The Christian Church is in its End Times. What Comes Next?

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:1–2)

Even when the Christian Church was first beginning, the Bible predicted that its end would come. People have been waiting for those end times for two thousand years now, expecting great cataclysms before the epochal Second Coming of Christ.

But according to Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), we are in those end times right now. In fact today, two or three centuries after Swedenborg said this, the New Jerusalem is already coming down out of heaven from God.

How can this be? Where are all the great wars and cataclysms that are supposed to come before the end?

These, according to Swedenborg, are not earthly, material wars and cataclysms, but spiritual ones. And they are already happening all around us as the old, traditional Christian Church dies out, and a new spiritual paradigm replaces it.

What will this “new church” look like? I’ve been scratching my head over that question for many years. And I finally have the beginnings of an answer!

The ages of humankind

Both the Bible and archeology tell us that humanity has gone through several major stages on its path toward the present age. Archaeology tells the story of the stone age, the bronze age and the iron age, tracing humanity’s path upwards from its early primitive roots.

The Bible looks at things from a more spiritual perspective. Its ages, like the ages of humankind in Greek and Roman mythology, start with an early, innocent golden age in the Garden of Eden, progress downwards from there, and reach their low point just before Christ comes, at which point things start to move upwards again. For more on this, please see these two articles:

• Was There a Reason Jesus Came at the Time He Did?
• Why did God Wait So Long to Come Down as Christ?

According to Swedenborg, based on the Bible narrative, there are five spiritual ages of humankind:

1. The earliest spiritual era, represented by the Garden of Eden, and ending with the Flood
2. The ancient spiritual era, beginning with Noah, and ending with the captivity in Egypt
3. The Israelite or Jewish spiritual era, beginning with the giving of the Ten Commandments, and ending with the coming of Christ
4. The Christian era, beginning with the coming of Christ, and ending with the events described in the book of Revelation
5. The New Jerusalem era, beginning at the descent of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21–22, and continuing for the rest of human history

Let’s take a brief excursion through the last three. This will set the stage for what comes next in practice.

The Israelite religion

The ancient Israelite religion is based on obedience to law.

Its foundational story tips us off: The founding event of ancient Judaism is the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai right after the Exodus from the long period of slavery in Egypt. Together with the Ten Commandments, Moses, the Lawgiver, delivered a whole body of laws prescribing the Israelites’ behavior and ritual practices. The centerpiece of their religious practice was sacrificial worship practiced first in the mobile tabernacle, and later in their temple in Jerusalem.

For the Israelites, or Jews, of this era, it was not necessary to understand why God gave these laws, though that might be helpful. What was necessary was to obey them. There were strict punishments for violating them, including the death penalty for serious violations.

The way the ancient Israelites communed with God was through animal sacrifice, which could be performed only in the Tabernacle, and later only in the Temple in Jerusalem. Though different sacrifices had different reasons and different procedures, in general we can think of the sacrifices as feasts with God, which renewed and established the relationship between God and God’s people.

The Christian religion

The Christian religion as it took form in the New Testament is a religion based on faith.

Another way of saying this is that Christianity is a religion of inner understanding and belief in the truth.

Of course, Christians must still follow the Ten Commandments and the other basic moral and ethical laws presented in the Bible. But for Christians, this is not a matter of outward obedience enforced by punishments and rewards as it was in Old Testament times. Christians can freely inquire into and come to an understanding of why God gave us these laws. Christians will live a moral and ethical life based on an inner belief and understanding of them. In other words, Christians will follow the law based on principle.

For people who have become truly Christian, there is no need for threats of punishment, nor is there any need for a promise of reward, to keep them on the path toward eternal life. Christians are motivated by an inner faith in Jesus Christ, and they live based on that inner faith.

It only makes sense, then, that for Christians, communing with God does not involve external rituals of animal sacrifice. Rather, for Christians, communing with God happens through prayer, which is an inner conversation with God. Individual Christians have this kind of direct and personal relationship with God. Christians also gather for community worship and prayer, forming a relationship between the “bride of Christ,” which is the church, and Jesus Christ, who is God with us (Matthew 1:23).

The new Jerusalem

The religion represented by the new Jerusalem is based on love.

When it comes to the new Jerusalem era, we don’t have as much to go on in the Bible. It is covered only in the last two chapters of the Bible—which, like the rest of the book of Revelation, are highly symbolic and metaphorical. But symbolically, the Bible does tell us what the new Jerusalem is made of:

The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. . . . And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass. (Revelation 21:18, 21, emphasis added)

Gold, of course, is the metal of love. And that’s what the entire city, and its streets, are made of. The spiritual era represented by the climactic biblical vision of the new Jerusalem is based on love, and its pathways are paths of love.

