359. (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. We read, We cannot receive anything unless it is given to us from heaven (John 3:27). And Jesus said, "Those who live in me and I in them bear much fruit, because without me you cannot do anything" (John 15:5). This has to be understood, however, in a particular way: On our own we cannot acquire any faith for ourselves except earthly faith, which is a persuasion that something is the case because a man in authority said so. On our own we cannot acquire any goodwill for ourselves except earthly goodwill, which is our working to gain favor for the sake of some reward. In both of them the self is present, but life from the Lord is not present yet. Nevertheless, with this earthly faith and goodwill we are preparing ourselves to be a vessel for the Lord. As we are preparing ourselves, the Lord comes in and turns our earthly faith into spiritual faith, does the same with our goodwill, and brings them both to life. These things happen when we go to the Lord as the God of heaven and earth.

Because we have been created as images of God, we have been created as vessels for God. Therefore the Lord says, "The people who love me are those who have my commandments and follow them. I will love these people, come to them, and make a home with them" (John 14:21, 23). Also, "Behold! I am standing at the door and knocking. If any hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and will dine with them and they with me" (Revelation 3:20).

In conclusion, as we prepare ourselves in an earthly way to receive the Lord, the Lord comes in and makes all the earthly things in us spiritual and therefore alive. On the other hand, however, the less we prepare ourselves, the more we distance the Lord from ourselves and do everything on our own; and what we do on our own has no life in it.

These points cannot be put in any clearer light before we come to the chapters on goodwill [392-462] and free choice [463-508]. Similar points will also appear later on in the chapter on reformation and regeneration [571-625].

375. (b) Goodwill and faith are transient and exist only in our minds unless, when an opportunity occurs, they culminate in actions and become embodied in them. We have both a head and a body. They are joined by the neck. The mind that wills and thinks is found in our head, and the power that acts and carries out is found in our body. If therefore we had only benevolence, or thoughts based on goodwill, but we did not do anything good or produce anything useful as a result, we would be like a head by itself or a mind by itself, which could not continue to exist on its own without a body. Surely everyone can see from this that goodwill and faith are not goodwill and faith when they are only in our head and our mind but not in our body.

Under those circumstances goodwill and faith are like birds flying in the sky that have no home of their own on the ground. They are like birds that are about to lay eggs but have no nests; the eggs slip out of the birds into the air or onto a twig of some tree and then fall and smash on the ground.

All things in our mind have a corresponding element in our body. The corresponding thing could be called an embodiment. Therefore when goodwill and faith are only in our mind, they are not embodied in us. Under those circumstances we could be compared to the airy human figures known as ghosts, as Fama was depicted by the ancients, with a laurel wreath on her head and a horn of plenty in her hand. Because we would then be ghosts and yet would still be able to think, we could not help being constantly hounded by mental images (a problem also caused by false inferences based on various kinds of sophistry). We would be much like swamp reeds blown around by the wind that have shells at their base underwater and frogs croaking at the surface. Surely we can see that things like this happen when people merely know some ideas from the Word about goodwill and faith but do not practice them.

In fact the Lord says, "Everyone who hears my words and does them I will compare to a prudent man who built his house on a rock. But everyone who hears my words and does not do them will be compared to a foolish man who built his house on the sand" or "on the ground without a foundation" (Matthew 7:24, 26; Luke 6:47-49). Goodwill and faith and made-up ideas about them, when we do not put them into practice, can also be compared to butterflies in the air that a sparrow sees, flies toward, and eats. Likewise, the Lord says, "A sower went out to sow. Some seeds fell on hard ground, and the birds came and ate them" (Matthew 13:3-4).