Heaven Revealed/Chapter 4

by Benjamin Fiske Barrett

IV.

THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF HEAVEN.

FEW terms are of more frequent occurrence in the Gospels, than heaven and the kingdom of heaven. And precisely what they mean, would seem, therefore, to be a matter of some practical importance to every believer of the Gospels. What is heaven, viewed as to its essential nature? Dr. E. H. Sears asks this question near the commencement of his Foregleams of Immortality; and immediately adds:

"We know of no subject so practical as this. The whole business of the present life, with all its discipline of labor, sorrow and joy, is to prepare and ripen us for heaven; and if it shall not do this, life will be a miserable failure. But how shall we prepare for it, unless we know what we are to prepare for? How can we travel, unless we know the point of the compass towards which we are steering?"

The Christian Scriptures are commonly regarded as a revclation from God. They are called, and are believed to be, the Word of God. And for what end was this revelation given? Was it not, primarily, that men might be conducted to heaven?—might become happy denizens of the kingdom of heaven, and thus realize the end for which they were created? If this be so,—if the attainment of heaven be a matter of supreme moment, the very end for which the Lord created us, and would therefore have us strive for unceasingly;—the end for which He came into the world, taught, suffered, died, rose from the sepulchre, and ascended to the Father; the end for which the church, the ministry, the institutions and ordinances of the Gospel were established; the end for which Christians erect houses of worship, and assemble there to hear preaching, unite in prayer and in songs of thanksgiving and praise;—if heaven, we say, be the great end of all this stupendous machinery and these sublime events, then a clear understanding and a well-grounded belief of what heaven is and where it is, would seem to be matters of supreme importance.

Christians have hitherto believed and taught that heaven is a place into which a person may be admitted by an act of immediate Divine mercy. Going to heaven, therefore (if this old and once popular view be accepted) would mean simply to enter the place called heaven, as a man might go to a foreign country, or walk into a cathedral or a king's palace. And if entrance into heaven be from immediate mercy, and those who enter are admitted to its blissful enjoyments, why are not all admitted, whatever be their character? For God must desire the happiness of all, since He is a Being of infinite love. If, therefore, going to heaven means simply going to a place called heaven, and if people are admitted by an act of immediate mercy, then it is difficult to understand why everybody should not go there,—unless one accepts the old Calvinistic dogma of unconditional election, and believes that it is God's eternal purpose and desire that some of his intelligent creatures should be forever excluded from the abodes of bliss.

Now, contrary to the old and commonly received doctrine. Swedenborg teaches that heaven is not a place, but a certain state of the soul—a state of love to the Lord and the neighbor, which is one of spiritual likeness to our Maker. It cannot therefore be located in any region of space. Being purely spiritual and within men, it exists wherever human spirits exist that are in a heavenly state—and nowhere else. To cite the seer's own words:

"It is to be observed that heaven is not in any certain or determinate place, thus not on high according to the vulgar opinion, but it is where the Divine is; that is, with every one and in every one who is in charity and faith, for charity and faith are heaven because they are from the Divine."—A. C, n. 8931.

And speaking of discoursing with the angels on one occasion "when the interior heaven was opened to him," or in other words, when he was brought into a state similar to that of the angels by the opening of the interiors of his own soul, he says:

"Let it be remarked that, although I was in heaven, still I was not out of myself but in the body, for heaven is in man in whatever place; and so, whenever it pleases the Lord, a man may be in heaven and yet not be withdrawn from the body."—A. C, n. 3884.

"The love and wisdom in which the angels are and which constitute heaven, are not theirs but from the Lord, and are indeed the Lord in them. . . . The angels themselves confess that they live from the Lord; and from this it is evident that heaven is conjunction with the Lord."-D. C, n. 28.

