What Does “Purification for Sins” Mean in Hebrews 1:3?

Posted on September 20, 2026 by Lee — 2 Comments

He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Hebrews 1:3, New Revised Standard Version)

Christ in Gethsemane, by Heinrich Hofmann (1824–1911)

Recently on Christianity StackExchange a question was posted asking how a Swedenborgian understands the words in Hebrews 1:3 about “purification for sins.” Below is an edited version of my answer.

As with some of my other StackExchange answers, this one gets a bit technical. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But it is part of a growing collection of articles here on Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life offering a Swedenborgian understanding (really, simply a truly Christian understanding) of the Acts and the Epistles, which historically have been covered relatively lightly in Swedenborgian literature because they are not part of Swedenborg’s canon of the Bible. I post it here for readers who might find it helpful in understanding the complex landscape of the Protestant Bible.

For more on Hebrews 1:3, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: atonement, evil, glorification, God's right hand, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Mary, purification from sin, regeneration, sin, spiritual rebirth
Posted in All About God, The Bible Re-Viewed

Superficial Religion

Posted on September 13, 2026 by Lee — Leave a comment

So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. (Genesis 19:36)

Lot and his daughters

With this article in our series on Genesis, mercifully, we complete the sorry tale of Genesis 19. If the Bible skeptics want a chapter to turn to in casting doubt on the divine and spiritual nature of the Bible, this would be the one. It reads almost like a compendium of human sexual and behavioral corruption—not to mention the descriptions of destructive divine wrath. It is no wonder that even the Swedenborgian commentaries largely pass by this chapter in silence, or give it only the most cursory treatment.

Even Swedenborg himself seems to weary of the chapter as he enters into this final section: Genesis 19:30–38. Yes, he does interpret it. But he does so in summary fashion, referring to earlier and later explanations for some of the details. In partial explanation of this, he mentions the obvious: these things “shock people’s minds and offend their ears” (Arcana Coelestia #2466). And here I would mention once more that when we actually read the Bible, it turns out not to be a “nice book full of nice stories,” but rather, a hard-hitting human book full of human stories, including the good, the bad, and the ugly of human life.

For more on the good, the bad, and the ugly, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: Ammon, corruption, Lot, Moab, Scribes and Pharisees, Sodom, Sodom and Gomorrah
Posted in The Bible Re-Viewed

Why did God take 14 Billion Years to Create Human Beings?

Posted on August 9, 2026 by Lee — 4 Comments

Towards the end of my earlier article, “Why did God take 14 Billion Years to Create the Physical World?” I said:

The development of complex, rational, spiritually aware beings under material-universe conditions is a long, complex task that had to go step-by-step from the primeval amoeba all the way to the human body and the mind it contains.

In this follow-up article, prompted by further questions in the comments section by the reader named World Questioner whose questions sparked the previous article, we’ll dig into one more aspect of why God took so long to create the universe.

Albinus / Wandelaar, Musculature illustration, 1740

Traditional Christians who lean towards the literalist side believe that God created humans in less than a day. Today’s science says that it took several billion years for biological evolution to produce human beings, and nine or ten billion years before that for physics to produce our habitable earth.

Personally, I’ll go for the timescale presented by modern science. As I said in the previous article, if God is truly infinite and omnipotent, this vast, ancient universe is a much better reflection and illustration of God than a small universe that’s only a few thousand years old.

Besides, human beings are immensely complex creatures both physically and psychologically. Few people realize just how complex we are. Let’s take a closer look at the wondrous creation that is us.

For more on the wonders of a human being, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: cars, computers, God, human brain, International Space Station, Large Hadron Collider, life in the universe, organelles, pale blue dot, science, the human body, the universe
Posted in Science Philosophy and History

Hebrew, Greek, and Swedenborg’s Explanation of Propitiation

Posted on August 2, 2026 by Lee — Leave a comment

Note: This article is an even more technical follow-up to my earlier article, “How did Swedenborg interpret 1 John 2:2: ‘He is the propitiation for our sins’?” Both articles were originally responses to questions posted on Christianity StackExchange. See the end of this article for links to the original question and the original version of my answer. This version is slightly edited from the StackExchange version. If you read the earlier article first, this one will make more sense.

The question answered in this article was expressing doubt about the connection between the word for “mercy seat” in the Old Testament and Swedenborg’s understanding of “propitiation” in the New Testament based on Swedenborg connecting the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament with the word traditionally translated “propitiation” in the New Testament.

This article may not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, there are a few spiritual gems scattered among all the vocabulary and linguistics. For readers not interested in the technicalities, I would suggest skimming over the vocabulary lists and looking for the paragraphs of explanation.

