The Spirit World Guided Swedenborg
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, widely known in the eighteenth century for his contributions in government, education and science, says that he also had ready access to the spirit world. He tells us that, having finished his dinner one evening, the Lord appeared to him. That night He appeared again and told Swedenborg that he had been chosen to explain to men the spiritual sense of the Scriptures. Whereupon the spirit world opened to his gaze, both heaven and hell and those in them. He did not drop his other pursuits, but religious interests dominated his activities.
In the introduction to his Arcana Cœlestia he says: “It has been granted me, now for several years, to be constantly and uninterruptedly in company with spirits and angels, hearing them converse with each other, and conversing with them.” That in some way he did see and hear things there seems to be little question. The question is, What were they and where did they originate? The good advice of God’s Word is: “Test the inspired expressions to see whether they originate with God.” (1 John 4:1) Because something is supernatural it is not necessarily only for superstitious people, nor is all that is supernatural from God.
The expressions that Swedenborg was inspired to make cover a wide field and many of them are found in some thirty works written by him. Briefly, some of the high lights are set out below. He rejects Christendom’s concept of the trinity. Setting aside the idea of the equality of three members in the Godhead, he replaces it with the teaching of the exclusive divinity of Jesus Christ, which is said to be the keynote of Swedenborg theology. Along with this he teaches that Jehovah God and Jesus Christ are not two Gods or two persons, but one God from different aspects. In referring to Jehovah he means the unapproachable and supreme Divine Being. Christ is termed the Divine Humanity. The book Divine Providence explains it in this way: “God is one in essence and in person. This God is the Lord. The Divinity itself, which is called Jehovah ‘the Father,’ is the Lord from eternity. The Divine Humanity is ‘the Son’ begotten from His Divine from eternity, and born in the world. The proceeding Divinity is ‘the Holy Spirit.’”
A different viewpoint toward the atonement is also presented, so that Christ is said, not to have provided a “ransom price” to be presented to God in order to redeem humanity, but rather to be a champion or exemplar who showed the way for man to overcome the spiritual enemies he confronts.
In a book published by the Swedenborg Foundation, George Trobridge makes the statement: “The Bible is truly the ‘Word of God.”’1 However, Swedenborg teaches that the Scriptures have an inner or spiritual sense, which is not immediately apparent on the surface. Since his work was to make known the “inner sense” of the Scriptures, it is understandable why he defined the “books of the Word” as being only “those which have an internal sense.” Thus the Bible is stripped down to about thirty-four books, instead of the usual sixty-six, according to the listing he gives in his Arcana Cœlestia.
Of those that are accepted such statements as the following are made: “He tells us that the early chapters of Genesis are purely allegorical in character and do not describe the creation of the universe and the history of the first human pair.”1 On this basis he has built up a doctrine of “correspondencies.” “The natural world is an image or mirror of the spiritual world, every object, fact, and phenomenon, representing, or ‘corresponding’ to, some immaterial idea which is its spiritual counterpart.”1
Thus everything on earth is said to correspond with those things in heaven, and even the different heavens of which he speaks are said to correspond with one another. On this idea he bases nearly all his Bible commentary and in it he presents what he terms the inner sense of the Word. The revealing of these things through Emanuel Swedenborg is said to fulfill the second coming of Christ. Not a personal coming, but a coming by means of revelation through Swedenborg of the interior sense of the Word.
His correspondencies are carried through even in other matters. Thus life in heaven is said to be merely a continuation of the natural human existence. “When the body is no longer able to perform its functions in the natural world, a man is said to die. Still the man does not die; he is only separated from the bodily part which was of use to him in the world. The man himself lives. . . . It is plain, then, that when a man dies, he only passes from one world into the other.”2 Swedenborg was fully convinced of the matter, because he himself claims to have spoken with some of his deceased friends.
In this other world one is said to carry on an existence much like the one he enjoyed on earth, but in a spirit form. Thus there is said to be heavenly marriage—a marriage of the minds, that is—which may be a continuation of the marriage union formed on earth. Children, all of whom are automatically said to be saved, are reared by angel women. He speaks of abodes in heaven with bedrooms, parlors, gardens and lawns. Even regular church services are said to be held there.
