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.

361. People who have faith in the Lord and goodwill toward their neighbor have spirituality within their earthly self, and as a result their earthly self becomes translucent. Once we realize this, we can see that the more translucent their earthly self becomes, the more wisdom they have about spiritual things. They also have more wisdom about earthly things, because as they are thinking, reading, or hearing about something, they see inside themselves whether it is true or not. This is an awareness they have from the Lord as spiritual light and heat flow down from him into the higher sphere of their intellect.

[2] The more spiritual our faith and our goodwill become, the more we are drawn away from our self-centeredness. We do not focus on ourselves, on payment, or on reward; we focus only on the pleasure of perceiving truths that relate to faith and doing good actions that relate to love. The more our spirituality increases, the more blissful that pleasure becomes. This process is the source of our salvation, which is called eternal life.

This human state is comparable to the things that are most beautiful and most pleasant in our world. In fact, it is compared with them in the Word. It is compared to fruit-bearing trees, and the gardens in which they stand; flowering fields; precious stones; and exquisite food. This state is also compared to weddings and the festivities and celebrations that follow them.

[3] When this state is upside-down, however - that is, when an earthly self lies within our spirituality, and therefore we are inwardly devils although we are outwardly angels - then our state is comparable to a dead person in a coffin made out of precious, gilded wood. This state is also like a skeleton dressed up in someone's clothes riding around in a magnificent carriage. It is like a corpse in a tomb that is built like the temple of Diana. Our inner self can be pictured as a mass of snakes in a cave, while our outer self is like butterflies whose wings are tinged with colors of every kind; yet these butterflies glue their polluted eggs to the leaves of productive trees, with the result that the fruit is consumed. In this state our inner self could be compared to a hawk, and our outer self to a dove: our faith and goodwill are like a hawk flying over a fleeing dove that eventually becomes worn out; then the hawk flies down and devours it.

355. 5. Faith without Goodwill Is Not Faith; Goodwill without Faith Is Not Goodwill; and Neither of Them Is Living Unless It Comes from the Lord.

The church today has separated faith from goodwill. The church says that faith alone apart from the works of the Law justifies us and saves us. It says that goodwill cannot be united to faith, because faith comes from God while goodwill (to the extent that it becomes actual in deeds) comes from ourselves.

These concepts, however, never entered the minds of any apostle, as their letters make obvious. This separation and division was introduced into the Christian church when the one God was partitioned into three persons and each was allotted equal divinity.

The next part of this chapter will illustrate that there is no faith without goodwill or goodwill without faith, and that neither of them has life except from the Lord. Here the following points need to be demonstrated in order to pave the way:

a. We are able to acquire faith for ourselves.

b. The same is true of goodwill.

c. The same is also true of the life within each of them.

d. Nevertheless, no faith, no goodwill, and none of the life within faith or goodwill comes from ourselves; instead they come from the Lord alone.