Eternal Life

The next world is all around us, but invisible to the eyes of our physical body.

• And being questioned by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, He answered them and said, The kingdom of God comes not with observation. Neither shall they tell you, Lo here! or, Lo there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:20-21)
• And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see. Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (II Kings 6:17)
• Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world; if My kingdom was of this world, then would My servants strive that I should not be delivered up to the Jews. (John 18:36)
• That man is as much a man after death as before, although he is not then visible to the eyes of the material body, can be seen from the appearance of the angels to Abraham, Hagar, Gideon, Daniel, and some of the prophets, also in the Lord's sepulchre, and frequently afterwards to John as related in the Apocalypse; but especially from the Lord Himself, who showed by touch and by eating that He was a Man, and yet became invisible to the eyes of His disciples. Who can be so foolish as not to acknowledge that although He was invisible He was just as much a Man? His disciples saw Him because the eyes of their spirits were then opened; and when these are opened, the things of the spiritual world appear as clearly as those of the natural world. (True Christian Religion §793) Read more.
  • The difference between man in the natural world and man in the spiritual world is, that man in the spiritual world is clothed with a substantial body, but man in the natural world with a material body, within which is his substantial body; and the substantial man sees the substantial man just as clearly as the material man sees the material. But the substantial man cannot see the material man, nor the material man the substantial, because of the difference between what is material and what is substantial, the nature of which difference can be defined, but not in few words. (True Christian Religion §793)
• Every man, so long as he is living in the world, walks midway between heaven and hell, and is thereby in equilibrium, and thus in freedom of choice either to look upwards to God or downwards to hell. If he looks upwards to God he acknowledges that all wisdom is from God, and in spirit he is actually with the angels in heaven; while he who looks downward (as everyone does who is in falsities from evil) is in spirit actually with the devils in hell. (True Christian Religion §69:2) Read more.
  • It should be known that in outward appearance the spiritual world is just like the natural world. One sees there lands, mountains, hills, valleys, plains, fields, lakes, rivers, and springs, just as in the natural world, thus all the phenomena belonging to the mineral kingdom. One sees also parks, gardens, groves, and forests, in which are found trees and bushes of every kind, with fruits and seeds, and plants, flowers, herbs, and grasses, thus all the phenomena belonging to the plant kingdom. One sees animals, birds, and fish of every kind, thus all the phenomena belonging to the animal kingdom. A person there is an angel or spirit. This much is premised in order to make it known that the universe of the spiritual world is just like the universe of the natural world, the only difference being that the phenomena which exist there are not fixed and set like phenomena in the natural world, because nothing there is natural, but everything spiritual. (Divine Love and Wisdom §321)
• Suggested Reading: Heaven and Hell §432-444

Life continues, immediately after death of the physical body.

• And Jesus said to [the repentant thief on the cross], Amen, I say to thee, today thou shalt be with Me in paradise. (Luke 23:43)
• After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight. (Hosea 6:2)
• When the body is no longer able to perform the bodily functions in the natural world that correspond to the spirit's thoughts and affections, which the spirit has from the spiritual world, man is said to die. This takes place when the respiration of the lungs and the beatings of the heart cease. But the man does not die; he is merely separated from the bodily part that was of use to him in the world, while the man himself continues to live. It is said that the man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in man, and thought with affection is what constitutes man. Evidently, then, the death of man is merely his passing from one world into another. (Heaven and Hell §445)
• It is this continuation of life which is meant by Resurrection. The reason why men believe that they will not rise again until the Last Judgment, when also every visible thing of the world will perish, is that they have not understood the Word, and that people whose thought does not rise above the level of the senses place the very life itself in the body, and believe that unless this were to live again it would be all over with man. (Arcana Coelestia §10595)
• Suggested Reading: The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine §223-228, Conjugial Love §28-40

People live as complete human beings after death.

• Then He says to Thomas, Bring here thy finger, and see My hands, and bring thy hand and thrust it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.
  
  And Thomas answered and said to Him, My Lord and my God.
  
