Our Nature after Death Depends on the Kind of Life We Led in the World (Continued)

What I have said so far, though, is addressed only to our rational thought. In order to present the matter to sensory observation, I should like to add some experiences that may serve to illustrate and support the claims that first, we are our love or intention after death; second, we remain the same forever in regard to our volition or dominant love; third, we come into heaven if our love is heavenly and spiritual, and into hell if our love is carnal and worldly without any heavenly and spiritual dimension; fourth, our faith does not stay with us unless it comes from a heavenly love; and fifth, love in action, and therefore our life, is what remains.

from Heaven and Hell, Sections 478

Our Nature after Death Depends on the Kind of Life We Led in the World (Continued)

There is a dominant love that remains with each of us after death and never changes to eternity. We all have many loves, but they all go back to our dominant love and form a single whole with it, or compose it in the aggregate. All the elements of our volition that agree with our dominant love are called loves because they are loved. There are deeper and more superficial loves, loves that are directly united and loves that are indirectly united; there are closer and more distant ones; there are loves that serve in various ways. Taken all together they make a kind of kingdom. They are actually arranged in this way within us even though we are utterly unaware of their arrangement. However, the arrangement becomes visible to some extent in the other life because the outreach of our thoughts and affections there depends on it. The outreach is into heavenly communities if our dominant love is made up of loves of heaven, but it is into hellish communities if our dominant love is made up of loves of hell.

On the outreach into communities of all the thought and affection of spirits and angels, see the previous chapters on the wisdom of heaven’s angels and on heaven’s form, which determines its gatherings and communications [Sections 265–275, 200–212].

from Heaven and Hell, Section 477

Sections 265-275: 11/24/2019-11/30/2019

Sections 200-212: Published 10/2/2023-10/11/2023

Our Nature after Death Depends on the Kind of Life We Led in the World (Continued)

We should realize as well that we present our whole person in our works and deeds and that our volition and thought, or the love and faith that are our inner constituents, are not complete until they are [embodied] in the deeds and works that are our outer constituents. These latter are in fact the outmost forms in which the former find definition; and without such definitions they are like undifferentiated things that do not yet have any real presence, things that are therefore not yet in us. To think and intend without acting when we can is like a flame sealed in a jar and stifled, or it is like seed sown in the sand that does not grow but dies along with its power to reproduce.

Thinking and intending and doing, though, is like a flame that sheds its light and warmth all around, or like seed sown in the soil, that grows into a tree or a flower and becomes something. Anyone can see that intending and not acting when we can is not really intending, and loving and not doing good when we can is not really loving. It is only thinking that we intend and love; so it is a matter of isolated thought that disintegrates and vanishes. Love and intent are the very soul of the deed or work. It forms its own body in the honest and fair things that we do. This is the sole source of our spiritual body, the body of our spirit; that is, our spiritual body is formed entirely from what we have done out of love or intent (see above, Section 463). In a word, everything of our character and our spirit is [embodied] in our works or deeds.

We may gather from this what is meant by the life that stays with us after death. It is actually our love and our consequent faith, not only in theory but in act as well. So it is our deeds or works because these contain within themselves our whole love and faith.

from Heaven and Hell, Sections 475-476

Section 463: Published 6/3/2023

Our Nature after Death Depends on the Kind of Life We Led in the World (Continued)

We do need to recognize, though, that volition makes us who we are. Thought does so only to the extent that it arises from our volition, while deeds and works come from both. Or in other words, love is what makes us who we are; faith does so only to the extent that it arises from love, and deeds and works come from both. It follows from this that love or intent is the actual person, for the things that come forth belong to the person they come forth from. To come forth is to be produced and presented in a form suited to observation and sight.

We may gather from this what faith is apart from love—no faith at all, only information with no spiritual life in it. The same holds true for deeds apart from love. They are not deeds or works of life at all, only deeds or works of death containing some semblance of life derived from a love of evil and a faith in what is false. This semblance of life is what we call spiritual death.

from Heaven and Hell, Section 474

Our Nature after Death Depends on the Kind of Life We Led in the World (Continued)

Since deeds and works are matters of intention and thought, they are also matters of love and faith to the point that their quality is the quality of their love and faith. That is, it amounts to the same thing whether you talk about our love or about our intentions, whether you talk about our established faith or about our thought, since what we love we also intend, and what we believe we also think. If we love what we believe, we intend it as well and do it to the extent that we can.

