Heaven Revealed/Chapter 8
VIII.
THE SURE WAY TO HEAVEN.
A SUBJECT of transcendent interest and importance,—and this seems as suitable a place as any for its treatment. It is none other, indeed, than an inquiry as to the sure way of attaining the end for which we were created—a state of internal and spiritual conjunction with the Lord; which is the highest and most perfect state that a human being is capable of attaining—a state of unutterable bliss.
We have already shown—we trust with sufficient clearness—that heaven is not a place, but a state of life. And the nature of that state has also been made sufficiently plain. But we are none of us naturally or by inheritance in the state denoted by heaven, but in one quite the opposite; for we are naturally dominated by a supreme love of self, which is the ruling love of those in hell. If we ever reach the kingdom of heaven, therefore, our hereditary state must be wholly changed, and a new state be formed, by a process which the Bible calls regeneration, or a new creation. Thus the old hereditary life of self-love and the love of the world must be cast aside or die, and a new and higher life be received from the Divine Humanity—the life of love to the Lord and the neighbor.
It needs no argument to prove that the state of the natural man is the very opposite to that of heaven. This is well known to all. Look at the character and conduct of men who follow their natural bent, who never think of practising self-denial, but always yield to the promptings of their hereditary inclinations. Do such men live and act like the angels? Do they seek first—that is, as the thing of supreme moment—the kingdom of God and his righteousness? Do they regard their neighbor's good—the good of the community, the state, the church, the Lord's kingdom—as paramount to their own, or as a matter of even equal concern? Do they not, on the contrary, act with sole reference to their own private interests, regardless of the welfare or the rights of their neighbor? Do not the past history and present condition of mankind prove that an absorbing and predominant selfishness is the withering curse of our race? Has it not eaten like a canker into the souls of men, and left its sad and sickening blight on every feature of human society?
And if we look into our own hearts, do we not there learn the same melancholy fact? Do we not find that self-love is naturally our ruling love? Is it not a difficult task—one that requires us to struggle against our natural inclination—to do always the thing which we know to be right in the sight of God?—to obey the revealed laws of neighborly love?—to do to others as we would have them do to us?—to return good for evil, blessing for cursing?—to love, bless, do good to and pray for our enemies? Every one knows that, to do this, often requires much self-denial and self-compulsion, and sometimes a pretty severe internal struggle with "the old man." And this single fact, that the laws of our higher life cannot be obeyed by us without an effort at self-denial sometimes severe and painful, proves that our hereditary life is the opposite of heavenly life.
And the teaching of the Bible, too, agrees with our private experience and the experience and history of our race. The Scripture throughout recognizes man's hereditary state as a perverted, disorderly, fallen state. It represents Him as alienated from God, opposed to his laws, averse to doing his commandments; as spiritually corrupt, defiled, diseased throughout; as dead in trespasses and sins, and utterly unfit for the kingdom of heaven. Therefore the natural love of self must be denied, resisted and overcome. This old hereditary life must be forsaken or lost for the Lord's sake, that is, for the sake of that new and higher life which is his own—his very Self. Agreeable to his own words: "He that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it." (Matt, x. 39.) The natural heart must be re-created in the Divine image and likeness, or rather a new heart (or will) must be formed within and above the old one, before we can reach the heavenly state, or enter into the kingdom of heaven. Therefore the Lord says: "Except a man be born again [literally, born from above], he cannot see the kingdom of God." To be born from above, is to be born of Him who is above all, even the Most High. It is to be spiritually created anew in the image of our Divine Lord and Master. It is to receive from Him those sweet affections, and holy desires, and humble feelings, and noble purposes which belong to all heavenly states of mind, and which come down to us from God out of heaven. All who are thus "born from above," are, as a new creation. Old things are passed away; Paul says, "a new creation. Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new." (2 Cor. v. 17.) And by this inward spiritual renewal they become the true children of God. They receive a continual influx of his divine spirit—the spirit of gentleness, meekness, patience, love, forbearance, forgiveness, and heroic self-sacrifice for others' good. In their thoughts, dispositions and purposes, they resemble their Father in the heavens. They have their Father's name written in their foreheads. Thus Paul writes to the church at Ephesus: "That ye put off . . . the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." (iv. 22-24.)
In like manner Swedenborg, but more full and explicit:
And so, conformably to this doctrine concerning the corrupt and anti-heavenly state of the natural heart, the Bible throughout teaches that a great work is to be done before we can enter the kingdom of heaven. It teaches that we must believe in, look to, and follow after the Lord Jesus Christ; "for without me," He says, "ye can do nothing." It teaches that we must learn and live according to the laws of the heavenly life which He has revealed;—must "hear the Word of God and do it," else we cannot be fit for an abode among the blessed. It insists on the necessity of repentance, self-denial, watchfulness and prayer. Its language is: "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself." "What I say unto you I say unto all. Watch." "Pray without ceasing." It represents the life of those journeying heavenward, as a struggle, a warfare, a ceaseless conflict with the inclinations of the natural man, "the foes of our own household." It says: "Strive [literally, agonise] to enter in through the strait gate." "These [the multitude whom the seer of Patmos beheld 'arrayed in white robes'] are they who came out of great tribulation." And the Lord says: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it." (Matt. xvi. 24, '5.)
Yes: Following in the footsteps of our Divine Master—resisting and overcoming, through his ever-present divine aid, the evil inclinations of our hereditary nature, as He resisted and overcame the evils in his assumed humanity—this is the sure and the only sure way to heaven. And this requires faith, courage, sacrifice, endurance, spiritual conflict and a willingness to give up our own selfish life for the Lord's sake—for the sake, that is, of that higher, purer, diviner life which He is at all times ready and longing to give, and which is Himself. A man's life is his love; and our life is the life we receive by natural inheritance—the life of self-love and love of the world. But this is not our true life. It is not properly human life. True human or spiritual life is the Lord's own life in the soul of man. It is the life of genuine charity—the living and active operation of a love that is quite the opposite of the love of self. This latter love must be denied and overcome before we can receive such love as the angels feel, and which is the Lord's own. Thus we must lose our life for the Lord's sake, else we cannot find that which is our true and heavenly life. Therefore He says that a man must hate his own life, else "he cannot be my disciple." (Luke xiv. 26.)
The apostle Paul also says: "We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." And he exhorts us to "fight the good fight of faith"—pointing, plainly, to that spiritual warfare to be carried on within our own breasts by means of the truths of faith from the Word—a warfare against our natural proprium, or the ruling loves of the natural man. And these truths which are the weapons of our warfare—the weapons wherewith we are to combat our pride, conceit, avarice, selfishness and all other hereditary evils—the same apostle elsewhere calls the "armour of God," and "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." (Eph, vi. 13, 17.)
The Lord also teaches that we are spiritually cleansed—are sanctified and saved, that is, brought out of a hellish and into a heavenly state, by means of the truth. "And for their sakes," He says, "I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy Word is truth." (John xvii. 17, 19.) It is the truth of God's Word which makes manifest our evils, and teaches us how to overcome them. It is the truth, therefore, by means of which we are spiritually washed and purified, and thus saved from sin and its consequences.
But the Bible, we shall be told, teaches that it is the blood of Christ which cleanseth from all sin. And so, indeed, it is. But what spiritual thing does the blood of Christ stand for or signify? It is the symbol of the precious and ever-living truth of the Word. This truth is the Lord's own life-blood which is forever being poured out for the purification and salvation of human souls. This, or the Lord operating through its instrumentality, can cleanse from sin, and clothe our souls in robes of righteousness. Hence that angelic throng which the Revelator beheld arrayed in white, are said to "have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
But we are not spiritually cleansed, or brought into the heavenly state, by simply understanding and believing the truth. Only by doing it—shunning as sins against God the indulgence of those dispositions and feelings which the truth condemns, can the nature of our ruling love be changed. By first compelling ourselves to yield obedience to the requirements of truth, we are brought at last into a state in which obedience is spontaneous and delightful. This is the heavenly state. And then our hearts are open to the influx of the Lord's love which is the life and soul of truth. We then eat his flesh and drink his blood, and He dwells in us and we in Him.
This, then, is the sure way to heaven; for it is the way to pass out of that low, carnal, selfish state in which we all are by inheritance, into that high, spiritual, unselfish state in which the angels are. Nor is any other way possible—any other than this: first learning and then religiously practicing the revealed laws of the heavenly life. This is the teaching of Sacred Scripture as well as of enlightened reason and human experience. Accordingly we read:
"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man who built his house upon a rock. . . . And every one that doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man who built his house upon the sand." (v. 24.)
Jesus saith: "And why call ye me, Lord. Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Luke vi. 46.)
"And He answered and said unto them. My mother and my brethren are these which hear the Word of God and do it." (Luke viii. 21.)
He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." (John xiv. 21.)
"And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." (Rev. xx. 12.)And so throughout the inspired Volume. Again and again are we told that it is only by obeying the voice of the Lord, following after Him, keeping his commandments, learning and doing the truth, that we can arrive at the heavenly state; and that, in the great Hereafter, every one will be judged according to his works.
But it is important to remember that the nature or quality of the works by which we are to be judged, depends on the kind of motive which entered into them as their prompting cause, or which moved us to do them. If the motive was evil or purely selfish, the works themselves were of the same nature, however good they may have been in their outward form. Accordingly Swedenborg says:
But our life's love cannot be speedily changed. We cannot quickly pass from hell to heaven, or from a supremely selfish which is an infernal state, to the opposite or unselfish state which is heavenly. This great change, like all orderly divine processes, is slow and gradual. Accordingly Swedenborg says:
Now is not this teaching amply sustained by the testimony of reason, experience and the Volume of revelation? The upbuilding of the kingdom of heaven in the soul, is a truly divine work, yet one which cannot be performed without our voluntary cooperation. It should, therefore, bear some resemblance to the rest of the Creator's works.
And how does the Divine creative energy display itself throughout the material universe? Why, in every formative process it proceeds gradually. Nothing comes forth full-formed and complete all at once—no, nor very suddenly. All things endowed with life—trees, plants, animals, men—commence from something minute, and advance by slow degrees to their mature state. And trees and animals that are destined to live longest, are always slowest of growth and latest in arriving at maturity. All orderly divine processes are gradual. Our globe itself—so science teaches—was many ages in becoming fitted for the abode of man. The face of nature shorn of its verdure by November's frosts, is gradually renewed by Spring's warm sunshine. The tiny germ within the acorn is gradually developed into the sturdy oak. The infant advances by slow degrees to the full stature of manhood. Must not the new spiritual man, then, advance by a corresponding process to the full stature of angelhood? All analogy proves that a man's ruling love is never suddenly changed.
And the same doctrine agrees with and is confirmed by universal experience. For who does not know from experience that the uprooting of avarice and selfishness from the natural heart, and implanting therein the loves of heaven, is no sudden work? Conviction of sin and conversion (which is simply turning about and facing in the opposite direction) may be sudden. But who ever heard of a man's ruling love (which means his entire character) being suddenly changed from evil to good? -or, of a person passing quickly from an infernal to a heavenly state, and remaining permanently in it? Paul's conversion while on his way to Damascus, was sudden. But were all his evil loves as suddenly subdued, and "the old man" or the natural proprium brought under complete subjection to the Divine? So far from it, we find him many years after his conversion, making this sad but frank confession: "I am carnal, sold under sin. . . . To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. . . . I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me;" and he concludes with the exclamation "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. vii. 14-24.) Which shows that the apostle's state was yet many removes from that of heaven.
And the Scripture confirms the teachings of analogy and experience. Our Saviour as to his humanity, is our pattern. And we read that "He grew, and waxed strong in spirit;" that He "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man" (Luke i. 80; ii. 52)—language which shows that the process of glorification, or the descent of the Divine Life into, and its union with, the human, was gradual. We are told also that "the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed . . . which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." (Matt. xiii. 32.) Again it is compared to seed which, when sown, springs up and unfolds gradually, "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." (Mark iv. 28.) Such passages plainly teach that the heavenly life is acquired not suddenly, but by slow degrees, just as a plant or tree unfolds and matures; and that one proceeds according to the laws of divine order as surely as the other. And the Lord takes care that the seed-germs of the heavenly kingdom shall be early and securely stored up in the interiors of every little child.[1]
Only those, then, can go to heaven, who begin on earth (when of mature years) to develop and strengthen within themselves the life of heaven: Which is done through religious obedience to the laws of that life—by shunning all known evils as sins against God. No others, after they shall have left the material body, will have any desire to go there; nor could they breathe its pure atmosphere, nor endure its light and warmth. They would be as much out of their element in heaven, as a fish is out of his when taken from the water. They would find the sphere of heaven so suffocating as to cause them unutterable anguish. Accordingly Swedenborg says:
Look, now, at the practical tendency of this new doctrine. Accept it as true, then farewell to all reliance on the efficacy of a death-bed repentance. Farewell to the delusive hope of ever reaching heaven through mere belief, or faith alone. The doctrine shows us that no amount of prayers, or tears, or penitent confessions, or pious words uttered on the bed of death or in the felon's cell, can avail to change the ruling love. It reveals the necessity, first, of feeling and acknowledging our utter dependence on the Lord; and second, of yielding a voluntary and implicit obedience to the laws of his kingdom. Thus its tendency is to make people more eager to learn and more careful to obey the revealed laws of the angelic life. Every noble and righteous purpose cherished, every unselfish and brotherly act performed, every self-denying effort put forth in the name of the Lord and in acknowledged dependence on Him for the needed wisdom and strength, is a step on the way to heaven;—something done towards recreating the soul in the Divine likeness, or building it up to "the measure of a man, that is, of the angel."
- ↑ "It would be impossible for any one to live as a man without a germ of innocence, charity and mercy, or something of a similar nature thence derived. . . . This germ man recieves from the Lord during infancy and childhood, as may be seen from the states of infants and children. What he then receives is treasured within him, and is called in the Word a Remnant or Remains, which are of the Lord alone with man, and furnish him with the capacity of becoming truly man on his arrival at adult age." -A. C, n. 1050.