  Jesus said to him, Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed; blessed are they who have not seen, and have believed. (John 20:27-29)
• But while they yet believed not for joy, and marveled, He said to them, Have you here any food? And they gave Him a part of a broiled fish, and of a honeycomb. And taking it, He did eat before them. (Luke 24:41-43).
• So also is the resurrection of the dead.  It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.  It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.  It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.  It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.  There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44)
• Who cannot see in accord with reason, if he is willing to see, that a person after death is not a bit of breath, of which he has no other idea than that it is like a puff of wind, or like air or ether, which is or in which is the person's soul, longing and waiting for union with its body so that it may enjoy sensations and the pleasures of the senses as it did before in the world? Who cannot see that if this were the case with a person after death, his condition would be worse than the condition of fishes, birds and animals of the earth, whose souls do not live on and so do not exist in a state of such anxious suspense from longing and waiting? (Conjugial Love §29) Read more.
  • If a person after death were such a bit of breath and thus a puff of wind, either he would then be flitting around the universe, or, according to the traditions of some, he would be kept in some sort of nether world, or as the church fathers call it, in limbo, until the Last Judgment.
    
    Who using his reason cannot conclude accordingly that people who have lived from the beginning of creation - a period reckoned at six thousand years - would still be in the same state of suspense, and in a progressively more anxious state of suspense, since all waiting with desire produces anxious suspense and with the passage of time increases it. And would not one conclude accordingly that they either must still be flitting around the universe or are being kept shut up in limbo, and so are in extreme misery? This would include Adam and his wife, likewise Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and likewise all the rest from that time.
    
    According to this line of thinking, nothing would be more lamentable than to be born a human being.
    
    But the opposite has been provided by the Lord, who is Jehovah from eternity and the Creator of the universe. He has provided that the condition of a person who conjoins himself with Him by living according to His commandments be more blessed and happy after death than his condition before it in the world, and that it be more blessed and happy for the reason that the person is then spiritual, and a spiritual person feels and experiences spiritual delight, which is superior to natural delight, because it exceeds it a thousand times. (Conjugial Love §29)
• It has been proved to me by manifold experience that when man passes from the natural world into the spiritual, as he does when he dies, he carries with him all his things, that is, those things that belong to him as a man, except his earthly body. For when man enters the spiritual world or the life after death, he is in a body as he was in the world, with no apparent difference, since he neither sees nor feels any difference. But his body is spiritual, and thus separated or purified from all that is earthly; and when what is spiritual touches and sees what is spiritual, it is just the same as when what is natural touches and sees what is natural. So when a man has become a spirit he does not know otherwise than that he is in his own body in which he had been in the world and thus does not know that he has died. (Heaven and Hell §461) Read more.
  • Moreover, the man-spirit rejoices in every sense, both external and internal, that he enjoyed in the world; he sees as before, he hears and speaks as before, smells and tastes, and when touched, he feels the touch as before; he also strives, desires, longs for, thinks, reflects, is affected, loves, wills, as before; and one who is delighted with studies, reads and writes as before. In a word, when a man passes from one life into the other, or from one world into the other, it is like passing from one place into another, carrying with him all things that he possesses in himself as a man; so that it cannot be said that after death, which is only the death of the earthly body, the man will have lost anything of his own. (Heaven and Hell §461:2)
• A male is then still a male, and a female still a female. Since a person lives as a person after death, and people are male and female, and since it is one thing to be masculine and another to be feminine, with the two qualities being so different that one cannot be converted into the other, it follows that after death a male still lives as a male and a female still lives as a female, each of them being a spiritual person. (Conjugial Love §32) Read more.
  • Married couples enjoy the same intimate relations with each other as in the world, only more delightful and blessed, but without begetting children. Instead of or to take the place of begetting children, they experience a spiritual procreation, which is one of love and wisdom. Married couples enjoy the same intimate relations as in the world for the reason that after death a male is still a male and a female is still a female, and an inclination to conjunction has been implanted in each of the sexes from creation. In the human being, moreover, this inclination is an inclination of the person's spirit, and of the body as a result of his spirit.
    
    After death, therefore, when a person becomes a spirit, the same mutual inclination continues, and this would not be possible without a continuation of the same relations. For people are people as they were before, and nothing is missing from the male, and nothing from the female. They are the same as they were before in form, likewise in their affections and thoughts.
    
    What other conclusion follows from this, then, but that they have the same intimate relations? And because conjugial love is chaste, pure and sacred, that their intimate relations are also full and complete? (Conjugial Love §51)
    • Suggested Reading: Conjugial Love §44
• Suggested Reading: Conjugial Love §44

The next world has three separate parts: heaven, hell, and the world of spirits.

• But Abraham said, Child, remember that thou didst receive thy good things in thy life, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, but thou art grieved. And besides all these things, between us and you a great gulf is fixed, so that they who desire to cross over from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass from thence to us. (Luke 16:25-26)
• All who are in the sepulchers… shall come forth; they who have done good things, to the resurrection of life; but they who have committed evil things, to the resurrection of judgment. (John 5:28-29)
• The world of spirits is not heaven, nor is it hell, but it is the intermediate place or state between the two. For to that place man comes at first after death, and then, after a certain time, he is either raised up into heaven or cast down into hell, in accord with his life in the world. (Heaven and Hell §421)
• The world of spirits is an intermediate place between heaven and hell and also an intermediate state of the man after death. That it is an intermediate place, has been clear to me from the fact that the hells are below it and the heavens above. Also it is in an intermediate state, since, so long as man is in it, he is not yet either in heaven or in hell. The state of heaven with man is the conjunction of good and truth with him; and the state of hell is the conjunction of evil and falsity with him. Whenever good with a man-spirit has been conjoined to truth he comes into heaven, because that conjunction, as has been said, is heaven with him; but whenever evil with a man-spirit is conjoined to falsity he comes into hell, because that conjunction is hell with him. (Heaven and Hell §422)
• From hell, falsity from evil continually exhales, and from heaven, truth from good. It is this spiritual equilibrium that causes man to think and will in freedom; for whatever a man thinks and wills has reference either to evil and falsity therefrom or to good and truth therefrom.
  
  Therefore when he is in that equilibrium he is in freedom either to admit or receive evil and its falsity from hell or to admit or receive good and its truth from heaven. Every man is held in this equilibrium as a result of the Lord's ruling both heaven and hell. (Heaven and Hell §537:2-3) Read more.
  • Such, then, is the equilibrium between heaven and hell. Those who are in the world of spirits are in that equilibrium, for the world of spirits is midway between heaven and hell. By it also all men in the world are kept in a like equilibrium, since men in the world are ruled by the Lord by means of spirits in the world of spirits, as will be shown below in the appropriate section. No such equilibrium would be possible unless the Lord ruled both heaven and hell and regulated both sides. (Heaven and Hell §540)
• Suggested Reading: Heaven and Hell §311-317, 421-431

A person’s lot after death becomes such as his life was in the world.

• Not everyone who says unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he who does the will of My Father who is in the heavens. (Matthew 7:21)
• Many shall say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name cast out demons, and in Thy name done works of power? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you who work iniquity. (Matthew 7:22-23)
• And when the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory; and before Him shall be gathered together all the nations; and He shall separate them one from the other, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He shall stand the sheep indeed on His right hand, but the goats on the left.
  
  Then shall the King say to those on His right hand, Come ye, the blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry, and you gave Me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me to drink; I was a sojourner, and you gathered Me; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me... And the King answering shall say to them, Amen I say to you, As much as you have done to one of the least of these My brothers, you have done to Me.
  
  And then shall He say to them on the left hand, Go ye from Me, cursed ones, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink. I was a sojourner, and you did not gather Me; naked, and you did not clothe Me; weak and in prison, and you did not visit Me... Then shall He answer them saying, Amen I say to you, As much as you did it not to one of these, the least, neither have you done to Me.
  
  And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the just into everlasting life. (Matthew 25:35-46)
• Every man is created that he may enter heaven. This is the end of creation; but all do not enter heaven because they become imbued with the delights of hell which are opposite to the happiness of heaven; and those who are not in the happiness of heaven cannot enter heaven, for they cannot endure it. To no one who enters the spiritual world is it denied to ascend to heaven; but when one who is in the delight of hell enters heaven his heart palpitates, his breathing is laboured, his life begins to fail, he is in anguish, distress and torment, and he writhes like a serpent placed close to a fire. This is so because opposites act against each other. (Divine Providence §324:7) Read more.
  • Nevertheless, they cannot die, as they were born men and thereby with the faculty of thinking and willing, and consequently of speaking and acting. However, as they can live only with those who are in a similar delight of life they are sent to them; thus those who are in the delights of evil and those who are in the delights of good are sent to their own appropriate companions. It is indeed granted everyone to experience the delight of his own evil provided he does not molest any who are in the delight of good; but as evil cannot do otherwise than molest good, for there is inherent in evil hatred against good, therefore lest the wicked should inflict injury they are removed and cast down to their own place in hell, where their delight is turned to what is the reverse of delightful. (Divine Providence §324:8)
• As soon as men after their decease come into the world of spirits the Lord distinguishes them correctly. The evil are at once attached to the infernal society in which they were, as to their ruling love, while in the world; and the good are at once attached to the heavenly society in which they were as to their love, charity and faith, while in the world. (Heaven and Hell §427) Read more.
  • But although they are thus distinguished, all who have been friends and acquaintances in the life of the body, especially wives and husbands, and also brothers and sisters, meet and converse together whenever they so desire. I have seen a father talking with six sons, whom he recognized, and have seen many others with their relatives and friends, but because they were of diverse dispositions as a result of life in the world, they were separated after a short time.
    
    But those who come from the world of spirits into heaven or into hell, unless they have a like disposition from a like love, no longer see or know each other. The reason that they see each other in the world of spirits, but not in heaven or in hell, is that those who are in the world of spirits are brought into one state after another, like those they experienced in the life of the body; but afterwards, all are brought into a permanent state in accord with their ruling love, and in that state one recognizes another only by similarity of love; for then similarity joins and dissimilarity disjoins. (Heaven and Hell §427)

The Lord casts no one into hell.

• He said to him, Come out of the man, unclean spirit... And he implored Him much that He would not send them away out of the country. And there was there towards the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the demons implored Him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And straightway Jesus permitted them; and having gone out, the unclean spirits entered into the swine. And the herd ran violently down a cliff into the sea; and they were about two thousand; and they were choked in the sea. (Mark 5:8-13)
• An opinion has prevailed with some that God turns away His face from man, rejects man from Himself, and casts him into hell, and is angry with him on account of his evil; and with some the opinion goes further, that God punishes man and does evil to him. They confirm themselves in this opinion from the sense of the letter of the Word, where similar things are said, not knowing that the spiritual sense of the Word, which explains the sense of the letter, is wholly different; and consequently that the genuine doctrine of the Church, which is from the spiritual sense of the Word, teaches otherwise, namely, that God never turns away His face from man, and never rejects man from Himself; that He casts no one into hell and is angry with no one. (Heaven and Hell §545) Read more.
  • Everyone, moreover, whose mind is enlightened, perceives this to be true when he reads the Word, from a perception solely from it, because God is Good Itself; Love Itself; and Mercy Itself; and he has a perception that Good Itself cannot do evil to anyone, and Love Itself and Mercy Itself cannot reject man from itself; because this is contrary to the very essence of mercy and love, thus contrary to the Divine Itself. Therefore those who think from an enlightened mind clearly perceive, when they read the Word, that God never turns Himself away from man; and as He never turns Himself away from him He deals with him from goodness, love, and mercy, that is, wills good to him, loves him, and is merciful to him. And from this they see that the sense of the letter of the Word, in which such things are said, has stored up within itself a spiritual sense, and that these expressions, that are used in the sense of the letter in accommodation to man's apprehension and according to his first and general ideas, are to be explained in accordance with the spiritual sense.
  • How deluded those are who think, and still more those who believe, and still more those who teach, that God can damn anyone, curse anyone, send anyone to hell, predestine any soul to eternal death, avenge wrongs, be angry, or punish. He cannot even turn Himself away from a person, nor look upon him with a stern countenance. (True Christian Religion §56)
• It is from hell that man does evil, and from the Lord that he does good. But because man believes that, whatever he does, he does from himself, the evil that he does sticks to him as his own. Thus it is that man is the cause of his own evil, and in no way the Lord. Evil with man is hell with him, for it is the same thing whether you say evil or hell. Now since man is the cause of his own evil he is led into hell, not by the Lord but by himself. For so far is the Lord from leading man into hell that it is He Who delivers man from hell, and this He does so far as man does not will and love to be in his own evil. All of man's will and love continues with him after death (Heaven and Hell 470-484). He who wills and loves evil in the world wills and loves the same evil in the other life, but he no longer suffers himself to be withdrawn from it. So it is that a man who is in evil is tied to hell, and in respect of his spirit is actually there, and after death desires nothing so much as to be where his evil is. Consequently, it is man who casts himself into hell after death, and not the Lord. (Heaven and Hell §547) Read more.
  • When man enters the other life he is received first by angels, who perform for him all good offices, and talk with him about the Lord, heaven, and the angelic life, and instruct him in things that are true and good. But if the man, now a spirit, be one who knew about these things in the world, but in heart denied or despised them, after some conversation he desires and seeks to get away from these angels. As soon as the angels perceive this they leave him.
    
