Here is a passage from Emanuel Swedenborg’s Heaven and Hell, page 258 on the pdf. The numbers from within the text are numbered references for explanation notes, not included here.
The passage, in effect reflects on the fact that Jesus came for the whole of mankind as the promised Messiah but was not recognised at the time resulting in his mission being brought to an abrupt end. So what was to become the birth of Christianity, as a result out of necessity, carried forward the promise of the Second Coming, which is the spiritual event of disseminating and clarifying the truths for the benefit of mankind.
Non-Christians, or People outside the Church, in Heaven
THE general opinion is that people who have been born outside the church, the people called “the nations” or “non-Christians,”208 cannot be saved because they do not have the Word and therefore do not know the Lord; and without the Lord there is no salvation.209 They could know, however, that these people too are saved simply from the fact that the Lord’s mercy is universal, that is, it is extended to all individuals. Non-Christians are born just as human as people within the church, who are in fact few by comparison. It is not their fault that they do not know the Lord. So anyone who thinks from any enlightened reason at all can see that no one is born for hell. The Lord is actually love itself, and his love is an intent to save everyone. So he provides that everyone shall have some religion, an acknowledgement of the Divine Being through that religion, and an inner life. That is, living according to one’s religious principles is an inner life, for then we focus on the Divine; and to the extent that we do focus on the Divine, we do not focus on the world but move away from the world and therefore from a worldly life, which is an outward life. a People can realize that non- Christians as well as Christians are saved if they know what constitutes heaven in us; for heaven is within us, and people who have heaven within them come into heaven. The heaven within us is our acknowledgement of the Divine and our being led by the Divine. The beginning and foundation of every religion is its acknowledgement of the Divine Being; a religion that does not acknowledge the Divine Being is not a religion at all. The precepts of every religion focus on worship, that is, on how the Divine is to be honoured so that we will be acceptable in its sight; and when this fully occupies the mind (or, to the extent that we intend this or love this) we are being led by the Lord. It is recognized that non-Christians live lives that are just as moral as the lives of Christians—many of them, in fact, live more moral lives. A moral life may be lived either to satisfy the Divine or to satisfy people in this world. A moral life that is lived to satisfy the Divine is a spiritual life. The two look alike in outward form, but inwardly they are totally different. One saves us, the other does not. This is because if we live a moral life to satisfy the Divine we are being led by the Divine; while if we live a moral life to satisfy people in this world, we are being led by ourselves. [2] This may be illustrated by an example . If we do harm to our neighbour that is against our religion and therefore against the Divine , our ref r a i n i ng from evil stems from a spiritual source . But if we refrain from doing harm to others simply because we are afraid of the law or of losing our reputation or respect or profit — for the sake of self and the world , that is — then this stems from a natural source and we are being led by ourselves . This latter life is natural , while the former is spiritual . If our moral life is spiritual , we have heaven within our selves ; but if our moral life is merely natural , we do not have heaven with in ourselves . This is because heaven flows in from above, opens our deeper natures , and flows through those deeper natures into our more outward natures ; while the world flows in from below and opens our more outward natures but not our deeper natures . No inflow occurs from the natural world into the spiritual , only from the spiritual world into the natural ; so if heaven is not accepted at the same time , the deeper levels are closed. We can see from this who accept heaven into themselves and who do not.
