“Thoughts and perceptions also share this difference. This is why you
are capable of thinking about God’s essence and omnipresence from eter-
nity,meaning about God before he created the world. You think about
God’s essence apart from time, and you think about his omnipresence
apart from space, and therefore you comprehend things that transcend
earthly human ideas.”
[ 10 ] At that point I related how I had once been thinking about
God’s essence and omnipresence from eternity, meaning that I was think-
ing about God before he created the world; and because I could not
remove space and time from the thoughts I was having, I became dis-
tressed as I saw an idea of nature starting to replace my idea of God.
Then I was told, “Remove the ideas of space and time and you will
understand.” I was allowed to remove them, and I understood. From
that point on, I have been able to think about God from eternity, but not
at all about nature from eternity. God exists in all time independently of
time and in all space independently of space. Nature, on the other hand,
exists in all time in time itself and in all space in space itself. Nature and
its time and space had to have a beginning; God, who exists apart from
time and space, did not. Nature therefore comes from God. Nature came
into being in time (not from eternity) along with its own time and space.
The fifth memorable occurrence.The Lord has allowed me to be in the 281
spiritual world and the physical world at the same time. As a result, I can
talk with angels as I do with people, which has allowed me to know the
states people go through as they arrive after death in that previously
unknown world. I have spoken to all my friends and relatives and also to
monarchs and dukes, as well as to scholars who had met their fate. I have
done this continually now for twenty-seven years. Therefore from my
own life experiences I am able to describe the states people go through
after death. I could tell you what they are like for people who have lived
good lives and what they are like for people who have lived evil lives.
Here I will limit myself to some facts about the states people go through
if they used the Word to convince themselves of theological falsities,
especially if they did so to support justification by faith alone. The suc-
cessive states they go through are the following:
( 1 ) When they have died and are spiritually coming back to their own
life, which generally happens on the third day after their heart has
stopped beating, they seem to themselves to have the same body they had
had in the world—so much so that they have no idea they are not still
§281 sacred scripture 347