The Second Coming

The prophecies of the Second Coming of the Lord are not to be taken literally.

• The heavens declare the glory of God. (Psalm 19:1)
• Where the Lord, in the presence of His disciples, speaks about the consummation of the age, which is the last period of the Church, towards the end of the predictions regarding its successive states with respect to love and faith, He says this:
  
  Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn; and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a trumpet and great voice, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31)
  
  Those who understand these words in accordance with the sense of the letter have no other belief than that at the final period which is called the Last Judgment, all those events will occur as described in that sense. Therefore, they believe not only that the sun and moon will be darkened and the stars will fall from heaven, that the sign of the Lord will appear in the sky and that He Himself will be seen in the clouds as well as angels with trumpets, but also, as is foretold elsewhere, that the whole visible earth will be destroyed, after which a new heaven with a new earth will come into being.
  
  Such is the opinion of most men within the Church at the present day. But those who so believe do not know the arcana which lie concealed in every particular of the Word. For, in every particular of the Word there is an internal sense in which are discerned, not the natural and worldly matters such as are in the sense of the letter, but spiritual and heavenly things. Moreover, this is true not only of the meaning of groups of words but it is also true of every single word. For the Word has been written by means of pure correspondences to the end that the internal sense may be in every particular. (Heaven and Hell §1) Read more.
  • In this passage, by the “sun” which is to be darkened is signified the Lord as to love, by the “moon” the Lord as to faith, by the “stars” cognitions of good and truth or of love and faith; by the “sign” of the Son of man in heaven the manifestation of Divine Truth, by the “tribes of the earth which shall mourn,” all things relating to truth and good or to faith and love, by “the coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven with power and glory,” His presence in the Word and revelation; by “clouds” is signified the sense of the letter of the Word, and by “glory” the internal sense of the Word, by “angels with a trumpet and great voice” is signified heaven whence comes Divine Truth.
    
    Thence it is evident that by those words of the Lord is meant that in the end of the Church when there is no longer any love and consequently no faith, the Lord will open the Word in its internal sense and reveal arcana of heaven.
    
    The arcana now revealed in the following pages treat of heaven and hell, and at the same time of man's life after death. The man of the Church at this day knows scarcely anything about heaven and hell or about his life after death, although they are all set forth and described in the Word. Indeed, many people born within the Church even deny them, saying in their hearts, “Who has come from that world and told us?” Lest, therefore, such a negative attitude, which prevails especially with those who have much worldly wisdom, should also infect and corrupt the simple in heart and the simple in faith, it has been granted to me to associate with angels and to talk with them as man with man, also to see the things in the heavens as well as in the hells, and this for thirteen years. Now, therefore, from what I have seen and heard I am permitted to describe these things, in the hope that thus, ignorance may be enlightened and unbelief dispelled. Such immediate revelation is now made because that is what is meant by the Coming of the Lord. (Heaven and Hell §1)
    • Suggested Reading: The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine §1-7; A short description of the man who wrote this.
• As no one has hitherto known what the clouds of heaven mean it has been believed that the Lord would appear in them in Person. Heretofore it has not been known that the clouds of heaven mean the Word in the sense of the letter, and that the glory and power in which He is then to come, mean the spiritual sense of the Word, because no one as yet has had the least conjecture that there is a spiritual sense in the Word, such as this sense is in itself. (True Christian Religion §776) Read more.
  • In order that the Lord might be continuously present with me He has unfolded to me the spiritual sense of His Word, wherein is Divine truth in its very light, and it is in this light that He is continually present. For His presence in the Word is by means of the spiritual sense and in no other way; through the light of this sense He passes into the obscurity of the literal sense, which is like what takes place when the light of the sun in daytime is passing through an interposing cloud. (True Christian Religion §780)
  • Suggested Reading: Teachings - The Word

This Second Coming of the Lord is effected by means of a man to whom the Lord has manifested Himself in person, and whom He has filled with His Spirit, that he may teach the doctrines of the New Church from the Lord by means of the Word.

• I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when it shall come, the Spirit of Truth, it will guide you into all truth... These things I have spoken to you in parables; but the hour is coming when I will no more speak to you in parables, but will announce to you plainly concerning the Father. (John 16:12-13, 25)
• Since the Lord cannot manifest Himself in Person... and nevertheless has foretold that He was to come and establish a new church, which is the New Jerusalem, it follows that He will do this by means of a man, who is able not only to receive these doctrines in his understanding but also to publish them by the press. That the Lord manifested Himself before me, His servant, and sent me to this office, that He afterward opened the eyes of my spirit and thus introduced me into the spiritual world and granted me to see the heavens and the hells, and to talk with angels and spirits, and this now continuously for several years, I affirm in truth; as also that from the first day of that call I have not received anything whatever pertaining to the doctrines of that church from any angel, but from the Lord alone while I have read the Word. (True Christian Religion §779)
  • Suggested Reading: A short description of the man who wrote this.

This coming of the Lord, which is His Second Coming, is taking place in order that the evil may be separated from the good, and that those who have believed and do believe in Him, may be saved, and that from them a new angelic heaven and a new church on earth may be formed; and without this no flesh could be saved.

• The Lord’s coming is for the purpose of forming a new heaven of those who have believed in Him, and for the purpose of establishing a new church of those who shall hereafter believe in Him, inasmuch as these two are the ends for which He came. The very end for which the universe was created was no other than the formation from men of an angelic heaven, where all who believe in God shall live forever in eternal blessedness; for the Divine love, which is in God and essentially is God, can intend nothing else, and the Divine wisdom, which is also in God and is God, can effect nothing else. (True Christian Religion §773) Read more.
  • It is in accordance with divine order that a new heaven should be formed before a new church is established on earth, for the church is both internal and external, and the internal church makes one with the church in heaven, thus with heaven itself; and what is internal must be formed before its external, which is external being formed afterwards by means of its internal… Just so far as this new heaven, which constituted the internal of the church with man, increases, does the New Jerusalem, that is, the New church descend from it; consequently this cannot take place in a moment, but it takes place to the extent that the falsities of the former church are set aside. (True Christian Religion §784)
  • This New Church is the crown of all the churches that have hitherto existed on the earth, because it is to worship one visible God in whom is the invisible like the soul in the body. Thus and not otherwise is a conjunction of God with man possible, because man is natural, and therefore thinks naturally, and conjunction must exist in his thought, and thus in his love’s affection, and this is the case when he thinks of God as a Man. (True Christian Religion §787)
• Suggested Reading: True Christian Religion §768-771