new hell” were formed.
The third phase of redemption was “a revelation of truths out of the new
heaven, and thereby the raising up and establishment of a new church on
earth.”
The fourth and final phase of redemption was that the Lord, from His
Divine power working through these means, could regenerate and thereby
save every one of us. (Coronis 21) Think about this fourth step. The whole
reason the Lord came to earth was to save us. His infinite love for our
salvation was what drove the Lord. His compassion for us sustained Him in
His most bitter trials and combats against the hells.
But note: the Lord’s coming to earth and conquering the hells did not
mean that everyone was instantaneously saved. It meant that everyone
could be saved, because all were now freed from the power of the hells. Each
person could choose now in complete freedom to follow the Lord, to repent
of his or her evils, and to undertake the process of regeneration.
This concept of what the Lord’s redemption accomplished is a far
cry from what official Christian theology teaches today. The following
passage shows a stark contrast between these two ideas: “It is believed by
most persons within the church that the Lord came into world in order to
reconcile the Father by the passion of the cross, and that afterward those
might be accepted for whom He should intercede, and also that He released
man from damnation by His having alone fulfilled the law, which otherwise
would have condemned every one; and thus that all would be saved who
held this faith with confidence and trust.” (Arcana Coelestia 10659:2)
Here we see the great error in theology of the typical Christian view
concerning the Lord’s redemption and salvation of the human race. It
doesn’t see it as an act which restored the equilibrium between heaven and
hell; an act which allowed us once again to have the freedom to choose
between good and evil. It does not understand that redemption or salvation
is a process, which happens gradually as we live a life according to the truths
of His Word.
This typical Christian viewpoint sees redemption as Jesus being sent by
His angry Father to be a blood sacrifice for all the past, present and future
sins of the human race. It states that by this blood sacrifice all our sins were
miraculously imputed to Jesus, and that God was then moved to mercy on
account of His Son’s suffering.
Consequently, it claims we were saved by this vicarious atonement and
freed from the burden of obeying the Law. In short, we have the contrast
between the life-long process of redemption and instantaneous salvation
clearly defined.
This confused view of redemption leads to an even more grievous
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