I am also posting it here on Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life to show that when it comes to Hebrew and Greek, Swedenborg was no slouch! His teachings and Bible interpretations are based on extensive study of the Bible in its original languages. For the Swedenborg nerds, there are a few tidbits in the appendix at the end that you might find interesting.

Here we go!

For more on Hebrew, Greek, and propitiation, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: Ark of the Covenant, atonement, Emanuel Swedenborg, Greek, Greek New Testament, Hebrew, Hebrew Bible, Jesus Christ, mercy, mercy seat, propitiation, Septuagint, the Bible
Posted in The Bible Re-Viewed

Was Jesus a Literalist?

Posted on July 28, 2026 by Lee — 4 Comments

Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. (Matthew 13:34)

With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples. (Mark 4:33–34)

And yet, some Christians claim that Jesus was a literalist!

On his “Answers in Genesis” website, the famous or infamous Ken Ham writes:

What Jesus says about creation reminds us that, if we want to be faithful to his Word, we must take Genesis as literal history—just like he did! (quoted from Creation Basics: What Did Jesus Say About Creation? by Ken Ham)

So let me get this straight: Jesus, who always spoke to the crowds in parables, was a strict literalist in his reading of Scripture?

Well then, if we’re going to faithful to Jesus, maybe we should do the same for the whole Bible. Maybe we should read Jesus literally, too!

For more Jesus and literalism, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: Biblical literalism, Christianity, Creation, Creationism, fundamentalism, Jesus, Jesus Christ, literalism, spiritual meaning, the Bible, typology, young Earth creationism
Posted in The Bible Re-Viewed

Can I Ask God to Extinguish My Consciousness?

Posted on July 19, 2026 by Lee — 10 Comments

We are created so that our inner self cannot die. We can believe in God and love God, which means we can have a relationship with God through faith and love. And having a relationship with God is living to eternity. (The New Jerusalem #223)

Okay, that answers the latest Spiritual Conundrum submitted to Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life before a reader named Lucas even had a chance to ask it! Here’s the short version:

Similar to others in this blog, I too detest the idea of reincarnation. However, where I differ from others is that my ideal wish, so to speak, is not heaven or an afterlife, but permanent cessation of consciousness, annihilation of my being.

I’ll post Lucas’s full spiritual conundrum in a moment.

But the short, no-beating-around-the-bush answer is: I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to keep on living to eternity. Once a human consciousness is created, it can never be extinguished. That’s because, as Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) says, our human consciousness can form a relationship with God. And since God is eternal, any conscious relationship with God is also eternal.

What if we decide to reject God and reject any relationship with God. Then can our consciousness cease?

Sorry, but the answer is still “No.” Since we have the capability of having a relationship with God, that puts us in the “eternal” category even if we choose not to exercise that capability. Besides, even people who reject God still have a relationship with God. It’s just a bad relationship with God.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that eternity is a lot better than you think! It’s not “living forever” in an earthly, timebound sense. In fact, angels and spirits don’t even know what time is. Though we loosely say that we “live forever,” really, in the other world we live in an eternal now, just as animals do here on earth.

For more on asking God for oblivion, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: angels, animal afterlife, animals, annihilationism, death, eternal now, eternity, heaven, hell, the afterlife, time and space
Posted in The Afterlife

How Did the People of Eden Live?

Posted on July 12, 2026 by Lee — Leave a comment

In a question posted on Christianity StackExchange a few years ago, a person named Ambrosia asked:

I’ve lately been interested in the life of the people in Eden. According to Emanuel Swedenborg, how separated is it from the life we are living today? How did husbands and wives interact? What were their daily routines or lifestyles?

You can see the original question on StackExchange here, and the StackExchange version of my answer here. The rest of this post is an edited and slightly expanded version of my answer.

In addition to providing a detailed verse-by-verse commentary on the two Creation stories in Genesis (not to mention the rest of the books of Genesis and Exodus), Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) wrote a fair amount about the people represented by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He even said that he was able to visit some of them in the part of heaven where they are still living today. Most of what he wrote is about their spiritual life. He didn’t say so much about their daily routines or lifestyles. However, what he did write about their lifestyles focuses on what their marriages were like, and on their social structures.

But first, we must clear up a common misconception: the idea that Adam and Eve were two literal people.

