSON COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED, NOR COULD THE ANGELS HAVE REMAINED UNHARMED.

It must first be stated what redemption is. To redeem means to free from damnation, to reclaim from everlasting death, to snatch from hell, and to release the captives and those in bondage from the hands of the devil. The Lord performed this by conquering the hells and founding a new heaven. The reason why people could not by any other means be saved was that the spiritual world is so closely integrated with the natural world that they are inseparable. This principally affects people's interiors, what is called their souls and minds; those of the good are linked with the souls and minds of angels, those of the wicked with the souls and minds of the spirits of hell. Their union is such that if a person were deprived of them, he would fall lifeless, like a block of wood. Likewise neither could angels and spirits remain in existence, if human beings were taken away from them. This will make it plain why redemption took place in the spiritual world, and why heaven and hell had to be brought into order before a church could be established upon earth. This is clearly stated in Revelation, where it is said that after the creation of a new heaven, the New Jerusalem, which is the new church, came down from that heaven (Revelation 21:1-2).

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.

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