    After some interaction with others he at length unites himself with those who are in evil like his own (see Heaven and Hell §445-452). When this takes place he turns himself away from the Lord and turns his face towards the hell to which he had been joined in the world, in which those abide who are in a like love of evil.
    
    All this makes clear that the Lord draws every spirit to Himself by means of angels and by means of influx from heaven; but those spirits that are in evil completely resist, and as it were tear themselves away from the Lord, and are drawn by their own evil, thus by hell, as if by a rope. And as they are so drawn, and by reason of their love of evil are eager to follow, it is evident that they themselves cast themselves into hell by their own free choice. Men in the world because of their idea of hell are unable to believe that this is so. In fact, in the other life before the eyes of those who are outside of hell it does not so appear; but only so to those who cast themselves into hell, for such enter of their own accord. (Heaven and Hell §548)
• Suggested Reading: Heaven and Hell §545-550

Every angel, and every devil, was once just an ordinary person on earth.

• And I, John, saw these things and heard; and when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. And he says to me, See thou do it not; for I am the fellow servant of thee and of thy brothers the prophets, and of them who keep the words of this book; worship God. (Revelation 19:8-9)
• In the entire heaven there is not a single angel who was created such in the beginning, nor in hell any devil who was created an angel of light and cast down; but that all, both in heaven and in hell, are from the human race; in heaven those who lived in the world in heavenly love and faith, in hell those who lived in infernal love and faith, also that it is hell taken as a whole that is called the Devil and Satan. (Heaven and Hell §311:2)
• Most of those who had recently died, when they saw themselves to be living men as before, and in a like state (for after death every one's state of life is at first such as it was in the world, but there is a gradual change in it either into heaven or into hell), were moved by new joy at being alive, saying that they had not believed that it would be so. But they greatly wondered that they should have lived in such ignorance and blindness about the state of their life after death; and especially that the man of the Church should be in such ignorance and blindness, when above all others in the whole world he might be clearly enlightened in regard to these things. (Heaven and Hell §312:5) Read more.
  • Then they began to see the cause of that blindness and ignorance, which is, that external things, which are things relating to the world and the body, had so occupied and filled their minds that they could not be raised into the light of heaven and consider the things of the Church beyond doctrinal matters; for when matters relating to the body and the world are loved, as much as they are at the present day, nothing but darkness flows into the mind when they go further. (Heaven and Hell §312:5)
• That heaven is from the human race can be confirmed also from the fact that angelic minds and human minds are alike, both enjoying the ability to understand, perceive and will, and both having been formed to receive heaven; for the human mind is just as capable of becoming wise as the angelic mind; and if it does not attain to such wisdom in the world it is because it is in an earthly body, and in that body its spiritual mind thinks naturally.
  
  But it is otherwise when the mind is loosed from the bonds of that body; then it no longer thinks naturally, but spiritually, and when it thinks spiritually then its thoughts are incomprehensible and ineffable to the natural man; thus it becomes wise like an angel, all of which confirms that the internal part of man, called his spirit, is in its essence an angel (see Heaven and Hell §57); and when loosed from the earthly body is equally in the human form and an angel... When, however, the internal of man has not been opened above but only beneath, it is still, after it has been loosed from the body, in a human form, but a horrible and diabolical form, for it is not able to look upwards towards heaven but only downwards towards hell. (Heaven and Hell §314)
• Suggested Reading: Heaven and Hell §311-317

Children who die are tenderly cared for after death.

• Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. (Matthew 18:14)
• But Jesus said, Let the little children come to Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of the heavens. (Matthew 19:14)
• When children die they are still children in the other life, having a like infantile mind, a like innocence in ignorance, and a like tenderness in all things. They are merely in the rudiments of a capacity to become angels, for children are not angels but become angels. For everyone passing out of this world enters the other in the same state of life, a little child in the state of a little child, a boy in the state of a boy, a youth, a man, an old man, in the state of a youth, a man, or an old man; but subsequently each one's state is changed. (Heaven and Hell §330)
• As soon as little children are resuscitated, which takes place immediately after death, they are taken into heaven and entrusted to angel women who in the life of the body tenderly loved little children and at the same time loved God. Because these during their life in the world loved all children with a kind of motherly tenderness, they receive them as their own; while the children, from an implanted instinct, love them as their own mothers. (Heaven and Hell §332)
• Suggested Reading: Heaven and Hell §329-345

People are married after death.

• See Teachings - Marriage.