1. True Christianity

Containing a Comprehensive Theology of the New Heaven and the New Church

The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church

THE faith of the new heaven and the new church is stated here in both universal and specific forms to serve as the face of the work that follows, the doorway that allows entry into the temple, and the summary that in one way or another contains all the details to follow. I say "the faith of the new heaven and the new church" because heaven, where there are angels, and the church, in which there are people, act together like the inner and the outer levels in a human being. People in the church who love what is good because they believe what is true and who believe what is true because they love what is good are angels of heaven with regard to the inner levels of their minds. After death they come into heaven, and enjoy happiness there according to the relationship between their love and their faith. It is important to know that the new heaven that the Lord is establishing today has this faith as its face, doorway, and summary.

717. The fact that the Lord's redemption is also fully present in the Holy Supper is a direct consequence of what was just stated. Where the Lord is fully present, his redemption is also fully present. In his humanity he is the Redeemer; therefore he is redemption itself. Where he is fully present, no part of redemption can be absent. Therefore all who approach the Holy Supper worthily become his redeemed.

Being redeemed means being liberated from hell, forming a partnership with the Lord, and being saved (see below in this chapter [719-730] and the more extended treatment in the chapter on redemption [114-133]). These then are the fruits that are given to us in the Holy Supper. They are not given us to the full extent that the Lord would like, however. Moved as he is by his divine love, he would prefer to give us all of these gifts [at once]. Instead we are given them in accordance with our own receptivity; however receptive we are, that is how far the process of redemption takes us. This makes it clear that those who go to the Holy Supper worthily come away with effects and fruits of the Lord's redemption.

649. A similar thing would happen to us if we were to embrace the faith of the new church but also hold onto the faith of the former church regarding the assignment of the Lord's merit and justice, since from the latter concept as from a root, all the dogmas of the former church rise up like shoots.

If this were to happen, it would be like people escaping from five of the dragon's horns but getting caught on the other five. It would be like running away from a wolf but stumbling onto a tiger. It would be like climbing out of a dry pit only to fall into a pit full of water and drown.

In this circumstance, we could easily return to all the teachings of our former faith. (Their true nature is exposed above.) We could easily then succumb to the damaging belief that we are able to assign and apply the Lord's divine attributes to ourselves, namely, his redemption and his justice, which in actuality can only be adored by us but not applied as part of us. If we were to succeed in assigning or applying the Lord's redemption and justice to ourselves we would be consumed as if we had been thrown unprotected into the sun, even though the sun's light allows us to see and its warmth keeps our bodies alive. (I have shown above [640] that the Lord's merit is redemption, and that his redemption and justice are two divine attributes that cannot be joined to us.)

We must all therefore take care not to write the former church's concept of assigning merit on top of the new church's concept of assigning spiritual credit or blame, since doing so would have tragic consequences that would stand in the way of our salvation.