Anyone can realize that love and faith dwell within our intentions and thought and not outside them, since intent is what is kindled by love and thought is what is enlightened in matters of faith. This means that only people who can think wisely are enlightened; and depending on their enlightenment they think what is true and intend what is true, they believe what is true and love what is true.

from Heaven and Hell, Section 473

Our Nature after Death Depends on the Kind of Life We Led in the World (Continued)

Works and deeds,” though, does not mean works and deeds solely the way they look in outward form. It also includes their deeper nature. Everyone knows, really, that all our deeds and works come from our intention and thought, for if they did not come from there they would be no more than motions like those of machines or robots. So a deed or work in its own right is simply an effect that derives its soul and life from our volition and thought, even to the point that it is volition and thought in effect, volition and thought in an outward form. It follows, then, that the quality of the volition and thought that cause the deed or work determines the quality of the deed or work. If the thought and intent are good, then the deeds and works are good; but if the thought and intent are evil, then the deeds and works are evil, even though they may look alike in outward form. A thousand people can behave alike—that is, can do the same thing, so much alike that in outward form one can hardly tell the difference. Yet each deed in its own right is unique because it comes from a different intent.

Take for example behaving honestly and fairly with an associate. One person can behave honestly and fairly with someone else in order to seem honest and fair for the sake of self and to gain respect; another person can do the same for the sake of worldly profit; a third for reward and credit; a fourth to curry friendship; a fifth out of fear of the law and loss of reputation and office; a sixth to enlist people in his or her cause, even if it is an evil one; a seventh in order to mislead; and others for still other reasons. But even though all of their deeds look good (for behaving honestly and fairly toward a colleague is good), still they are evil because they are not done for the sake of honesty and fairness, not because these qualities are loved, but for the sake of oneself and the world, because these are loved. The honesty and fairness are servants of this love, like the servants of a household whom their lord demeans and dismisses when they do not serve.

People behave honestly and fairly toward their colleagues in a similar outward form when they are acting from a love of what is honest and fair. Some of them do it because of the truth of faith, or obedience, because it is enjoined in the Word. Some of them do it for the sake of the goodness of faith or conscience, because they are moved by religious feeling. Some of them do it out of the good of thoughtfulness toward their neighbor, because one’s neighbor’s welfare is to be valued. Some of them do it out of the goodness of love for the Lord, because what is good should be done for its own sake; so too what is honest and fair should be done for the sake of honesty and fairness. They love these qualities because they come from the Lord, and because the divine nature that emanates from the Lord is within them. So if we see them in their true essence, they are divine. The deeds or works of these people are inwardly good, so they are outwardly good as well; for as already noted, the nature of deeds and works is entirely determined by the nature of the thought and intent from which they stem, and apart from such thought and intent they are not deeds and works but only lifeless motions.

We may gather from this what is meant by works and deeds in the Word.

from Heaven and Hell, Section 472

Our Nature after Death Depends on the Kind of Life We Led in the World

It does say in many places in the Word that we will be judged and requited according to our deeds and works. I should like to cite a few passages here.

The Human-born One is to come in the glory of the Father with his angels, and then he will render to everyone according to his or her works. (Matthew 16:17)

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. Truly, says the spirit, so that they may rest from their labors, their works follow them. (Revelation 14:13)

I will give to all according to their works. (Revelation 2:23)

I saw the dead, small and great, standing in the presence of God, and books were opened, and the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, according to their works; the sea gave up those who had died in it, and death and hell gave up the people who were in them, and they were all judged according to their works. (Revelation 20:12-13)

See, I am coming; and my reward is with me, and I will give to all according to their works. (Revelation 22:12)

Everyone who hears my words and does them I will compare to a prudent person, but everyone who hears my words and does not do them is like a foolish person. (Matthew 7:24, 26)

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in the heavens. Many people will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied through your name, and through your name cast out demons, and in your name done many powerful deeds?” But then I will confess to them, “I do not recognize you. Get away from me, workers of iniquity.” (Matthew 7:22, 23)

Then you will begin to say, “We have eaten in your presence and drunk, and you have taught in our streets.” But he will say, “I tell you, I do not recognize you, workers of iniquity.” (Luke 13:25–27)

I will repay them according to their work, and according to the deeds of their hands. (Jeremiah 25:14)

Jehovah, whose eyes are open upon all our paths, to give to us all I will visit upon their ways and repay them their works. (Hosea 4:9)

Jehovah deals with us according to our ways and according to our works. (Zechariah 1:6)

Where the Lord is predicting the Last Judgment, he recounts only deeds, and [says] that the people who have done good works will enter eternal life, and that the people who have done evil works will enter damnation (Matthew 25:32–46). There are many other passages as well that deal with our salvation and damnation.

