13. VI. The state of the world and of the church before the Last Judgment was like evening and night, but after it, like morning and day. When the light of truth does not appear, and truth is not received, there is a state of the church in the world like evening and night; that there was a state before the Last Judgment, may appear from what is said above (n. 11); but when the light of truth appears, and the truth is received, there is a state of the church in the world like morning and day. Hence it is, that these two states of the church are called "evening and morning" and "night and day," in the Word; as in the following passages:
The Holy One said unto me, Until the evening the morning two thousand three hundred; then shall the sanctuary be justified (Dan. 8:14). The vision of the evening and the morning is truth (Dan. 8:26). There shall be one day, which is known to Jehovah, neither day nor night, for about the time of evening there shall be light (Zech. 14:7). One crying unto me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night (Isa. 21:11, 12). Concerning the last time of the church, Jesus said:
Watch, for ye know not when the Lord of the house will come, whether at evening, at midnight, at cock-crowing, or in the morning (Mark 13:35). Jesus said, I must work while it is day; the night cometh, when no one can work (John 9:4); and elsewhere (as in Isa. 17:14; Jer. 6:4, 5; Ps. 30:6; 65:9; 90:6). Since such things are meant by "evening and night," therefore the Lord, in order to fulfil the Word, also was buried in the evening and afterward rose again in the morning.
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