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.

378. 9. There Is Faith That Is True, Faith That Is Illegitimate, and Faith That Is Hypocritical

From its cradle, the Christian church was attacked and torn apart by schisms and heresies. As time went on, it was lacerated and butchered by them, much like the person we read about who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and was surrounded by robbers; after they stripped him and beat him up, the robbers left him half-dead (Luke 10:30).

The end result was what we read in Daniel about that church: "In the end desolation [will fly in] on a bird of abominations; even to the close and the cutting down, it will drip steadily upon the devastation" (Daniel 9:27); and the Lord's statement: The end will come when you see the abomination of desolation that Daniel the prophet foretold (Matthew 24:14-15).

What happened to the church could be compared to a ship loaded down with merchandise of the highest quality. It was battered by storm winds immediately upon leaving port and a little later was wrecked at sea and sank. Some of its cargo was spoiled by water and some was carried off by fish.

[2] Church history makes it clear that from its infancy the Christian church was assaulted and torn apart. For example, even in the time of the apostles it was assaulted by Simon, who was a Samaritan by birth and a sorcerer by trade (see Acts of the Apostles 8:9 and following). It was also assaulted by Hymenaeus and Philetus, whom Paul mentions in his Epistle to Timothy []; and by Nicolas, whose followers were the so-called Nicolaitans mentioned in Revelation 2:6 and Acts of the Apostles 6:5; not to mention Corinth.

Just after the time of the apostles, many others went into revolt. For example, the Marcionites, the Noetians, the Valentinians, the Encratites, the Cataphrygians, the Quartodecimans, the Alogians, the Catharans, the Origenists or Adamantines, the Sabellians, the Samosatenians, the Manicheans, the Meletians, and finally the Arians.

After that, armies of heretical movements invaded the church - the Donatists, the Photinians, the Acatians or Semi-Arians, the Eunomians, the Macedonians, the Nestorians, the Predestinarians, the Papists, the Zwinglians, the Anabaptists, the Schwenkfeldians, the Synergists, the Socinians, the Antitrinitarians, the Quakers, the Herrnhuters, and many others.

At length Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin prevailed over them all. Their teachings are dominant today.

[3] There are three main reasons why there were so many disputes and rebellions in the church: (1) the divine Trinity was misunderstood; (2) there was no just concept of the Lord; (3) the suffering on the cross was taken to be redemption itself.

The truth about these three things is essential to the faith the church is based on, the faith from which it is called a church. If people did not know the truth about these three things, it was inevitable that everything about the church would be dragged first off course and finally in the opposite direction. It was also inevitable that when the church arrived at that stage it would still believe that it had a true faith in God and a belief in all God's truths.

This situation among these people in the church is like people who put a blindfold over their eyes and believe they are walking in a straight line, although step after step they are actually veering off course and eventually heading in the opposite direction, where there is a pit into which they fall.

The only way the wandering people of the church can be redirected onto the road of truth is by their knowing what true faith is, what illegitimate faith is, and what hypocritical faith is. Therefore this will be demonstrated.

a. There is only one true faith; it is faith in the Lord God our Savior Jesus Christ. It exists in people who believe that he is the Son of God, that he is the God of heaven and earth, and that he is one with the Father.

b. Illegitimate faith is all faith that departs from the one and only true faith. Illegitimate faith exists in people who climb up some other way and view the Lord not as God but only as a human being.

c. Hypocritical faith is no faith at all.

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.