What are the heaven and hell of Swedenborgianism? Not merely places but also internal conditions. Anyone is free to ascend into heaven, but not all would want to stay, because each one after death goes the way of his love. Those who love good find their place in the society of heaven; those who love evil prefer the society of hell. For that reason he says: “Heaven is in a man; and they who have heaven within themselves, come into heaven. . . . Every angel receives the heaven which is around him according to the heaven which is within him.”2
The same holds true with respect to those bound for hell, so that “a man casts himself into hell, and not the Lord.” This leads to the further teaching that there is no individual in hell who is the Devil, nor is there any individual spirit anywhere else that was once perfect and who became the Devil, because, says Swedenborg, “there is not a single angel in the universal heaven who was originally created such, nor any devil in hell who was created an angel of light and afterwards cast down thither; but all, both in heaven and in hell, are from the human race.”1
WEIGHING THE EVIDENCE
One of Swedenborg’s books is entitled “The True Christian Religion,” and the religion that he taught and claims to have received by revelation from God out of heaven is said to fit that description. Does it? If so, it must conform to the teachings of Christ and to the example set by him. Is an organization that exalts the Son Christ Jesus above the Father Jehovah God following the example of Christ, who said to his Father: “I have glorified you on the earth”? (John 17:4) The inspired psalmist said: “That they may know that thou alone, whose name is Jehovah, art the Most High over all the earth.” (Psalm 83:18, AS) Jesus showed complete agreement with that divinely inspired expression when he said: “The Father is greater than I am.”—John 14:28.
When the foundation collapses, so does the system built upon it. “The foundation stone of the whole system is the doctrine of the supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ,” says the book Swedenborg—Life and Teaching. But that doctrine is not taught in the Bible, which is the truth. With a bad foundation stone, it should not surprise us to find further faulty workmanship in the structure.
Christ tells us that “the Son of man came, not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give his soul a ransom in exchange for many.” (Matt. 20:28) When he instituted the celebration in memorial of his death among his disciples he said: “This means my ‘blood of the covenant’ which is to be poured out in behalf of many for forgiveness of sins.” (Matt. 26:28) The apostle Paul supports the need for this provision, saying: “Unless blood is poured out no forgiveness takes place.” (Heb. 9:22) Can anyone deny these things and still claim to be a Christian? Swedenborg does, claiming that salvation is not based so much on a blood sacrifice as on the good that God has implanted in man.
Minimizing the need of paying attention to God when He speaks to us through his Word, Swedenborg declares: “The Lord provides that there shall be religion everywhere, and in each religion the two essentials of salvation, which are, to acknowledge God, and not to do evil because it is contrary to God.”3 He also says: “The heathen come into heaven with less difficulty than Christians.”2 Then why be a Christian?
No, Jesus did not teach that all religion is of God. To false religionists of his day he said: “You are from your father the Devil.” (John 8:44) Not every religious road, but only a narrow, cramped way leads to life. “Go in through the narrow gate; because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are the ones going in through it; whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones finding it.” (Matt. 7:13, 14) True Christianity heeds the counsel of Christ Jesus.
The Bible sets forth the purpose of Almighty God in creating man and woman, when it says: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is creeping upon the earth.” (Gen. 1:28) It was God’s purpose for man to fill the earth, but Swedenborg’s inspired expression says: “The object of creation was an angelic heaven from the human race.”4 Obviously his inspiration came from another source. Lest someone answer that such a conclusion shows ignorance of the interior sense of the Word in Genesis, let it be noted that even Swedenborg, in Doctrine Concerning the Sacred Scriptures, said: “The doctrine of genuine truth can also be drawn in full from the literal sense of the Word.”
He further betrays the source of his inspiration when he makes the statement that “man has been so created that as to his inward being he cannot die.”5 The plain-spoken Word of God says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23) God’s judgment is that the sinning man “will positively die.” (Gen. 2:17) “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”—Ezek. 18:4, AV.
The ideas set forth by Swedenborg may be fascinating to some persons, but they hold no interest for those who love God. While the group is called “The New Jerusalem descended from God out of heaven,” it has demonstrated that it is not of God, denying his supremacy and rejecting his Word. (Rev. 22:18, 19) Although claiming to be the true Christian religion, it has proved false to that boast by ignoring the teachings of Christ and rejecting his ransom sacrifice. Swedenborg claimed that there is no Devil, but in so doing he blinded himself to danger and fell into the trap. Although perhaps unknowingly, he served the interests of the adversary Satan the Devil by teaching his lie of immortality of the human soul, by distorting God’s purpose regarding man and by setting aside God’s Word.
Regarding those who thus make a show of godly devotion but prove false to its power, God’s Word says: “From these turn away.”—2 Tim. 3:5.
REFERENCES
1 Swedenborg—Life and Teaching, by George Trobridge, pages 112, 129, 137, 179.
2 Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell, by Emanuel Swedenborg, pp. 54, 319, 445, 447, 547, 324.
3 Divine Providence, p. 328.
4 True Christian Religion, pp. 66, 70.
5 Heavenly Doctrine, p. 223.