DEATH AND THE RESURRECTION
"I laid me down and slept:
I awaked: for the Lord sustained me."
"Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: for He is not a God of the dead, but of the living; for to Him all are living."
IMMORTAL BY ENDOWMENT
MAN has been so created that as to his inward being he cannot die; for he can believe in God, and also love God, and thus be united to God in faith and love; and to be united to God is to live to eternity.
FROM WORLD TO WORLD
WHEN the body is no longer able to perform its functions in the natural world, a man is said to die. Still the man does not die; he is only separated from the bodily part which was of use to him in the world. The man himself lives. He lives, because he is man by virtue, not of the body, but of the spirit; for it is the spirit in man which thinks; and thought together with affection makes the man. It is plain, then, that when a man dies, he only passes from one world into the other. . . . . . .The spirit of man after separation remains awhile in the body, but not after the motion of the heart has entirely ceased. This takes place with a variation according to the diseased condition of which the man dies. As soon as the motion ceases, the man is resuscitated. This is done by the Lord alone.
UNHURT BY DEATH
WHEN a man passes from the natural world into the spiritual, he takes with him everything that belongs to him as a man except his earthly body. (This he leaves when he dies, nor does he ever resume it.[1]) He is in a body as he was in the natural world; and to all appearance there is no difference. But his body is spiritual, and is therefore separated or purified from things terrestrial. And when what is spiritual touches and sees what is spiritual, it is just the same as when what is natural touches and sees what is natural . . . . . . A human spirit also enjoys every sense, external and internal, which he enjoyed in the world. He sees as before, hears and speaks as before, smells and tastes as before, and feels when he is touched. He also longs, desires, craves, thinks, reflects, is stirred, loves, wills, as he did previously . . . . . . In a word, when a man passes from the one life into the other, or from the one world into the other, it is as though he had passed from one place to another; and he carries with him all that he possesses in himself as a man. It cannot, then, be said, that after death a man has lost anything that really belonged to him. He carries his natural memory with him, too; for he retains all things whatsoever which he has heard, seen, read, learned and thought in the world, from earliest infancy even to the last of life.
THE WORLD OF SPIRITS
EVERY man at death comes first into the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell; and there he passes through his own states, and is prepared either for heaven or for hell according to his life. . . . . . . It is to be observed that the world of spirits is one thing, and the spiritual world another. The spiritual world embraces the world of spirits and heaven and hell.
THE WAY OF ONE'S OWN LOVE
AFTER death every one goes the way of his love—he who is in a good love, to heaven, and he who is in a wicked love, to hell. Nor does he rest until he is in that society where his ruling love is. What is wonderful, every one knows the way.
Every one's state after death is spiritual, which is such that he cannot be anywhere but in the delight of his own love, which he has acquired for himself by his life in the natural world. From this it appears plainly that no one can be let into the delight of heaven who is in the delight of hell . . . . . . This may be still more certainly concluded from the fact that no one is forbidden after death to ascend to heaven. The way is shown him, opportunity is given him, and he is let in. But when one who is in the delight of evil comes into heaven, and breathes in its delight, he begins to be oppressed, and racked at heart, and to feel in a swoon, in which he writhes like a snake put near a fire; and with his face turned away from heaven and toward hell, he flees headlong, nor does he rest until he is in the society of his own love.
It is an abiding truth that every man rises again after death into another life, and presents himself for judgment. This judgment, however, is circumstanced as follows: As soon as his bodily parts grow cold, which takes place after a few days, he is raised by the Lord at the hands of celestial angels who first are with him. If he is such that he cannot be with them, he is received by spiritual angels, and in turn afterwards by good spirits. For all who come into the other life, whoever they may be, are grateful and welcome new-comers. But as every one's desires follow him, he who has led a bad life cannot remain long with angels or good spirits, but in turn separates himself from them, until at length he comes to spirits of a life conforming with the life he had in the world. Then it seems to him as if he were back in the life of the body; his present life being, in fact, a continuation of his past life. With this life his judgment commences. They who have led a bad life in process of time descend into hell; they who have led a good life, are by degrees raised by the Lord into heaven.
- ↑ Heavenly Doctrine, n. 225.