300 HEAVEN and HELL §505
As long as they were living in the world, they were outwardly sensible,
because this was how they imitated rational people. So when the outer
layers are stripped off, their inner insanity is unveiled.
An evil person who outwardly pretends to be good can be compared
to a brightly polished jar with a cover, with all kinds of fi lth hidden
inside, just as the Lord said: “You are like whitewashed sepulchers that
look lovely on the outside but are inwardly full of the bones of the dead
and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23 : 27 ).506 All the people who have lived lives in the world focused on what is
good and have acted in accord with their consciences—that is, people
who have acknowledged the Divine Being and loved divine truths, and
especially people who have applied them to their lives—seem to them-
selves to have awakened from sleep when they are let into this state of
their more inward concerns, like people who have come from darkness
into light. They are actually thinking from heaven’s light and therefore
from a deeper wisdom; and they are acting from what is good and there-
fore from a deeper affection. Heaven is fl owing into their thoughts and
affections with a profound feeling of blessedness and pleasure that they
have never known before. This is because they are in touch with heav-
en’s angels. Then too, they acknowledge the Lord and worship him with
their very lives, because they are engaged in their own lives when they are
in this state of more inward concerns (as noted just above in § 505 ). They
are also acknowledging and worshiping him in freedom, since freedom
is a matter of our deeper affection. In this way they move away from an
outward holiness and into the inner holiness that is the essence of real
worship. This is the state of people who have lived a Christian life in
accordance with the precepts of the Word.
[ 2 ] Quite the opposite, though, is the state of people who in the world
lived lives focused on evil, who had no conscience and therefore denied
the Divine Being; for all the people who live in evil deny the Divine
Being inwardly, no matter how convinced they are outwardly that they
are not denying but acknowledging. This is because acknowledging the
Divine Being and living in evil are opposites. When people like this come
into the state of their deeper concerns in the other life, they seem foolish
when people hear them talk or see them act, because their evil impulses
impel them to break out into wicked deeds—into contempt for oth-
ers, into derision and blasphemy, hatred, and vengefulness. They cook
up plots, some of them with such ingenuity and malice that you would
scarcely believe anything like this existed in any human being. They are
then free to act in accord with the thoughts of their intentions because