For more on the people of Eden, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: Adam, Adam and Eve, Emanuel Swedenborg, Garden of Eden, humanity, innocence, love, marriage, peace, spiritual marriage, spiritual meaning, the Bible
Posted in Sex Marriage Relationships, The Bible Re-Viewed

A Divine Rescue Mission

Posted on July 5, 2026 by Lee — 2 Comments

So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived. (Genesis 19:29)

Tales of brave rescue from the clutches of evil and from impending disaster have always been a staple of popular storytelling. Traditionally, a damsel in distress is rescued from death or dishonor, as in the ancient myth of Perseus and Andromeda, or in a more complicated plot, Helen of Troy. However, it is not always women who are saved from peril. For example, in the popular 1998 World War II movie Saving Private Ryan, the object of the rescue mission was a male soldier stationed behind enemy lines.

In Genesis 19, it is a whole family that needs rescuing. And the rescuers are not soldiers or heroes with winged feet, but angels acting for God.

In the previous article in this series we looked at the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but we passed over the parts about the rescue of Lot and his wife and two daughters. As I said in that article, the destruction of those cities is all about the inevitable destruction that we bring upon ourselves when we persist in evil ways of living. It is also about the destruction of evil motives and false ideas within us when we are willing to be led by God. And in the case of Jesus, it is about his battling and overcoming all the influences of evil and hell that tried to destroy him.

In overcoming hell and evil, Jesus took for himself the power to rescue us from the grip of evil, too. That is what the sections of Genesis 19 we are covering this time (which I recommend that you read using this link) are all about.

For more on God rescuing Lot, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: angels, Jesus Christ, Lot, mercy, rescue, Sodom, Sodom and Gomorrah
Posted in Spiritual Growth, The Bible Re-Viewed

How Can We Believe What the Gospels Say about Jesus?

Posted on June 29, 2026 by Lee — Leave a comment

Recently a reader named Gary submitted a Spiritual Conundrum to Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life in which he asked, among other things:

The Angel appearing to the Three Marys at the Sepulchre, by William Blake, 1803

I want to understand how you, from a Swedenborgian perspective, conclude that Jesus’ stories are true. How do we know Jesus actually rose from the dead when we don’t have any clear written documentation outside of these Gospels?

I’ll give Gary’s full spiritual conundrum in a moment. First, here are the basic points I’ll cover in response to his questions:

The Gospels were written when people who knew Jesus were still alive.
The four Gospels are each written with a different audience in mind.
The Gospels agree about the most important parts of Jesus’ life.
The Gospels are more focused on delivering a spiritual message than on historical accuracy.
The spiritual meaning of the Gospels is what’s most important.
Spiritual knowledge comes from revelation, not from science and history.

Let’s dig into it.

For more on the believability of the Gospels, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: God, Jerusalem, Jesus, material reality, resurrection, Revelation, spiritual meaning, spiritual reality, Swedenborg, the Bible, the empty tomb
Posted in All About God, The Bible Re-Viewed

Swedenborgian Thoughts on Vedic Philosophy

Posted on June 16, 2026 by Lee — Leave a comment

Recently a reader from Germany named Michelle submitted a Spiritual Conundrum to Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life asking for my thoughts on some Vedic (Hindu) ideas quoted from an article by Swiss poet and thinker Armin Risi. Michelle began by saying:

I find the teachings of Swedenborg and your in-depth and insightful articles here on your blog really helpful. And I have read (among others) your article, “If God is Love, Why all the Pain and Suffering?” Here’s what I’m struggling with: Swedenborg said that we are kept in the balance of good and evil forces. That implies that good and evil are equivalent—but are they? It is usually portrayed that way. (link added)

Her conundrum goes on to quote long sections of the article, adding some of her own comments along the way.

First, thank you for your kind words, Michelle! I am very glad you are finding the articles here helpful. That’s what this bog is all about.

I would be happy to provide some thoughts from a Swedenborgian perspective in response to Mr. Risi’s presentation of Vedic ideas. Full disclosure: I am only lightly acquainted with Vedic philosophy. I make no claim to any expertise in that area. I can’t even say how closely Mr. Rishi’s statements match core Vedic philosophy. Here, I will simply respond to his statements as they stand, from my own Swedenborgian Christian perspective.

Short answer to your initial question: Good and evil are opposites. Evil is a distorted mirror image of good.

During our lifetime on earth, God keeps us in a balance between good and evil forces so that we can be free to choose which one we want for ourselves. The good comes from God through heaven. The evil comes from hell. God, who rules both heaven and hell, makes sure neither one gets too much stronger than the other and takes away our freedom. But once we move on to the spiritual world, we go either to heaven, where we live in good, or to hell, where we live in evil.

For more on Swedenborg and Vedic philosophy, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: Armin Risi, dualism, duality, Emanuel Swedenborg, God, good and evil, Hinduism, peace, polarity, Vedic Philosophy, war
Posted in Science Philosophy and History

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