"It can in no case be said that heaven is without one, but that it is within him; for every angel receives the heaven which is without him according to the heaven that is within him. This plainly shows how much he is deceived, who believes that to go to heaven is merely to be elevated among the angels, without regard to the quality of one's interior life; thus that heaven may be given to every one from immediate mercy; when yet, unless heaven is within a person, nothing of the heaven without him flows-in or is received."—H. H, n. 54; also 400, 518, 525.

And throughout his voluminous works the same doctrine is everywhere taught: Which is, that heaven is within men, and is to be thought of as a certain quality of life or condition of the soul—as an internal state, and not as an external place. It is a state of spiritual nearness to, or conjunction with, the Lord; and "conjunction with the Lord," we are repeatedly told, "is effected by means of the truths of the Word, and a life according to them." (A. R, n. 883.)

Every individual has some ruling love—a love that continually acts as an impelling force within him, even without his being conscious of its presence. This love is his life. It shapes his thoughts and words, and directs all his activities. The quality of his life, therefore, is that of his ruling love. Oftentimes this love lies deeply concealed, and does not reveal itself to others here on earth. But in the Hereafter all disguises are thrown off, and the interiors are laid open; and whatever had been assumed for the sake of appearance or credit among men, is rejected, and the ruling love is made manifest by being acted out. The individual then becomes the very image of his love—goes where his love leads him, does what his love prompts, secks what his love craves, and is just what his love is, good or bad, according to its quality. If heaven, therefore, be a certain quality of life, then as surely as a man preserves his identity in the Hereafter, or carries his own life (and nothing else) with him into the other world, so surely must he carry his heaven with him if he hopes for an abode among the blessed.

But Swedenborg not only teaches that heaven is a state, but he has clearly revealed the nature of that state, or the kind of life that constitutes heaven. He tells us that love of the Lord and the neighbor is the ruling love of all the angels, and that this love flows into their hearts from the Lord, and is similar, therefore, to the love that He feels and exercises toward all his creatures. It is the Lord's own influent life operating within them, and leading them to love what He loves, and to delight in doing what He loves to have them do. It is the Divine Love received by the angels so as to become in them love of the Lord and of each other. Hence all in heaven are said to dwell in the Lord and the Lord in them; for they all abide in his love, and his love abides in them. Thus they are images and likenesses of the Lord, being conjoined to Him by love. And we may see from this why heaven is said to be a state of conjunction with the Lord; and what is meant by the Lord's own words to his disciples: " Abide in me and I in you." "He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit." If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love." (John xv. 4, 5, 10.) And the beloved apostle says: "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in him." (1 John iv. 16.)

Love of the Lord, then, is the supreme love of all in heaven. But to love the Lord supremely, is not to love Him as a person, but it is to love the divine things which proceed from Him—innocence, justice, sincerity, charity—all the Christian graces; and these are really loved only by those who practise them as religious duties. Accordingly. Swedenborg says:

"To love the Lord is not to love his person, but to love those things that proceed from Him, for these are the Lord with man. Thus it is to love what is itself sincere, what is itself right, what is itself just; and since these things are the Lord, therefore in proportion as a man loves them and acts from them, he loves and acts from the Lord; and the Lord removes from him things insincere and unjust, even as to the very intentions and will."—A. E, n. 973.

Again:

"By loving the Lord is not meant to love Him as a person; for by this love alone man is not conjoined with heaven, but by a love of the divine good and truth which are the Lord in heaven; and these two are not loved by knowing, thinking, understanding, and speaking them, but by willing and doing them because they are commanded by the Lord, and therefore are of use. Nothing is full until it is done, and what is done is the end for the sake of which the love is cherished."—Ibid, n. 1099.

We thus see what is meant by loving the Lord supremely, and how entirely this teaching, which is so often repeated by Swedenborg, agrees with the Lord's own. For He says: "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." (John xiv. 21.) "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." (Ibid, xv. 14.) "This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you " (v. 12). And to love others as the Lord loves us, is not merely to refrain from doing them evil, but to intend and do them good, and seek to promote their highest welfare.

