How Conjunction of Heaven with the World is Effected by means of Correspondences

Selection from Heaven and Hell ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

How conjunction of heaven with the world is effected by means of correspondences shall also be told in a few words:

The Lord's kingdom is a kingdom of ends, which are uses; or what is the same thing, a kingdom of uses which are ends. For this reason the universe has been so created and formed by the Divine that uses may be every where clothed in such a way as to be presented in act, or in effect, first in heaven and afterwards in the world, thus by degrees and successively, down to the outmost things of nature. Evidently, then, the correspondence of natural things with spiritual things, or of the world with heaven, is through uses, and uses are what conjoin; and the form in which uses are clothed are correspondences and are conjunctions just to the extent that they are forms of uses. In the nature of the world in its threefold kingdom, all things that exist in accordance with order are forms of uses, or effects formed from use for use, and this is why the things in nature are correspondences.

But in the case of man, so far as he is in accordance with Divine order, that is, so far as he is in love to the Lord and in charity towards the neighbor, are his acts uses in form, and correspondences, and through these he is conjoined to heaven.

To love the Lord and the neighbor means in general to perform uses.

Furthermore, it must be understood that man is the means by which the natural world and the spiritual world are conjoined, that is, man is the medium of conjunction, because in him there is a natural world and there is a spiritual world; consequently to the extent that man is spiritual he is the medium of conjunction; but to the extent that a man is natural, and not spiritual, he is not a medium of conjunction. Nevertheless, apart from this mediumship of man, a Divine influx into the world and into the things pertaining to man that are of the world goes on, but not into man's rational faculty.

(Heaven and Hell 112)

Read more:  THE OCCUPATIONS OF ANGELS IN HEAVEN

Use — The Ends of Creation

Selection from Divine Love and Wisdom ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

All uses, which are ends of creation are in forms, which forms they take from substances and matters such as are in lands.

All things ... as the sun, atmospheres, and lands, are only means to ends. The ends of creation are those things that are produced by the Lord as a sun, through the atmospheres, out of lands; and these ends are called uses.

• In their whole extent these are all things of the vegetable kingdom, all things of the animal kingdom, and finally the human race, and the angelic heaven which is from it. These are called uses, because they are recipients of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom also because they have regard to God the Creator from whom they are, and thereby conjoin Him to His great work; by which conjunction it comes that, as they spring forth from Him, so do they have unceasing existence from Him. They are said to have regard to God the Creator from whom they are, and to conjoin Him to His great work, but this is to speak according to appearance. It is meant that God the Creator causes them to have regard and to conjoin themselves to Him as it were of themselves....

• Divine Love and Divine Wisdom must necessarily have being and form in other things created by themselves

• All things in the created universe are recipients of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom.

• The uses of all created things ascend by degrees to man, and through man to God the Creator from whom they are.

• Who does not see clearly that uses are the ends of creation, when he considers that from God the Creator nothing can have form, and therefore nothing can be created, except use; and that to be use, it must be for the sake of others; and that use for the sake of self is also for the sake of others, since a use for the sake of self looks to one's being in a state to be of use to others? Whoso considers this is also able to see, that use which is use cannot spring from man, but must be in man from that Being from whom everything that comes forth is use, that is, from the Lord.

(Divine Love and Wisdom 307-308)

Since All Have Been Redeemed, All May Be Saved

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Since all have been redeemed, all may be regenerated — Each according to his state.  That this may be understood, something must be premised respecting redemption.

• The Lord came into the world chiefly for these two purposes:

• 1. To remove hell from angel and from man
• 2. To glorify His Human

• For 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. This is how it is to be understood, that, since all have been redeemed they may be regenerated, and because regeneration and salvation make one, all may be saved.

So the teaching of the church, that without the Lord's coming no man could have been saved, is to be understood in this way, that without the Lord's coming no one could have been regenerated.

• In respect to the other purpose for which the Lord came into the world, namely, 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.

(True Christian Religion 579)