work and use of the intermediate state is the judgment.
What is the judgment?
Our ideas on this matter, drawn from civil associations, are wholly erroneous. Our mind's eye sees a tribunal, a judge empowered to pass sentence, an array of witnesses, evidence given and substantiated, the scales of justice produced, the balance struck, the sentence pronounced according to law, and finallv executed.
Nothing of this happens in the judgments of the spiritual world. Judgment is the preparation of the soul for heaven or for hell, by the separation of the good from the evil and the true from the false in all the constituent elements of the life and character. It is an unfolding of the ruling love, a revelation of the inmost life and abiding qualities of the spirit. From the good, all the evil and false things derived from their earth-life, adherent but not inherent, are taken away, so that they become thoroughly good and fit for heaven. From the evil, all the apparent goodness and truth they possess, adherent also but not inherent, are taken away, and they become thoroughly evil and can live nowhere but in hell.
Hear the Word:
