Title: Newness of Life

Topic: Salvation

Summary: What the Bible calls newness of life is not just a matter of changing our behaviors but of gaining a new heart and a new spirit.

Use the reference links below to follow along in the Bible as you watch.

References:
Romans 6:1, 4
Isaiah 65:17; 66:22
Jeremiah 31:31
Leviticus 3:1, 14, 17, Leviticus 3:23, Leviticus 3:26, Leviticus 3:33, Leviticus 3:40-41
Ezekiel 11:16; 18:30; 36:25
John 3:3
Romans 12:1-2
2 Corinthians 4:16; 5:17, 10
Galatians 6:12
Ephesians 4:17, 24
Colossians 3:5, 9-11
Titus 3:1-5
Revelation 21:1-5
Isaiah 62:1-2

262. 1. Doubts about divine providence may be raised by the fact that all Christendom worships one God in three persons, which is really three gods. Up to the present time they have not realized that God is one in person and in essence, containing a trinity, and that this God is the Lord. Anyone who thinks rationally about divine providence may say, "Are not three persons three gods when each person by itself is God?" Can anyone think anything else? Does anyone think anything else? Athanasius himself could not think anything else, so the Creed that bears his name says, "Although Christian truth requires us to acknowledge each individual Person as God and Lord, still Christian faith forbids us from saying or naming three gods or three Lords." This can only mean that we are supposed to believe in three gods and Lords but that we must not say or name three gods and three Lords.

[2] Is there any way we can see one God unless that God is one person as well? Someone may suggest that we can see this if we think that the three have a single essence; but does anyone, can anyone see this as saying any more than that they are of one mind, that they agree? There are still three gods.

If we think more deeply, we ask ourselves how a divine essence that is infinite can be divided, and how it can beget another divine essence from eternity and then bring forth another that emanates from both of them.

If someone says that we are to believe it but not think about it, can we really help thinking about what we are supposed to believe? What else is the basis of that acknowledgment that is faith in its essence? Is not thinking about God and about the three Persons the source for Socinianism and Arianism, which are uppermost in more hearts than you might believe? What really makes the church is a faith in one God and that this one God is the Lord. The divine trinity is within that God. This you may find presented in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on the Lord, from beginning to end.

[3] But what do people think about the Lord these days? Do they not think that he is God and Human, God from Jehovah the Father who begot him, and Human from the virgin Mary who bore him? Does anyone think that the God and the Human in him, his divine nature and his human nature, are one person, and that they are actually just as "one" as soul and body are one? Is anyone aware of this? Ask the church's learned theologians and they will tell you that they do not know this. Yet it is part of the theology of the church accepted throughout Christendom, as follows: "Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Human; and even though he is God and Human, still there are not two but one Christ. There is one because the Divinity took a human nature to itself, so it is absolutely one. There is a single Person because just as soul and body make a single human, so God and Human make a single Christ." This is from the Athanasian Faith or Creed.

The reason people do not know what the Creed is saying is that when they have read it they have been thinking about the Lord not as God but only as human.

[4] If you ask them whether they know how he was conceived, whether it was by God the Father or by his own divine nature, they will answer that it was by God the Father. This is what the Bible says. Are he and the Father not one the way soul and body are one? Can anyone think that he was conceived by two deities? And if he was conceived by his own divine nature, then he would be his own father.

If you then go on to ask, "What is your concept of the Lord's divine nature and of his human nature?" they will tell you that his divine nature came from the essence of the Father, that his human nature came from the essence of his mother, and that his divine nature is with the Father. Then if you ask, "And where is his human nature?" they will have no answer for you. In their concept, they have separated his divine nature and his human nature, making the divine equal to the divine nature of the Father and his human nature like that of any other human. They do not realize that this is separating the soul from the body; and they do not see the contradiction involved, that this would have his rational self born from his mother alone.

[5] This ingrained concept that the Lord's human nature was like that of any other human has made it almost impossible for a Christian to be induced to think about a Divine Human nature, even given the statement that his soul or life from conception was and is Jehovah himself.

Organize your propositions now and think hard. Is there any God of the universe other than the Lord alone, in whom is that essential, originating divine nature called the Father, the divine human nature called the Son, and the emanating divine nature called the Holy Spirit? This makes God one in person and in essence, and this God is the Lord.

[6] If you insist on saying that the Lord himself named the three in Matthew--"Go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19)--he said this in order to let them know that now that he was glorified the Trinity was within him, as we can see from the verses immediately before and after this command. In the verse just before he says that he has been given all power in heaven and on earth, and in the verse just after he says that he will be with them even to the close of the age. So he is talking about himself alone, and not about some trio.

[7] But let us return to divine providence, to why Christians have been allowed to worship one God in three persons--that is, three gods--and why it has not yet been known that God is one in person and in essence, containing a trinity, and that this God is the Lord. We are responsible for this situation, not the Lord. The Lord teaches these things clearly in the Word, as you can tell from all the passages collected in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on the Lord. Further, the theology of all churches teaches that his divine and his human natures are not two but one person, united like soul and body. But the church has separated the divine from the human and equates the divine nature with the divine nature of Jehovah the Father and the human nature with that of anyone else.

[8] The church has done this primarily because from the start it has strayed into a Babylon that has transferred divine power to itself. In order to call it human power rather than divine power, though, they have made the Lord's human nature like that of anyone else. Then later, at the Reformation, when faith alone was accepted as the sole means of salvation ("faith alone" meaning that God the Father should have mercy on us for the sake of the Son), there was no other way to view the Lord's human nature. This was because we cannot approach the Lord and in full sincerity recognize him as the God of heaven and earth unless we are living by his commandments. In the spiritual world, where we are all constrained to say exactly what we think, people cannot even say the name "Jesus" unless they have lived Christian lives on earth. This is under his divine providence, to prevent the profanation of his name.