Questions and Answers.

In common with most other churches we believe that people are basically spiritual. We live for a time in the physical world, but we are essentially spiritual beings. We can rise above our physical limitations, above the seeming demands of the moment. We can think rationally: we can see and respond to ideas – ideas that are timeless and beyond where we are now. Our spirits are free to choose new thoughts and feelings over old ones, higher ones over lower ones. We can learn new things every day. We can change! We can do these things because we are spiritual and eternal beings.

Choose a subject from the list to learn more.

Lord and God

God is one, in whom is a Divine trinity, and the Lord God the Saviour Jesus Christ is that One.
(True Christian Religion 3 Swedenborg)

The name Lord is used and not Jehovah, because the Jehovah of the Old Testament is called the Lord in the New, as is shown in the following passages. In Moses:
Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah; and thou shalt love Jehovah God with all thy heart and with all thy soul (Deut. 6:4, 5)
In Mark:
The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul (Mark 12:29, 30).
Again, in Isaiah:
Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make level in the wilderness a highway for our God (Isa. 40:3)
In Luke:
Thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His way 1:76)
Besides other passages. Moreover, the Lord commanded His disciples to call Him Lord, and this is why He was so called by the Apostles in their Epistles, and afterwards by the Apostolic Church, ... The reason of this was that the Jews did not dare to say the name Jehovah on account of its holiness; ... For this reason, by the Lord, here and in the following pages, Jehovah in His Human is meant. And since a knowledge of the Lord surpasses in excellence all other knowledges in the church, and even in heaven, the subject shall be so arranged in order as to bring this knowledge out into clear light.
(True Christian Religion 81, Swedenborg)

Life and Salvation

ALL RELIGION IS OF THE LIFE, AND THE LIFE OF RELIGION IS TO DO THAT WHICH IS GOOD. Every man who has religion knows and acknowledges that he who leads a good life is saved, and that he who leads an evil life is damned; for he knows and acknowledges that the man who lives aright thinks aright, not only about God but also about his neighbour; but not so the man whose life is evil. The life of man is his love, and that which he loves he not only likes to be doing, but also likes to be thinking. The reason therefore why we say that the life is to do that which is good is that doing what is good acts as a one with thinking what is good, for if in a man these two things do not act as a one, they are not of his life. The demonstration of these matters shall now follow.
(Life 1 Swedenborg)

Faith

Real faith is nothing else than an acknowledgment that the thing is so because it is true; for one who is in real faith thinks and says, "This is true, and therefore I believe it." For faith is of truth, and truth is of faith. If such a person does not see the truth of a thing, he says, "I do not know whether this is true, and therefore as yet I do not believe it. How can I believe what I do not intellectually comprehend? Perhaps it is false."
But a common remark is that no one can comprehend spiritual or theological matters because they are supernatural. Spiritual truths however can be comprehended just as well as natural ones; and even if they are not clearly comprehended, still as soon as they are heard it is possible to perceive whether they are true or not.
(Doctrine of Faith, Swedenborg)

Life After Death

Heaven is with man in his internal, thus in his willing and thinking from love and faith, and thence in his external, which is in acting and speaking from love and faith. But heaven is not in man's external without the internal; for all hypocrites can act and speak well, but they cannot will and think well.
When man comes into the other life, which takes place immediately after death, it is evident whether heaven is in him or not; but not while he lives in the world. For in the world the external appears, and not the internal, but in the other life the internal is made manifest, because man then lives as to his spirit.
(New Jerusalem And Its Heavenly Doctrine 234-235, Swedenborg

LITTLE CHILDREN IN HEAVEN.
It is a belief of some that only such children as are born within the church go to heaven, and that those born out of the church do not, and for the reason that the children within the church are baptized and by baptism are initiated into faith of the church. Such are not aware that no one receives heaven or faith through baptism; for baptism is merely for a sign and memorial that man should be regenerated, and that those born within the church can be regenerated because the Word is there, and in the Word are the Divine truths by means of which regeneration is effected, and there the Lord who regenerates is known. Let them know therefore that every child, wherever he is born, whether within the church or outside of it, whether of pious parents or impious, is received when he dies by the Lord and trained up in heaven, and taught in accordance with Divine order, and imbued with affections for what is good, and through these with knowledges of what is true; and afterwards as he is perfected in intelligence and wisdom is introduced into heaven and becomes an angel.