This is the highest and deepest stage of human spiritual growth. For people who are part of this newly arriving spiritual era, living a good life is not just a matter of principle. It’s not something people do because they know it’s the right thing to do, as in the previous Christian paradigm. Rather, living a good, kind, and useful life is motivated by love for God and for our fellow human beings. We do good things because we care about people, and we want to help them and give them support, comfort, and happiness.

This is also the kind of Christianity that Christ himself pointed towards when he said:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:37–40)

In the spiritual era represented by the new Jerusalem, though people may still gather and pray, the primary way of communing with God will be in the practice of kind, loving, and thoughtful service to our fellow human beings.

After all, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, when the people represented by the sheep ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?” the response is, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (See Matthew 25:31-46.)

When we are actively serving other people’s needs, we are serving God. This will be the primary “worship” of the spiritual era represented by the new Jerusalem.

What about church?

Will people still go to church?

Life itself is answering that question. As we move into the new era represented by the new Jerusalem, fewer and fewer people are going to church. Hundreds of thousands of churches that used to be full every Sunday now have only a handful of people in attendance. Each year, thousands of churches are closing their doors permanently.

For traditional Christians of all stripes, this is a danger and a disaster. People are voting with their feet, and all the efforts to bring them back, while they may have some temporary success, are not working in the long run. All indications are that the decline of traditional Christianity is an ongoing, irreversible trend. The bulk of the population just isn’t interested in that sort of religion and worship anymore. More and more people are growing up without any experience of going to church at all.

For almost two thousand years now, gathering in a church for Sunday worship was how the bulk of the population in the Christian parts of the world communed with God and practiced their religion. That style of worship, with its prayers and sermons, fits in with a religion of shared faith.

But now we are moving into an era of love, and the old practice of church worship doesn’t fit people’s mindset anymore. That’s why the churches are dying.

Far into the future there will still be some traditional Christians worshiping in their churches, just as there are still Jews worshiping in their Temples today. But that style of Christianity will become a small, niche religion rather than the dominant religion of humanity.

What will replace church?

Does this mean that people will no longer gather together for any kind of spiritual practice or experience?

Not necessarily. However, instead of being driven by different faiths and creeds, and people’s adherence to them, in the new Jerusalem era people’s spiritual practices will be driven by what they love. And that will be different for different people. A more contemporary way of saying this is that people will be brought together, not by a common faith, but by common interests. For example:

• People who love to meditate and pray will gather in meditation groups.
• People who love to hear inspiring lectures on spiritual topics will gather to hear spiritual teachers speak.
• People who love to make, or listen to, spiritual music will gather for concerts and to sing in choirs.
• People who love to roll up their sleeves and do something active will form work groups to build houses for people or to provide food for people.

The list could go on and on. The common denominator is that people will gather for different activities based on their own character, and on the types of things they love to think about and do. And yes, some people will follow their own individual paths of love and service rather than participating in group activities.

Really, this is what is already happening. It doesn’t require church organizations. It doesn’t require ordained priests or ministers. Anyone can spearhead one or another of a multitude of activities that express and contribute to people’s spiritual life. And though it may seem decentralized and disorganized, under God’s watchful eye all these different practices and activities will work together to continue lifting humanity up to a higher spiritual level. There will be something for everyone, and everyone will contribute his or her own spiritual love and energy to the human community.

Service is worship

Most of all, though, the regular work that people do every day will be the primary form of worship in the new spiritual era represented by the new Jerusalem.

Remember how Jesus said in the parable that as much as we have done a good deed for the least of our brothers and sisters, we have done it for God? Well, where do most people do most of their good deeds? The answer is: In their jobs and their daily work.

Day after day we get up in the morning and go about the work that forms the backbone of our life. For many, this means working a job, whether at a workplace from home. For others who don’t have to work for money, it means taking care of children or elderly parents or volunteering at local institutions and charities. For many people it is a mix of both paid and unpaid work.

Swedenborg summed it up in this pithy statement:

All religion relates to life, and the life of religion is to do good. (Doctrine of Life #1)

This will be the primary religious practice in the New Jerusalem era.

In fact, it already is. Today, when we are going about our daily business engaging in useful service for our fellow human beings, whether paid or volunteer, we are practicing the religion of the new Jerusalem.

Here is a shorter video version of this article:

For further reading:

• Today’s Christianity: Vastly Void of Truth
• Christianity is Dead. Long Live Christianity!
• Was There a Reason Jesus Came at the Time He Did?
• Why did God Wait So Long to Come Down as Christ?
• Is the World Coming to an End? What about the Second Coming?