power in heaven and on earth." What He came to do in His Incarnation He perfectly accomplished, and needed not to do again; nay, because it was a Divine work it is, and can not be repeated. What was needed for the sake of separating the evil from the good, that those who have believed and who do believe in Him may be saved, and that there may be formed of them a New Heaven and a New Church on earth, is such a revelation of divine goodness and truth in the Word as will bring the Lord spiritually present in power and glory.
The Lord, who is the Word, did not, therefore, come to men a second time in person on earth, but by revealing the genuine meaning of His written Word in which divine truth is in its light; and in this He is continually present. This is His Second Coming "in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory;" for the literal sense of the Word is as a cloud, and the Spiritual sense as the glory, by which the Lord as the Son of Man is revealed in all things of the Word.[1] Swedenborg says:
- ↑ Manual of New Church Doctrine, p.
