598. After the temptation is over the person is in heaven as regards his internal man, and in the world by means of his external. It is therefore by temptations that in a person's case heaven and the world are linked together, and then the Lord with him controls his world from heaven in accordance with proper order. The reverse happens if the person remains natural. Then he longs to control heaven from the world. That is what everyone who loves to dominate from self-love becomes like. If he is inwardly examined, he proves to believe in no God, but in himself; and after his death he believes anyone who has power over others to be God. Such madness is to be found in hell; indeed it has become so deep-rooted that some there say they are God the Father, others God the Son, some God the Holy Spirit, and among the Jews there are those who claim to be the Messiah. This shows plainly what a person comes to be like after death, if the natural man is not regenerated; and thus what he would become in imagination, if a new church were not established by the Lord, in which genuine truths may be taught. This is what is meant by these words of the Lord: