The New View of Hell/Chapter 3
III.
THE NEW VIEW.
WE have seen what the doctrine of hell was, which was generally taught and accepted by Christians a hundred years ago. It was a doctrine quite in agreement with the sensuous appearances of truth in the letter of the Word; and in agreement, therefore, with the gross conceptions of men in a carnal and sensuous state. It taught that hell was, literally, a lake of fire and brimstone;—a place into which the wicked were to be finally cast, not out of mercy to them, or from any consideration of their comfort, improvement, or best welfare, but from a feeling of Divine wrath and vindictiveness. It was the generally accepted belief when Swedenborg wrote, that this fiery lake was created for the express purpose of inflicting upon sinners the most excruciating tortures which Divine ingenuity could invent.
Moreover, according to the doctrine of that period, the Supreme Judge of all the earth took a fiendish delight in casting his rebellious offspring into that fiery gulf, listening to their agonizing shrieks, and gazing on their ceaseless and indescribable sufferings! And no inconsiderable part of the joys of heaven, it was also believed and taught, would spring from a clear view, given to those there, of the dreadful torments of the damned, and from a contemplation of the contrast between the miserable condition of these latter, and their own happy condition in the realms of bliss!
Such was the dreadful doctrine taught from most if not all of the pulpits in Christendom a hundred years ago!—taught for the revealed truth of God!—taught by the professed expounders of the Word of God!—by the acknowledged teachers and guides of the people in matters pertaining to man's immortal life!
Yet intelligent people gravely ask, What need was there of any new or further revelation at the time Swedenborg lived and wrote? Considering how the Word of God was then misunderstood and falsified by its professed expounders—in what fearful darkness the minds of professing Christians were then immersed, not only upon this subject but upon others also pertaining to religion, it would, indeed, have been strange if a new revelation had not then been made.
Nor need we wonder, in view of this horrible doctrine concerning hell, which was commonly taught a hundred years ago for Bible truth (to say nothing of other doctrines equally revolting), that so many in Christian lands should have lost all faith in the Bible as a Divine revelation; and that many others who retain their faith, should have come to deny the existence of any hell whatever in the other world. Among the last and sure results of false teaching, are suspicions, doubts, denials, and finally the total eclipse of all faith.
See how good men—ministers of the gospel even—who have not accepted the rational and heart-cheering truths of the New Dispensation, are troubled even in this our day by what they suppose the Bible to teach in regard to the future state of the wicked. Says the late Rev. Dr. Barnes, one of the most distinguished of the Presbyterian ministers of our country:—
"That any should suffer for ever, lingering on in hopeless despair, and rolling amidst infinite torments without the possibility of alleviation and without end; that since God can save men and will save a part, He has not proposed to save all—these are real, not imaginary, difficulties. . . . My whole soul pants for light and relief on these questions. But I get neither; and in the distress and anguish of my own spirit, I confess that I see no light whatever. I see not one ray to disclose to me why sin came into the world; why the earth is strewn with the dying and the dead; and why man must suffer to all eternity. I have never seen a particle of light thrown on these subjects, that has given a moment's ease to my tortured mind. . . . I confess, when I look on a world of sinners and sufferers—upon death-beds and graveyards—upon the world of woe filled with hosts to suffer for ever; when I see my friends, my family, my people, my fellow-citizens—when I look upon a whole race, all involved in this sin and danger—and when I see the great mass of them wholly unconcerned, and when I feel that God only can save them, and yet He does not do so, I am struck dumb. It is all dark, dark, dark, to my soul, and I cannot disguise it."
How many other good men are there among the Christian ministers of to-day, who, if they would but confess the honest truth, would tell you that they are in just the same darkness and distress that Dr. Barnes here confesses to—if not upon the same subjects, then upon some others no better understood. Yet Dr. Barnes himself, I presume, was so confirmed in all the dogmas of the Presbyterian church, that the light of heaven as it beams out from the luminous pages of Swedenborg, would have seemed to him darkness as thick, perhaps, as that in which he confessed himself to be;—it could hardly have seemed more dense. Verily, "the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not."
Certainly, then, a new revelation concerning the nature of hell, or concerning the condition of the wicked in the great Hereafter, was greatly needed when Swedenborg wrote; and therefore it was to be expected.
Let us now examine the New doctrine on this subject, and see whether it is really worthy of the origin claimed for it; or whether it be as irrational as the Old one which it comes professedly to displace.
According to the new doctrine of the immortal life, the human soul is in the same form as the material body—that is, the human form. It is organized of spiritual substance, as the natural body is of material substance. It is the real individual—man, woman or child. It is that in us which thinks, remembers, reasons, loves. It is endowed with the senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, etc.—far more acute and perfect, too, than the bodily senses. It is not subject to decay or death, but lives on after the natural body dies. When that change which we call death (and which is the death of the body) takes place, the soul passes consciously into the spiritual world. It was there before death, but un-consciously while its outlook was into the realm of nature; just as the body in a state of sleep is, unconsciously, in the natural world; and when it awakes, it becomes fully conscious of its abode here.
While the soul tabernacles in the flesh, its senses are ordinarily closed; but when released from all connection with the body, its senses are all opened. It awakes to a consciousness of its existence in the spiritual world. It is then brought into open and sensible intercourse with the people and objects of that world. Its eyes and ears being opened, it sees and hears other spirits as plainly as we see and hear one another.
And when the body dies, the character of every soul is, and continues to be, essentially the same as it was before death. And every one's character depends on the nature of his supreme or governing purpose—that is, on the character of his ruling love. If he were wise and righteous before death—if he took delight in serving and blessing others, he will be wise and righteous after, will find still greater delight in serving and blessing, and feel a more intense desire to serve and bless. But if he loved himself supremely—if his chief aim in life was to get gain for himself alone, to secure his own ease, comfort and advancement, and promote his own welfare, careless of the welfare and the rights of others, he will be in precisely the same state after death; he will be just as indifferent to the wants, the woes, the welfare and the rights of others as he was before. If he had no genuine love of the Lord and the neighbor before, he will have none after. If meanness, dishonesty, lust, tyranny, hatred, contempt of others in comparison with himself, and selfish greed of gain, were in his heart before, he will be full of these same unclean and hateful vermin after. As it is written: "He that is unjust, will be unjust still; and he that is filthy, will be filthy still; and he that is righteous, will be righteous still; and he that is holy, will be holy still."
Heaven is within the soul; so says the new doctrine. It is essentially a state of life, not a place;—a state of supreme love to the Lord and the neighbor. It consists in the reception and exercise of the Lord's own unselfish love, which for ever seeks not its own, but the welfare and happiness of others. The happiness of heaven results from the exercise of unselfish love. This love is the angels' breath of life; and the purer and more intense it is, the more exalted is their bliss.
We see how well this agrees with the teaching of our Lord. For not only does He tell us that the sum of all which the Law and the Prophets teach, is comprehended in the two great commandments which require us to love the Lord supremely and our neighbor as ourselves, but He says also that "the kingdom of God is within you." And the kingdom of God is the same as the kingdom of heaven. Wherever love—pure, unselfish love—reigns, there the Lord reigns; there his kingdom is established and his laws obeyed.
And as the kingdom of heaven is within, so also (says the New doctrine) is the kingdom of hell. As heaven consists essentially in love to the Lord and the neighbor, which is the love of doing good and serving, so hell consists essentially in the opposite kind of love—in the love of one's own self; and this love is real hatred of the neighbor.
Hell, therefore, is a state of life the very opposite to that of heaven. It is a state in which the love of self has absolute dominion in the heart. This love is the fountain of all other evil loves. It is the primal source of all infernal deeds. When it reigns supreme in the heart, there is no evil thing which a man will not do unless restrained by force, or by fear of loss, suffering or damage of some sort. Hence the Lord says: "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemy"—all the things which defile a man, or render him spiritually unclean.
We, then, where hell is and what it is, according to the New doctrine. It is in the soul, and consists essentially in the supreme love of self which prompts to all infernal deeds. To have hell in the soul, or to be in a state of supreme self-love, is to be in hell; just as having heaven within, or loving the Lord supremely and the neighbor as one's self, is to be in heaven.
Now all men are by natural inheritance more or less selfish. Naturally, therefore, we are all in the low state denoted by hell; for we are dominated more or less absolutely by the love of self. This is a low—a merely animal love; and as our corporeal or animal life unfolds and matures, this love also unfolds and strengthens; so that when we have attained to full maturity, it is usually the strongest—the ruling love. But this is not our true state. It is not the properly human state. It is not the orderly or blissful state for which we were created. It is not the state in which the Lord desires that we should remain, because He desires that all should be happy. Therefore He is in the constant effort to lift us out of our carnal selfish state, and to make us unselfish and loving like Himself. For this end He assumed our natural humanity. For this end He has revealed the laws of our higher or heavenly life. For this end He has shown us very clearly the way to rise out of our natural state of self-love, which is hell, into that higher and nobler state—that state of sweet unselfish love, which is heaven.
This great change (for it is, indeed, a great change), or this passing out of a low, natural, selfish state of life, into one that is higher, richer, nobler—in short, into the truly human state, is spoken of in the Bible as a "resurrection to newness of life;" as a "putting off of the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts," and a "putting on of the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness;" as "passing from death unto life;" as being "born again"—"born from above"—"born of God," without which, we are assured, no one can enter the kingdom of heaven.
"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Now although the Lord desires that we should all pass out of our low or hellish state, into that high and heavenly one which He has made us capable of attaining, although He has told us how we may do so—has made the way very plain—has assumed our nature with all its hereditary and selfish proclivities that He might thereby become to us THE WAY—yet He uses no compulsion. He leaves all in freedom to either remain in their low natural state, which is hell, or to rise out of it into that exalted and unselfish state, which is heaven. He has made known the conditions upon which alone we can rise; and He is ever ready to lend us all needed help. He is continually calling to us and saying. This is the way; walk ye in it. But He does not take hold of us like a policeman, and force us to walk in that way. No one can be forced to heaven for no one can be forced to shun evils as sins, nor to love what is good and true for its own sake. To go to heaven, we must freely comply with the conditions; and the conditions are, that we voluntarily obey the laws of the heavenly life;—that we struggle with and overcome our selfish and evil propensities;—that we deny self, take up our cross, and follow the Lord in the regeneration.
Such, briefly, is the New doctrine concerning hell—where it is, what it is, and how to escape it. Is there anything in it absurd and revolting, as we have seen that there is in the Old? Is there anything here against which enlightened reason utters its emphatic protest?—anything which impugns the wisdom or love of our Heavenly Father?
But how does this doctrine, it will be asked, accord with the teaching of Scripture? It may be reasonable—far more reasonable than the Old doctrine. But is it also Scriptural? This is the question—and an important one it is, too—which next claims and will receive attention.