Baptism


The first purpose of baptism is to be introduced to the Christian Church, and at the same time brought into the company of Christians in the spiritual world. There are many facts that establish that baptism is an introduction to the Christian church, such as the following.
Baptism was instituted to take the place of circumcision, and just as circumcision was a sign of belonging to the Israelite church, so baptism is a sign of belonging to the Christian church, as was shown in the previous section. The sole purpose of the sign is to enable people to be recognised, like ribbons of different colours tied on babies of two mothers, so that they can be told apart and are not mixed up. (True Christian Religion no 677, Swedenborg)

Children in Heaven

Every little child, wherever born, whether within the Church or outside it, whether of pious or impious parents, is received when he dies by the Lord and educated in heaven, and in accordance with Divine order, taught and imbued with affections of good, and through these with cognitions of what is true. Afterwards, as he is perfected in intelligence and wisdom, he is introduced into heaven and becomes an angel. Every one who thinks from reason can be sure that no one has been born for hell, but all are born for heaven, and if man comes into hell he himself is culpable; but little children cannot be held culpable as yet.

Little children are not angels but become angels. For every one passing out of this world is in a state like that of his 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. Moreover, the state of little children excels the state of the rest in that they are in innocence, and evil has not yet been rooted in them by actual life

The state of little children in the other life far surpasses their state in the world, for they are not clothed with an earthly body, but with one like that of an angel... As they are spirits, they act at once in accordance with their interiors, walking without practice, and also talking, though at first from general affections not yet distinguished into ideas of thoughts; but they are quickly initiated into these also

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 their 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 disposition, love them as their own mothers. There are as many children in each one's care as she desires from a spiritual parental affection… all little children are under the immediate auspices of the Lord; and the heaven of innocence, which is the third heaven, flows in with them.

Little children are taught chiefly by representatives suited to their genius [disposition]. These are beautiful and at the same time full of wisdom from within, beyond all belief. In this way, an intelligence that derives its soul from good is gradually instilled into them.

The Lord flows into the ideas of little children chiefly from inmosts, for there is nothing, as with adults, to close up their ideas, no principles of falsity to close the way to the understanding of truth, nor any life of evil to close the way to the reception of good, and thereby the way to wisdom. From these things it can be confirmed that little children do not come at once after death into an angelic state, but are gradually brought into it successively by means of cognitions of good and truth, and this in harmony with all heavenly order; for the least particulars of their disposition are known to the Lord.

It was shown me... what the ideas of little children are when they see objects of any kind. Each and every object seemed to them to be alive; and thus in every least idea of their thought there is life. And it was perceived that little children on the earth have nearly the same ideas when they are at play, for as yet they have no such reflection as adults have about what is inanimate.

Many may suppose that in heaven little children remain little children, and continue as such among the angels. Those who do not know what an angel is may have had this opinion confirmed from portrayals here and there in churches, in which angels are represented as little children. But the fact is entirely otherwise. It is intelligence and wisdom that make an angel, and as long as little children do not possess these they are not angels, although they are with the angels; but as soon as they become intelligent and wise they become angels. Indeed, I have marvelled that they do not then appear as little children, but as adults, for they are no longer of an infantile genius, but of a more mature angelic genius. Intelligence and wisdom bring this about. The reason little children appear more mature, thus as youths and young men, as they are perfected in intelligence and wisdom, is that intelligence and wisdom are essential spiritual nourishment; and thus the things that nourish their minds also nourish their bodies, and this from correspondence, for the form of the body is simply the external form of the interiors. But it should be known that in heaven little children advance in age only to early manhood, and remain in this to eternity. That I might be assured that this is so I have been permitted to talk with some who had been educated as little children in heaven, and had grown up there, with some also while they were little children, and again with the same when they had become young men. And I have heard from them about the progress of their life from one age to another.

Little children are led from the external innocence in which they are at the beginning, and which is called the innocence of infancy, to internal innocence, which is the innocence of wisdom. This innocence is the end that directs all their instruction and progress.

