Emanuel Swedenborg

The name of Emanuel Swedenborg, once known to com­paratively few people, is now becoming widely known throughout the world. He is steadily becoming recognized as one of the masterminds of mankind, a genius who was great as a scientist, philosopher and theologian. The pres­ent book aims at giving a resume of True Christian Reli­gion, his crowning work on theology, in understanding the teachings of this monumental book the reader will be great­ly helped by some facts about its author and of the times in which he lived.

Emanuel Swedenborg was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in the year 1688, the son of Jesper Svedberg, bishop of Skara in that country. Endowed with a remarkable mind he be­came one of Sweden's most illustrious men of science. A remarkable scholar, a profound philosopher, his knowledge marks him as an outstanding genius of his day. He made many remarkable discoveries, and anticipated much of our modern science.

For thirty years, he was a Royal Assessor of Mines, one of a select body of men appointed by the gov­ernment to supervise the mineral resources of Sweden. His active mind ranged over the whole field of the knowledge of his day. He wrote some thirty-three scientific works em­bracing such widely differing subjects as metallurgy, min­eralogy, physiology, geology, mathematics, cosmology, and the structure and functions of the human brain. He was a brilliant thinker and voluminous writer.

His book, The Principia, would be no mean output as the life work of a scientist today. Yet during this long period of brilliant mental activity, in which he produced thirty-three scientific works, he was working hard in a government office. His position on the Board of Mines was no sinecure. It carried with it great responsibilities and called for constant appli­cation. Swedenborg must have known laborious days as well as studious nights. That his work was well and thor­oughly done may be seen from the fact that when he retired from that office the government settled his full salary on him for life.

At the age of fifty Swedenborg gave up scientific research. Had he retired from all activity and spent the re­mainder of his life in quiet ease, there is no doubt that his name would have been blazoned on the scroll of Swedish fame. He would have been honored as one of Sweden's greatest men of science. But Swedenborg did not retire to spend the remainder of his life in idleness.

here lay before him thirty-eight years of productive activity during which he published some thirty works on theology. He had retired from public office and scientific pursuit in the full belief that the Lord had called him to reveal to the world the doc­trine of his Second Advent. He claimed that his spiritual eyes had been opened, and that for more than thirty years he lived in conscious communication with the spiritual world.

Let us remember that this took place in the eighteenth century, at a time when the religious life of Europe was at a very low ebb; when spirituality appeared to be almost dead, and just before George Whitefield and John Wesley put new life into religion in this country and Great Britain. We shall then understand what a stupendous claim Sweden­borg made.

Let us remember, too, that the Christian theology of the eighteenth century was vastly different from our present-day belief. God was regarded as a Being of anger and stern justice. Heaven was a vague abode somewhere beyond the furthest star. Salvation was to be achieved through a cor­rect faith rather than by a righteous life. The Church taught the resurrection of the physical body, and the eter­nal damnation of all the heathen. It even taught the idea that un-baptized children would be forever shut out of heaven.

We need not wonder that Swedenborg's claim to be the servant of the Lord, commissioned to reveal new truth to the world, met with very little acceptance in his own day, We need not be surprised that he met with violent opposi­tion from the ecclesiastical authorities in his own land.

He dared to assert that there were new truths to be learned about religion, that the Lord was making a new revelation and was unfolding the spiritual sense of his own Divine Word. People had forgotten the Savior's words to his disciples, “I have many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now” And they turned a deaf ear to Swedenborg's claim that the hidden mysteries of religion were now to be revealed.

It is not surprising that with the exception of a few recep­tive minds people turned a deaf ear to the new revelation, for Swedenborg's new teachings were contrary to almost every doctrine held by the churches of his day.

The new revelation taught that God is one in essence and in person, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is the incarnate revelation of that God. It taught that the Divine Word, the revelation which we call the Holy Scriptures, contains an inner sense adapted to the apprehension of the angels, and comprehensible in some small measure to people on earth.

Further, it taught that people are organized spiritual be­ings, clad in a body of flesh during the earthly period of life. Death ushers us into a spiritual realm, which surrounds and interpenetrates the physical universe. Resurrection is im­mediate. Leaving this physical world, we enter at once a spiritual life of unending progress. And, perhaps most im­portant of all, the new revelation taught the truth that sal­vation is won not by correctness of creed but by a life of obedience to the Ten Commandments.

Today many of the truths revealed through Swedenborg are finding wide acceptance in the Christian world. There are few Protestant preachers who do not possess some of his books. But in the eighteenth century they aroused a great deal of antagonism in the minds of the church author­ities. Swedenborg was regarded as an impractical, visionary and dreamer. Most of his teachings were regarded as rank heresy. The idea that any further divine revelation would be made to the world was abhorrent to the Church. New ideas in science, industry and art were freely welcomed, but new ideas in the realm of religion were neither wanted nor, ex­cept by a few receptive minds, believed.

Swedenborg appears to have been little concerned with the reception or rejection of his writings. He had in­domitable faith in the fact that the Lord was giving the world a new and higher form of Christianity, and that a new Church would be implanted in people's hearts and minds. He wrote many books.

Indeed in this latter part of his life his literary output fully equaled that of his earlier, scientific period. He published his books at his own expense, giving them freely to the world. He was content to publish what he sincerely believed to be a revelation from God, and he left his work as a heritage to the human race.

His first important work, the Arcana Coelestia, or Heav­enly Mysteries, was published in eight quarto volumes. It is an exposition of the spiritual sense of Genesis and Ex­odus, but scattered throughout its many pages are the germ ideas of all his religious teachings. These ideas, or truths, Swedenborg elaborated in other works.

Heaven and Hell tells about life in the spiritual world, and is a fascinat­ing book. Divine Love and Wisdom and Divine Providence are, books full of profound philosophy. The Apocalypse Ex­plained and The Apocalypse Revealed give us the inner meaning of the Book of Revelation. There are many other books that came from his pen, but there is one of outstand­ing importance.

In his later years Swedenborg wrote his crowning work, True Christian Religion, containing the whole Theology of the New Church, published in Latin in Amsterdam in 1771. His works have been translated into many languages and issued in many editions. They are available in Latin, English, Danish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Swedish and soon in Spanish and Portuguese. In steady demand for nearly two hundred years, this is a truly re­markable record for any author devoted to an exposition of the bible and universal Christian doctrine.

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