312 HEAVEN and HELL §521
However, they do not know anything about human beings, that our
quality depends on our lives and our lives on our loves. This applies not
only to the deeper levels of our volition and intellect but even to the outer
aspects of our bodies, since the physical form is nothing but an outward
form in which our deeper natures manifest themselves in practice. This
means that our love is our whole person (see above, § 363 ). Nor do they
realize that the body does not live on its own but from its spirit, and that
our spirit is our actual affection, since our spiritual body is nothing more
than our affection in the kind of human form it presents after death (see
above, §§ 453 – 460 ). As long as these facts are not known, people can be
led to believe that salvation is nothing more than the divine pleasure that
we call mercy and grace.522 First, though, let me state what divine mercy is. Divine mercy is
a pure mercy toward the whole human race with the intent of saving
it, and it is constant toward every individual, never withdrawing from
anyone. This means that everyone who can be saved is saved. How-
ever, no one can be saved except by divine means, the means revealed
by the Lord in the Word. Divine means are what we refer to as divine
truths. They teach how we are to live in order to be saved. The Lord
uses them to lead us to heaven and to instill heaven’s life into us. The
Lord does this for everyone; but he cannot instill heaven’s life into
anyone who does not refrain from evil, since evil bars the way. So to
the extent that we do refrain from evil, the Lord in his divine mercy leads
us by divine means, from infancy to the end of life in the world and
thereafter to eternity. This is the divine mercy that I mean. We can
therefore see that the Lord’s mercy is pure mercy, but not unmediated:
that is, it does not save people whenever it feels like it, no matter how
they have lived.
523 The Lord never does anything contrary to his design because he
himself is the design. The divine truth that emanates from him is what
establishes the design, and divine truths are the laws of the design by
which the Lord is leading us. Saving people by unmediated mercy is
contrary to the divine design, and anything contrary to the divine design
is contrary to the divine nature.
The divine design is heaven for us. We have distorted it by living
contrary to its laws, which are divine truths. The Lord brings us back
into the design out of pure mercy, through the laws of the design; and
to the extent that we are brought back, we accept heaven into ourselves.
Whoever accepts heaven enters heaven.