True Christian Religion (Ager) n. 793

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793. That man is as much a man after death as before, although he is not then visible to the eyes of the material body, can be seen from the appearance of the angels to Abraham, Hagar, Gideon, Daniel, and some of the prophets, also in the Lord's sepulchre, and frequently afterwards to John as related in the Apocalypse; but especially from the Lord Himself, who showed by touch and by eating that He was a Man, and yet became invisible to the eyes of His disciples. Who can be so foolish as not to acknowledge that although He was invisible He was just as much a Man? His disciples saw Him because the eyes of their spirits were then opened; and when these are opened, the things of the spiritual world appear as clearly as those of the natural world. The difference between man in the natural world and man in the spiritual world is, that man in the spiritual world is clothed with a substantial body, but man in the natural world with a material body, within which is his substantial body; and the substantial man sees the substantial man just as clearly as the material man sees the material. But the substantial man cannot see the material man, nor the material man the substantial, because of the difference between what is material and what is substantial, the nature of which difference can be defined, but not in few words.


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