(Extracts from Heaven & Hell 329-341, Emanuel Swedenborg)

Marriage In The Next Life

Marriage in the Next Life
Most married couples meet after death, recognize each other, associate again, and live together for a time, which occurs in their first state, thus while they are still maintaining the outward aspects of their lives as they did in the world. Progressively, however, as married partners put off outward appearances and enter into their inward qualities, they gradually perceive what sort of love and mutual feeling they had had for each other, and consequently whether it is possible for them to [continue to] live together or not.

If it is possible for married partners to [continue to] live together, they remain partners. But if it is not possible, they separate, the husband sometimes separating from the wife, the wife sometimes from the husband, and both of them sometimes from each other. A man is then given a suitable wife, and a woman, likewise, a suitable husband.
(Marriage Love 45 Swedenborg)

Angels

Here Swedenborg describes angels that he had met.

From all my experience, which is now of many years, I am able to say and affirm that angels are wholly men in form, having faces, eyes, ears, bodies, arms, hands, and feet; that they see and hear one another, and talk together, and in a word lack nothing whatever that belongs to men except that they are not clothed in material bodies. I have seen them in their own light, which exceeds by many degrees the noonday light of the world, and in that light all their features could be seen more distinctly and clearly than the faces of men are seen on the earth. It has also been granted me to see an angel of the inmost heaven. He had a more radiant and resplendent face than the angels of the lower heavens. I observed him attentively, and he had a human form in all completeness.

But it must be remembered that a man cannot see angels with his bodily eyes, but only with the eyes of the spirit within him, because his spirit is in the spiritual world, and all things of the body are in the natural world. Like sees like from being like. Moreover, as the bodily organ of sight, which is the eye, is too gross, as everyone knows, to see even the smaller things of nature except through magnifying glasses, still less can it see what is above the sphere of nature, as all things in the spiritual world are. Nevertheless these things can be seen by man when he has been withdrawn from the sight of the body, and the sight of his spirit has been opened; and this can be effected instantly whenever it is the pleasure of the Lord that man should see these things; and in that case man does not know but what he is seeing them with his bodily eyes. Thus were angels seen by Abraham, Lot, Manoah, and the prophets; and thus, too, the Lord was seen by the disciples after the resurrection; and in the same way angels have been seen by me. Because the prophets saw in this way they were called "seers," and were said "to have their eyes opened" (1 Sam. 9:8; Num. 24:3); and enabling them to see thus was called "opening their eyes," as with Elisha's servant, of whom we read:

Elisha prayed and said, Jehovah, I pray Thee open his eyes that he may see; and Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha (2 Kings 6:17).

(Heaven and Hell no. 75-76 Emanuel Swedenborg)

Creation

The creation story in Genesis 1 and 2 is not about the creation of the world, but it is there to teach us about the spiritual regeneration of people.

While the mind cleaves to the literal sense alone, no one can possibly see that such things are contained within it. Thus in these first chapters of Genesis, nothing is discoverable from the sense of the letter other than that the creation of the world is treated of, and the garden of Eden which is called Paradise, and Adam as the first created man. Who supposes anything else? But it will be sufficiently established in the following pages that these matters contain arcana which have never yet been revealed; and in fact that the first chapter of Genesis in the internal sense treats in general of the new creation of man, or of his regeneration, and specifically of the Most Ancient Church; and this in such a manner that there is not the least expression which does not represent, signify, and enfold within it these things. (Arcana Coelestia 4)

...everything put together as history from Genesis 1 down to Eber in Chapter 11 means something different from what appears in the letter, and from the consideration that the historical narratives there are purely made-up history...
(Arcana Coelestia 2010)

So the world was not created in seven days. However, God did create the universe and God gave life to all things living
It must be thought that either God or nature governs all things. He who thinks that God governs all things thinks that they are governed by Love itself and Wisdom itself, thus by Life itself. But he who thinks that nature governs all things thinks that they are governed by natural heat and natural light; and yet these in themselves are dead, because they are derived from a dead sun. Does not what is itself living govern what is dead? Can what is dead govern anything? If you think that what is dead can impart life to itself you are spiritually insane, for life must come from Life. (Divine Providence 182)