Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Man has been so created that he cannot die in respect to his Internal, because he is able to believe in God and also to love God, and thus to be conjoined with God in faith and love; and to be conjoined with God is to live forever.This Internal is in every man who is born. His External is that by means of which he brings into effect the things that belong to faith and love, thus that belong to the Internal. The Internal is what is called the "soul," and the External is what is called the "body."
The external which man carries about in the world has been accommodated to uses in the world. This external is what is laid aside when the man dies; but the external which has been accommodated to uses in the other life does not die. This latter external together with the internal is called a "spirit;" a good spirit and an angel if the man had been good in the world; and an evil spirit if he had been evil.
In the other life the spirit of man appears in the human form absolutely as in the world. He also enjoys the capability of seeing, of hearing, of speaking, and of feeling, as in the world; and is endowed with every capability of thinking, of willing, and of acting, as in the world. In a word, he is a man in respect to each and all things, except that he is not encompassed with that gross body with which he was encompassed in the world. This he leaves behind when he dies, nor does he ever resume it.
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 sensuous men place the very life itself in the body, and believe that unless this were to live again it would be all over with man.
The life of man after death is the life of his love, and the life of his faith; consequently such as has been his love, and such as has been his faith, during his life in the world, such his life remains forever. The life of hell is for those who have loved themselves and the world above all things; and the life of heaven for those who have loved God above all things and the neighbor as themselves. These are they who have faith; but the former are they who have not faith. The life of heaven is what is called eternal life; and the life of hell is what is called spiritual death.
The Word teaches that man lives after death, as where it is said that "God is not the God of the dead but of the living" (Matt 22:32); that after death Lazarus was taken up into heaven, but the rich man was cast into hell (Luke 16:22, 23); that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are there (Matt. 8:11; 22:32; Luke 16:23-25, 29); that Jesus said to the thief, "This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise" (Luke 23:43); and in other places.
(Arcana Coelestia 10591 - 10597)