This divine rescue can also be illustrated by comparing it with a per-
son who notices a snake that is coiled up on the road with the intention
of striking the heel of a passerby, catches the snake by the head, carries it
home (although the snake is wrapping itself around the person’s arm),
and there cuts off its head and throws the rest into the fire.
This divine rescue can also be illustrated by a bridegroom or hus-
band who sees an adulterer attempting to rape his bride or wife. He
attacks the rapist and either wounds the rapist’s hand with a sword, or
assaults the rapist’s legs and groin with punches, or instructs his ser-
vants to throw the rapist out into the street and to brandish their clubs
while they follow the rapist all the way to his home. When the bride or
wife has been freed the bridegroom escorts her to their bedroom. In
fact, in the Word a bride and wife mean the Lord’s church and adulter-
ers mean those who violate the church, that is, those who contaminate
his Word. Because the Jews had done this the Lord called them an adul-
terous generation [Matthew 12 : 39 ; 16 : 4 ; Mark 8 : 38 ].
4. Redemption was something only the Divine could bring about.If you 123
knew what hell is like, and you knew how high it swelled and how it
flooded the entire world of spirits at the time of the Lord’s coming, and
you saw the great power with which the Lord cast hell down and scat-
tered it and then restructured both it and heaven in accordance with the
divine design, you could not help being stunned and exclaiming that all
of it was something only the Divine could do.
First, what hell is like.It consists of millions, since it consists of all
from the creation of the world who have alienated themselves from God
through their evil lives and false beliefs.
Second, how high hell swelled and how it flooded the entire world of
spirits at the time of the Lord’s coming. This has been somewhat
explained in the earlier points [§§ 115 – 122 ]. No one knows the situation
at the time of the FirstComing, because it has not been revealed in the
literal sense of the Word. I have been allowed to see with my own eyes
the situation at the time of the Lord’s SecondComing. One can draw
conclusions about the earlier situation from that. I described this situa-
tion in the little work Last Judgment,published in London in 1758.
That little work also covers the great power with which the Lord cast
hell down and scattered it.My eyewitness accounts appear in that little
work, but copying them here would be a pointless exercise because it is in
print and there are still many copies available at the printer’s in London.
§123 the lord the redeemer & redemption 175