Such is the nature of the love that dwells in the bosom of the angels. The Lord's own love constitutes their breath of life. In the atmosphere of this love, which seeketh not its own but always the good of others, they live and move and have their being. From it they think and speak, and by it all their actions are prompted and controlled. It is the very essence and life of heaven. But truth of corresponding purity and elevation is conjoined with this love in angelic minds, as the sun's light is conjoined with heat, or as the lungs are conjoined with the heart in our bodies. Therefore the angels are as wise as they are good. They act from love, and according to truth which is the everlasting law of love. They obey the divine laws of charity because they love to obey them because—it is their supreme delight to do the will of the Lord.

And the unspeakable bliss of heaven all flows from the love which the angels receive and exercise. And as we can form but a faint conception of the purity and intensity of their love, therefore we can have but a faint conception of their exalted happiness. Swedenborg says the delights and blessedness which they enjoy are beyond the power of language to describe, and such as the natural man cannot conceive of.

"Heaven," he says, "is so full of delights, that, viewed in itself, it is nothing but delight and blessedness. . . The delights are ineffable and likewise innumerable; yet not one can be known or believed by him who is in the mere delight of the body or flesh."—H. H. n. 397, '8.

"Heavenly joy, such as it is in its essence, cannot be described, because it is in the inmosts of the life of the angels. . . It is as if their interiors were wide open and free to receive delight and blessedness which is distributed to every single fibre, and so throughout the whole frame."—Ibid, n. 409.

"How great the delight of heaven is, may appear from this single circumstance, that it is delightful to all there to communicate their delights and blessings to each other. And because all in heaven are of this character, it is obvious how immense is the delight of heaven; for there is in heaven a communication of all with each and of each with all. Such communication flows from the two loves of heaven, which are love to the Lord and love toward the neighbor; and it is the nature of these loves to communicate their delights. Love to the Lord is of this nature, because the Lord's love is the love of communicating all that He has to all his creatures, for He wills the happiness of all; and a similar love is in each of those who love Him, because the Lord is in them."—H. H. n. 399.

Now compare the Old with this New doctrine concerning heaven, and note the contrast. The former teaches that heaven is a place, into which people may be admitted arbitrarily—suddenly—by an act of immediate Divine mercy; the latter says it is a state of life into which people come gradually, and only through voluntary obedience to the laws of that life revealed in the Divine Word. The one teaches that admission into it is granted as a reward for certain acts done or refrained from here on earth; the other, that entrance is effected through the normal opening of the interiors by religious obedience to the God-given laws of the soul. The one presents it as a desirable locality to which the souls of the pious will be transferred when they leave the body; the other, as a certain kind of life that each one must carry with him—obscured though it be, and but partially developed here below. In the light of the Old doctrine, therefore, heaven seems to be an arbitrary gift of God, conditioned, it is true, on the receiver's faith and repentance; while the New doctrine reveals an organic and necessary connection between heaven and earth—between the angel and the man—between the life hereafter and the life here.

Therefore, according to the New doctrine, going to heaven is no obscure or mystical phrase, but one perfectly intelligible to the most ordinary understanding. For if heaven is not a place but a state, it is obvious that entrance into it can be had only by such as enter into the heavenly state. To long and labor and strive for heaven, therefore, is to long and labor and strive for that state of life which is heaven. And that state is one of love to the Lord and the neighbor—the very opposite of man's natural or hereditary state, which is one of supreme self-love. To seek heaven, therefore, is to seek the complete subjugation of our natural love of self and the world, and the exaltation or establishment of the Lord's own love and life in place of it. And this is to lose the old hereditary life, and to find a new life that is far higher and better. "He that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it," saith the Lord.

And now compare the two doctrines—the Old and the New. Which is most rational and which most Scriptural? If this seems doubtful to any mind, we hope in subsequent chapters to remove such doubt. Then look at the two as to their practical tendency—their obvious influence upon life and character. Which is most wholesome, most stimulating, most benign and potent in its operation upon the receiver's mind and heart?