new church life: november/december 2016
converted and took Christianity back home with them. Or missionaries did
it. So Europe became the “new Canaan.” “The kingdoms of Christendom”
took over the representation of Canaan, of “Israel, Amorites, Ammonites,
Moabites, Philistines, Syrians, Egyptians, Chaldeans and Assyrians.” (Divine
Providence 251.4) Just as Israel in the Old Testament had been attacked when
it fell into evils, so wars in Europe occurred “in the natural world [because
they] correspond to something spiritual in the spiritual world, and everything
spiritual has to do with the church.” (Ibid.)
Today no one knows which “Christian kingdom” stands for which ancient
one, so you don’t have to worry. But still “the character of the church on earth,
and the identity of the evils into which it falls” is the same now as in Old
Testament times, and the Christian Church, in Europe, “is punished with
wars.” (Ibid.251.4) Even today?
If you don’t believe it, the Writings excuse your skepticism: “This isn’t seen
at all in the natural world, [full of] external phenomena . . . [which don’t]
form the church. However, it is seen in the spiritual world, where the internal
constituents [of] the church . . . are apparent.” (Ibid. added emphasis)
If you still worry about it, here is more to doubt: the rest of the world
is also representative. “European trading empires” have colonized the entire
world, a permission “in providence” in spite of the maniacal destruction of
native cultures involved, “for the sake of the Word” being spread worldwide.
(Divine Providence 256.2, emphasis added) The Lord never wills destruction,
but He here willed that the Bible be read and translated all through the world,
just in time for the Last Judgment of 1757. For the heavens rest on the Church
where the Word is read. (Church Specific, heart and lungs, Heavenly Doctrine
244, True Christian Religion 245, Apocalypse Explained 351.2)
Christians reading the Bible worldwide is a “believe it or not” fulfillment
of the Lord’s words, “Where two or three are gathered together in My Name,
there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18.20) Still skeptical? Well, the
Lord adds with a smile, I think: “This seems to be a fabrication, but yet it is the
truth.” (Divine Providence 256.2) So there!
The Last Judgment was such a tumultuous event – whole populations of
spirits gathered for heaven, or sliding this and that way into hell – that the
world had to be stabilized – its “fullness, sanctity and power” (Sacred Scripture
37) setting the stage for the spiritual sense to be revealed. It was time for,
“Who shall stand when He appeareth?”
So, European nations have a spiritual meaning – both good and the
opposite bad – and the colonies they established would likely have the same
meaning. So now we can begin to see why Handel, a German, went to live and
work in England.
What do European nations “mean”?
Germany, Handel’s birth place, probably means referring to history for
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