[3] However,the heaven in one individual is not the same as the heaven in another. It differs in each according to the affection for what is good and true. If people are absorbed in an affection for what is good for the sake of the Divine, they love divine truth because the good and the true love each other and want to be united. Consequently, non-Christian people who have not had access to genuine truths in the world still accept them in the other life because of their love. 21 0 There was one spirit from a non-Christian country who had lived a good and thoughtful life according to his religion in this world. When he heard some Christian spirits discussing their creeds (spirits talking to each other reason much more exhaustively and acutely than people on earth, especially about what is good and true), he was astonished to find that they quarrelled. He said he did not want to listen, since they were arguing on the basis of deceptive appearances. His advice to them was, “If I am a good person, I can know what is true simply from its goodness, and I can be open to what I do not know.” I have been taught by a great many instances that if non-Christians have lived decent lives, intent on obedience and appropriate deference and in mutual thoughtfulness as their religion requires so that they have acquired a measure of conscience, they are accepted in the other life and are taught by angels about matters of goodness and truth with most sensitive care. Once they have been taught, they behave unpretentiously , intelligently,and wisely and readily accept and absorb truths. This is because no false principles have taken form to oppose truths of faith, principles that would need to be ousted, let alone slanders against the Lord, as is the case for many Christians whose treasured concept of the Lord is simply of an ordinary human being. It is different for non-Christians.
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When they hear that God became a person here and made himself known in the world, they acknowledge it immediately and revere the Lord.
( Emanuel Swedenborg was a forerunner of James Padgett two centuries earlier, and had the same mission of disseminating God’s truth to the World. However he held onto some doctrinal concepts that are not true as explained in the Padgett writings. It was because of these errors that it was necessary for James Padgett to receive messages of greater clarity from Jesus and the Celestial Spirits.
Here of course Swedenborg is referring to Jesus as God but this is incorrect. The last two lines of the sentence below are true and of course applies to God the Creator, Father of all mankind but also within this sentence Swedenborg is inferring this to Jesus as the Godhead which Jesus emphasises he is not. However Jesus holds a special position of being the mediator between Mankind and God as a Son of God, teacher as well as the first to enter the highest realms of the Celestial Heavens and to show the way to others.
It is better to be familiar with the writings of James Padgett first before those of Emanuel Swedenborg so as to be able to recognise when errors occur )
They say that of course God made himself known; after all, he is the God of heaven and earth, and the human race belongs to him.
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c It is a divine truth that there is no salvation apart from the Lord, but this needs to be understood as meaning that there is no salvation that does not come from the Lord. There are many planets in the universe, all full of inhabitants.( A repeat of the erroneous concept that Jesus is God) Hardly any of them know that the Lord took on a human nature on our planet. Still, though, since they do revere the Divine Being in human form, they are accepted and led by the Lord. On this matter, see the booklet Other Planets.211 There are wise and simple people among non-Christians just as there are among Christians. To show me what they were like, I have been allowed to talk with both kinds, sometimes for hours and even for days. Nowadays, though, there are not wise ones like those of ancient times, especially in the early church 212 (this covered much of the Near East 213 and was the source from which religion spread to many non-Christian peoples). I have been allowed to carry on personal conversations with some of them in order to find out what they were like. One particular individual was with me who had been one of the wise at one time and who was therefore well known in the scholarly world. I talked with him about various subjects and was given to believe that he was Cicero. Since I knew that he was wise, we talked about wisdom, intelligence, the pattern of reality, the Word, and finally about the Lord. [2] On wisdom, he said that there was no wisdom that was not a matter of life, and that wisdom could not be an attribute of anything else. On intelligence, he said that it came from wisdom. On the pattern of reality, he said that the pattern comes from the Supreme Deity, and that living in accord with this pattern is being wise and intelligent. As to the Word, when I read him something from the prophets he was utterly enchanted,
Here ,Emanuel Swedenborg judges himself harshly but it is because he understands the importance of the messages of Divine Truth. What he accomplished when his spiritual eyes were open is still valuable and Jesus expresses that much of what Swedenborg reported about is true. It is doctrinal beliefs which Swedenborg held on to which puts a certain slant on some of his perception.
There are passages in Heaven and Hell which mirror those in The True Gospel Revealed Anew by Jesus but James Padgett manages to maintain the same standard of detail throughout and this is because he was especially chosen for his particular qualities and not as another Seer able to travel and report about the Spirit World. Jesus has said that in time more information will be given as mankind becomes capable of understanding more deeply, but also because Jesus himself continues to grow spiritually and he has said that He now understands more now than when He walked the Earth two thousand years ago.