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.

174. 5. The apostolic church knew no trinity of persons. This idea was first developed by the Council of Nicaea. The council introduced the idea into the Roman Catholic church; and it in turn introduced the idea into the churches that have since separated from it. By "the apostolic church" I mean not only the church that existed in various places in the time of the apostles but also the church that existed over the two or three centuries after their time. Eventually, however, people started to tear the door to the house of worship off its hinges and break into the sanctuary like thieves. By the house of worship I mean Christianity; by the door I mean the Lord God the Redeemer; and by the sanctuary I mean his divinity. Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, those who do not enter through the door to the sheepfold but instead climb up some other way are thieves and robbers. I am the door. Anyone who enters through me will be saved" [John 10:1, 9].

The crime just mentioned was committed by Arius and his followers.

[2] Therefore Constantine the Great called a council in Nicaea, a city in Bithynia. The people who had been called there to throw out Arius's damaging heresy invented, defended, and gave sanction to the idea that three divine persons - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - had existed from eternity, each with a personality, a reality, and a continued existence of his own. They also concluded that the second person, the Son, came down, took on a human manifestation, and brought about redemption; and that his human nature was divine because of a hypostatic union. Through this union he had a close relationship with God the Father.

From that time on, balls of atrocious heresies relating to God and the person of Christ began to roll out across the globe, raising the head of the Antichrist, dividing God into three and the Lord the Savior into two, and destroying the temple that the Lord had erected through his apostles to the point where not one stone was left attached to another, as the Lord said (Matthew 24:2, where "the temple" means not only the Temple in Jerusalem but also the church, on whose close or end that whole chapter focuses).

[3] What else could be expected from the Council of Nicaea? What else could be expected from subsequent councils that likewise split divinity into three parts and placed the incarnate God beneath all three, on their footstool? These councils removed the church's head from its body by "climbing up some other way," that is, bypassing the Lord and going up to God the Father as some other god. They kept just the phrase "the merit of Christ" in their mouths, wishing for God the Father to have mercy on its account and hoping that justification would thereby flow in directly with its whole entourage: the forgiving of sins, renewal, sanctification, regeneration, and salvation - all without any participation from the individual.

632. The Concept of a Faith That Assigns Us the Merit and Justice of Christ the Redeemer First Surfaced in the Decrees of the Council of Nicaea Concerning Three Divine Persons from Eternity; from That Time to the Present This Faith Has Been Accepted by the Entire Christian World

The Council of Nicaea was hosted by the emperor Constantine the Great in his palace in Nicaea, a city in Bithynia. He had been persuaded to call the council by Alexander, bishop of Alexandria. All the bishops of Asia, Africa, and Europe were invited. Their charge was to challenge and condemn, using Sacred Scripture, the heresy of Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria who was denying that Jesus Christ was divine. The council occurred in the year of our Lord 325.

The participants in the council came to the conclusion that three divine persons had existed from eternity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is particularly easy to see from the two statements called the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed.

In the Nicene Creed we read the following:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, born before all the ages, God from God, who has the same substance as the Father, and who came down from the heavens and was incarnated by the Holy Spirit through the Virgin Mary. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and who along with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.

[2] The following statement appears in the Athanasian Creed.

The catholic faith is this, that we venerate one God in a trinity, and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance. Just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as God and Lord, so the catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or three lords.

That is, it is allowable to confess three gods and lords but not to say three gods and lords. We do not say three gods and lords because religion forbids it, but we confess three gods and lords because that is what the truth dictates.

The Athanasian Creed was composed immediately after the Council of Nicaea by one or more of the people who had attended that council. It was accepted as an ecumenical or catholic creed.

Clearly, then, that was when it was decreed that the church should acknowledge three divine persons from eternity, each of whom is individually God, although there should be no mention of three gods or lords but only of one.