We can see that our outward life consists of our works and deeds, and that the quality of our inner life is manifested through them.

from Heaven and Hell, Sections 471

Our Nature after Death Depends on the Kind of Life We Led in the World

ANY Christian knows from the Word that our life is still with us after death, since it says in many places that we will be judged according to our deeds and works and rewarded accordingly. Further, anyone who thinks on the basis of what is good and from real truth cannot help but see that people who live well enter heaven and people who live evil lives enter hell.

However, people who are intent on evil do not want to believe that their state after death depends on their life in the world. They think rather, especially when their health begins to fail, that heaven is granted to all on the basis of mercy alone no matter how people have lived, and that this depends on a faith that they keep separate from life.

from Heaven and Hell, Section 470

X. The Commandments in General (Continued)

Something shall now be said about how conjunction is effected by means of the commandments of the Decalogue. Man does not conjoin himself to the Lord, but the Lord alone conjoins man to Himself, and this He does by man’s knowing, understanding, willing, and doing these commandments; and when man does them there is conjunction, but if he does not do them he ceases to will them, and when he ceases to will them he ceases also to understand and know them. For what does willing amount to if man when he is able does not do? Is it not a figment of reason? From this it follows that conjunction is effected when a man does the commandments of the Decalogue.

But it has been said that man does not conjoin himself to the Lord, but that the Lord alone conjoins man to Himself, and that conjunction is effected by doing; and from this it follows that it is the Lord in man that does these commandments. But anyone can see that a covenant cannot be entered into and conjunction be effected by it unless there is some return on man’s part, not only in consent but also in acceptance. To this end the Lord has imparted to man a freedom to will and act as if of himself, and such a freedom that man does not know otherwise, when he is thinking about truth and doing good, than that the freedom is in himself and thus from himself. There is this return on man’s part in order that conjunction may be effected. But as this freedom is from the Lord, and continually from Him, man must by all means acknowledge that thinking about and understanding truth and willing and doing good are not from himself, but are from the Lord.

Consequently when man through the last six commandments conjoins himself to the Lord as if of himself, the Lord then conjoins Himself to man through the first three commandments, which are that man must acknowledge God, must believe in the Lord, and must keep His name holy. These man does not believe, however much he may think that he does, unless the evils forbidden in the other table, that is, in the last six commandments, he abstains from as sins. These are the things pertaining to the covenant on the part of the Lord and on the part of man, through which there is reciprocal conjunction, which is that man may be in the Lord and the Lord in man (John 24:20).

It is said by some that he who sins against one commandment of the Decalogue sins also against the rest, thus that he who is guilty of one is guilty of all. It shall be told how far this is in harmony with the truth. When a man transgresses one commandment, assuring himself that it is not a sin, thus offending without fear of God, because he has thus rejected the fear of God he does not fear to transgress the rest of the commandments, although he may not do this in act.

For example, when one does not regard as sins frauds and illicit gains, which in themselves are thefts, neither does he regard as a sin adultery with the wife of another, hating a man even to murder, lying about him, coveting his house and other things belonging to him; for when he rejects from his heart in any one commandment the fear of God he denies that anything is a sin; consequently he is in communion with those who in like manner transgress the other commandments. He is like an infernal spirit who is in a hell of thieves; and although he is not an adulterer, nor a murderer, nor a false witness, yet he is in communion with such, and can be persuaded by them to believe that such things are not evils, and can be led to do them. For he who becomes an infernal spirit through the transgression of one commandment, no longer believes it to be a sin to do anything against God or anything against the neighbor.

But the opposite is true of those who abstain from the evil forbidden in one commandment, and who shun and afterward turn away from it as a sin against God. Because such fear of God, they come into communion with angels of heaven, and are led by the Lord to abstain from the evils forbidden in the other commandments and to shun them, and finally to turn away from them as sins; and if perchance they have sinned against them, yet they repent and thus by degrees are withdrawn from them.

from Spiritual Life and the Word of God

X. The Commandments in General

The commandments of the Decalogue are called the ten words or ten commandments, because “ten” signifies all; consequently the ten words mean all things of the Word, and thus all things of the church in brief.

All things of the Word and all things of the church in brief are meant, because there are in each commandment three interior senses, each sense for its own heaven, for there are three heavens. The first sense is the spiritual moral sense; this is for the first or outmost heaven; the second sense is the celestial spiritual sense, which is for the second or middle heaven; and the third sense is the Divine celestial, which is for the third or inmost heaven. There are thus three internal senses in every least particular of the Word. For from the Lord, who is in things highest, the Word has been sent down in succession through the three heavens even to the earth, and thus has been accommodated to each heaven; and therefore the Word is in each heaven and I may say in each angel in its own sense, and is read by them daily; and there are preachings from it, as on the earth.

For the Word is Divine truth itself, thus Divine wisdom, going forth from the Lord as a sun, and appearing in the heavens as light. Divine truth is the Divine that is called the Holy Spirit, for it not only goes forth from the Lord but it also enlightens man and teaches him, as is said of the Holy Spirit. As the Word in its descent from the Lord has been adapted to the three heavens, and the three heavens are joined together as inmosts are with outmosts through intermediates, so, too, are the three senses of the Word; which shows that the Word is given that by it there may be a conjunction of the heavens with each other, and a conjunction of the heavens with the human race, for whom the sense of the letter is given, which is merely natural and thus the basis of the other three senses. That the ten commandments of the Decalogue are all things of the Word in brief can be seen only from the three senses of those commandments, which are as above stated.

What these three senses in the commandments of the Decalogue are can be seen from the following summary explanation. The first commandment, “Thou shalt not worship other gods beside Me,” involves in the spiritual moral sense that nothing else nor anyone else is to be worshipped as Divine; nothing else, that is, Nature, by attributing to it something Divine of itself; nor anyone else, that is, any vicar of the Lord or any saint. In the celestial spiritual sense it involves that one God only is to be acknowledged, and not several according to their qualities, as the ancients did, and as some heathens do at this day, or according to their works, as Christians do at this day, who make out one God because of creation, another because of redemption, and another because of enlightenment.

This commandment in the Divine celestial sense involves that the Lord alone is to be acknowledged and whorshipped, and a trinity in Him, namely, the Divine itself from eternity, which is meant by the Father, the Divine Human born in time, which is meant by the Son of God, and the Divine that goes forth from both, which is meant by the Holy Spirit. These are the three senses of the first commandment in their order. From this commandment viewed in its threefold sense it is clear that it contains and includes in brief all things that concern the essence of the Divine.

The second commandment, “Thou shalt not profane the name of God,” contains and includes in its three senses all things that concern the quality of the Divine, since “the name of God” signifies His quality, which in its first sense is the Word, doctrine from the Word, and worship of the lips and of the life from doctrine; in its second sense it means the Lord’s kingdom on the earth and the Lord’s kingdom in the heavens; and in its third sense it means the Lord’s Divine Human, for this is the quality of the Divine itself.

In the other commandments there are likewise three internal senses for the three heavens; but these, the Lord willing, will be considered elsewhere.

As the Divine truth united to Divine good goes forth from the Lord as a sun, and by this heaven and the world were made (John 1:1, 3, 10), it follows that it is from this that all things in heaven and in the world have reference to good and to truth and to their conjunction in bringing forth something. These ten commandments contain all things of Divine good and all things of Divine truth, and there is also in them a conjunction of these. But this conjunction is hidden; for it is like the conjunction of love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor, Divine good belonging to love to the Lord, and Divine truth to love toward the neighbor; for when a man lives according to Divine truth, that is, loves his neighbor, the Lord flows in with Divine good and conjoins Himself. For this reason there were two tables on which these ten commandments were written, and they were called a covenant, which signifies conjunction; and afterward they were placed in the ark, not one beside the other, but one above the other, for a testimony of the conjunction between the Lord and man. Upon one table the commandments of love to the Lord were written, and upon the other table the commandments of love toward the neighbor. The commandments of love to the Lord are the first three, and the commandments of love toward the neighbor are the last six; and the fourth commandment, which is “Honor thy father and thy mother,” is the mediating commandment, for in it “father” means the Father in the heavens, and “mother” means the church, which is the neighbor.

from Spiritual Life and the Word of God