# The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained/Chapter10

X.—"The End of the World."
The generally accepted belief among Christians at the time Swedenborg wrote (and the belief is still quite prevalent), was, that this natural world with all its appurtenances is one day to be utterly destroyed; the earth to be burned up; the sun, moon and stars to be extinguished, and the wheels of time to cease revolving; that the hosts of human beings who have lived and died since the dawn of creation, would then be resurrected and summoned to judgment; and that this would be "the end of the world."
This doctrine is so unreasonable as to render unnecessary any thing like a serious refutation. It involves such a manifest departure from all the known laws of order, progress, preservation and reproduction, as well as of Divine wisdom and beneficence, as to render it utterly incredible to every thoughtful and reflecting mind. It doubtless had its origin in the mistranslation of the Greek phrase ἡ συντέλεια του ἁιῶνός (he sunteleia tou aiōnos), and the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the symbolic language of the New Testament, especially of that which speaks of the passing away of the former heaven and earth, of the darkening of the sun and moon, and the falling of the stars—all of which language as interpreted by the rule of ​correspondence revealed for the New Church, yields a perfectly rational and consistent meaning. Every Greek scholar knows that Αιων (Aiōn) does not mean world, as rendered in our common English version, but an age, a life, any full period from beginning to end. And sunteleia means the consummation, end or completion of that age or period. So that this Greek phrase correctly rendered into English, would read, "the consummation of the Age," and not "the end of the world" as in our common version.
And what is to be understood by the consummation of the Age"? According to the teaching of the New Church, this phrase refers to the first Christian Age and its consummation, or to the end of the first Christian Church, when also a new Age and Church were to commence. History records several different Ages—as the Golden, the Silver and the Copper Ages—each of which has passed away or been consummated. In general, the period during which any particular system of opinions, either political, social, philosophical or religious, bear sway over the minds of men, is denominated an Age. And when the sway of such opinions is loosened or destroyed, that Age is consummated. When, therefore, our Lord foretold a "consummation of the Age," what else could He refer to but the end or consummation of that church which had just commenced, and ​which we call the first Christian church?—for all his words, rightly interpreted, have reference to the spiritual things of heaven and the church. And when the truths and goods of heaven are no longer received by the men of the church, but falsities and evils instead, then its vitality is gone—the essential things of the church are no longer there. That church is at an end.
By the end of the church, or the consummation of the Age, therefore, is meant its spiritual consummation, the loss of genuine charity and faith which are the essential things of the church, and not the abandonment of its places and forms of worship, its rites and ordinances, or any of the externals of religion. When the leading doctrines of Christianity—doctrines concerning the Lord, the Atonement, the Sacred Scripture, Redemption, Regeneration, the Resurrection, Heaven and Hell—have become so misunderstood and falsified that they darken rather than enlighten the human understanding; and when, reading the Scriptures under the influence of such darkening doctrines, people no longer receive therefrom genuine truth but truth falsified; and when the internal states or ruling loves of the church are consequently as evil as its accepted dogmas are false, then the church is consummated. And we submit to every thoughtful mind that nothing less than a new Revelation from God out of heaven could then be ​expected, for nothing less would be adequate to the removal of such falsities and evils, and the consequent inauguration of a new Age or Church.
And according to the teachings of the New Theology, such consummation of the first Christian Age or Church was reached about the middle of the last century (1757); when also a general judgment was executed in the spiritual world upon the vast multitude of spirits who had been congregating in the intermediate realm since the time of the Lord's advent in the flesh. Being alike in externals, they were kept together in that realm for a long time, and formed there a kind of heaven for themselves. It was not a true but only an imaginary heaven,—the heaven in which there was "war" between Michael and the Dragon (Rev. xii. 7),—the "first heaven" which passed away (Rev. xxi. 1) as the judgment was executed on its denizens. That judgment occurred as one of the normal results of a new and more powerful influx of truth from the Lord into the minds and hearts of those there, thus revealing and judging their interior quality; and as this was found to be quite different and even opposite—that of some being good, and that of others evil—when their interiors were fully disclosed a separation took place by force of the law of spiritual attraction and repulsion. The good were elevated to congenial societies in heaven, and the evil passed into ​hell—each to the society determined by his own character or ruling love. Thus things were reduced to order in the spiritual realm; the dense clouds of falsity which had been so long gathering in the world of spirits, shutting out the light of the spiritual Sun and producing such spiritual darkness in the church on earth, were dispersed; and straightway there began to be a freer, more interior, and more universal influx of divine truth and good into the minds of men on earth. The old Age was consummated, and the first Christian dispensation had come to its end, according to Divine prediction; and a new Age was inaugurated and a new Christian dispensation commenced;—an Age which was to be characterized by greater freedom of thought on all subjects pertaining to religion and the church, and by a consequent higher degree of spiritual enlightenment. Accordingly Swedenborg says:
​Such is a brief explanation of the doctrine held and taught by the New Church, concerning that event referred to by the passage in the New Testament mistranslated "the end of the world." Of its reasonableness as compared with the old doctrine, it is needless to speak here. The candid reader will judge of that for himself. But if he will look at the state of the world and of the church at the present day, and compare it with what it was prior to 1757, he cannot resist the conclusion that we have actually entered upon a new Era, and that some such event as that described by Swedenborg, must have occurred in the spiritual world—the realm of causes—about the middle of the last century. No other adequate and philosophical reason can be given for the astounding phenomena and the marvelous progress and developments,—scientific, industrial, moral and religious,—which have so conspicuously marked the period since 1757, the alleged date of the last general judgment.