Why Redemption was Effected

Selections from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Since all have been redeemed, all may be regenerated each according to his state.

Before the Lord's coming, hell had grown up so far as even to infest the angels of heaven, and also, by interposing itself between heaven and the world, to intercept the Lord's communication with men on earth, so that no Divine truth and good could pass from the Lord to men. Consequently a total damnation threatened the whole human race, and the angels of heaven could not have long continued to exist in their integrity.

And thus, in order that hell might be cleared away, and this impending damnation be thereby removed, the Lord came into the world, and dislodged hell, subjugated it, and thus opened heaven; so that He could henceforth be present with men on earth, and save those who live according to His commandments, and consequently could regenerate and save them, for those who are regenerated are saved.

WITHOUT THE LORD'S COMING NO ONE COULD HAVE BEEN REGENERATED.

The other purpose for which the Lord came into the world — to glorify His Human, this was because He thereby became the Redeemer, Regenerator and Savior forever. For it is not to be believed that by redemption once wrought in the world, all men had been thereby redeemed, but that the Lord is perpetually redeeming those who believe in Him and who obey His words.

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Redemption itself was a subjugation of the hells, a restoration of order in the heavens, and by means of these a preparation for a new spiritual church.

Redemption was a subjugation of the hells, a restoration of order in the heavens, and the establishment of a new church, because without these no one could have been saved. Moreover, they follow in order; for the hells must be subjugated before a new angelic heaven can be formed; and this must be formed before a new church can be established on earth; because men in the world are so closely connected with angels of heaven and spirits of hell as on both sides to be one with them in the interiors of their minds.

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Without that redemption no man could have been saved, nor could the angels have continued in a state of integrity.

To redeem means to liberate from damnation, to deliver from eternal death, to rescue from hell, and to release from the hand of the devil the captive and the bound.

This the Lord did by subjugating the hells and establishing a new heaven. Man could have been saved in no other way, for the reason that the spiritual world and the natural are so closely connected that they cannot by any means be separated. This connection is especially in the interiors of men, which are called their souls and minds, the interiors of the good being connected with the souls and minds of angels, and of the wicked with the souls and minds of infernal spirits. This union is such that if angels and spirits were taken away from man he would drop dead as a log. In like manner angels and spirits could not continue to exist if men were taken away from under them. This makes clear why redemption was effected in the spiritual world, and why it was necessary that heaven and hell should be reduced to order before a church could be established on earth.

(True Christian Religion 579; 115; 118)