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.

158. A Supplement

Since the Holy Spirit is the subject of this chapter, it is very worthwhile to point out that nowhere in the Word of the Old Testament is the Holy Spirit mentioned. The "spirit of holiness" occurs in three passages, once in David (Psalms 51:11), and twice in Isaiah (Isaiah 63:10-11). The Holy Spirit is of course frequently mentioned in the Word of the New Testament, both in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles. The reason for this is that the Holy Spirit first came into existence when the Lord had come into the world. The Holy Spirit emanates from him on behalf of the Father. The Lord alone is holy (Revelation 15:4). This is why the angel Gabriel mentioned to Mother Mary "the Holy One that will be born from you" (Luke 1:35).

Now, it says, "The Holy Spirit was not yet in existence, because Jesus was not glorified yet" (John 7:39), and yet before that it says that the Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth (Luke 1:41) and Zechariah (Luke 1:67), and also Simeon (Luke 2:25). The reason for this is that the spirit of Jehovah the Father filled them, and this is called "the Holy Spirit" because of the Lord, who was already in the world.

This is why no passage in the Word of the Old Testament says that the prophets spoke on behalf of the Holy Spirit; they spoke on behalf of Jehovah. It constantly says Jehovah spoke to me, the word of Jehovah came to me, Jehovah said, says Jehovah. So that no one will doubt the truth of this, I want to list the references in Jeremiah alone where these expressions occur:

Jeremiah 1:4, 7, , 19; , 9, 19, 22, 29, 31; 3:1, 6, 10, 12, 14, 16; 4:1, 3, 9, 17, 27; 5:11, 14, 18, 22, 29; 6:6, 9, 12, 15-16, 21-22; 7:1, 3, 11, 13, 19-21; 8:1, 3, 12-13; 9:3, 7, 9, 13, 15, 17, 22, 24-25; 10:1-2, 18; 11:1, 6, 9, 11, 17-18, 21-22; 12:14, 17; 13:1, 6, 9, , 25; 14:1, 10, 14-15; 15:1-3, 6, 11, 19-20; 16:1, 3, 5, 9, 14, 16; 17:5, 15, 19-21, 24; 18:1, 5-6, 11, 13; 19:1, 3, 6, 12, 15; 20:4; 21:1, 4, 7-8, 11-12; 22:2, 5-6, 11, 18, 24, 29-30; 23:2, 5, 7, 12, 15, 24, 29, 31, 38; 24:3, 5, 8; 25:1, 3, 7-9, 15, 27-29, 32; 26:1-2, 18; 27:1-2, 4, 8, 11, 16, 19, 21-22; 28:2, 12, 14, 16; 29:4, 8-9, 16, 19-21, 25, 30-32; , 8, 10-12, 17-18; 31:1-2, 7, 10, 15-17, 23, 27-28, ; 32:1, 6, 14-15, 25-26, 28, 30, 36, 42; 33:1-2, 4, 10, 12-13, 17, 19-20, 23, 25; 34:1-2, 4, 8, 12-13, 17, 22; 35:1, 13, 17-19; 36:1, 6, 27, 29-30; 37:6-7, 9; 38:2-3, 17; ; 40:1; 42:7, 9, 15, 18-19; 43:8, 10; 44:1-2, 7, 11, 24-26, 30; 45:2, 5; 46:1, 23, 25, 28; 47:2; 48:1, 8, 12, 30, 35, 38, 40, 43-44, 47; 49:2, 5-7, 12-13, 16, 18, 26, 28, 30, 32, 35, 37-39; 50:1, 4, 10, 18, 20-21, 30-31, 33, 35, 40; 51:25, 33, 36, 39, 52, 58.

These are just the passages in Jeremiah. It says the same thing in all the other prophets. It does not say that the Holy Spirit spoke; and it does not say that Jehovah spoke to them through the Holy Spirit.

797. As for Melanchthon, I have been allowed to learn a number of things about the kind of life he had when he first arrived in the spiritual world and how his circumstances changed later on. I learned this not only from angels but also from some interactions of my own with him. I have spoken with him a number of times, but not as often or as intimately as with Luther. The reason the communication was not as often or as intimate was that he was not in a position to have as much access to me, because in his studies he was fixated on justification by faith alone; he was not focusing on goodwill, and I was surrounded by angelic spirits who were devoted to goodwill, and they blocked his access to me.

[2] I have been told that as soon as he arrived in the spiritual world, there was a house prepared for him that was much like the house where he had lived in the world. In fact, this is done for most newly arrived spirits, with the result that they do not realize they are no longer in the physical world. The time just after they died seems to them in retrospect as if they had merely been asleep.

Everything in his apartment was the same as it had been - the same table, the same writing desk with pigeonholes, the same bookcase. Therefore as soon as he arrived there, he sat down at his table as if he had just woken up from a night's sleep. He continued writing, as he had been, on the subject of justification by faith alone. He wrote on this topic for a number of days without making even the slightest mention of goodwill. The angels noticed this and asked him through messengers why he was not also writing about goodwill.

"Goodwill has nothing to do with the church," he replied. "If it were made out to be some essential attribute of the church, people would take credit for being justified and saved, and this would deprive faith of its spiritual essence. "

[3] When the angels who were above his head sensed his answer, and when the angels who were associated with him whenever he left home heard about it, they withdrew from him. (Every new arrival is accompanied by angels to begin with.)

Several weeks after that, the furnishings and supplies in his apartment began to fade away gradually until they disappeared. Eventually, there was nothing left there but a table, some pieces of paper, a pen, and some ink. The walls of his apartment were by then simply plastered with lime, and his floor was made of yellow bricks. He found himself wearing humble clothing. He was very surprised by this, and asked around to find out why this was. He was told that it was because he was removing goodwill from the church when in fact goodwill is the very heart of the church. Every time it came up, however, he strongly disagreed.

He continued to write about faith as the church's only essential ingredient and the only means of being saved, and he kept creating a greater and greater distance between goodwill and the church. Because he did so, he one day suddenly found himself underground in a workhouse where there were others like him. He wanted to leave, but was prevented from doing so. He was informed that this and nothing else was the final outcome for people who threw goodwill and good works out the church door.

Nevertheless, because he had been one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, he was released from there by command of the Lord and brought back to his old apartment, where there was nothing but a table, some paper, a pen, and some ink.

Because his ideas were set, he once again filled that paper with the same theological error. Therefore there was no way to prevent him from going down again to his friends in confinement and then coming back up again. When he came back up, he was dressed in hairy animal skins, because faith that lacks goodwill is freezing cold.

[4] He told me firsthand that there was another room off his apartment at the back, where people like him who had likewise banished goodwill were sitting at three tables. A fourth table would sometimes appear there as well, with various kinds of monsters on it, but he and the others were for some reason not frightened away by them. He said he was having conversations with the other people, and every day they were giving him further support for his views.

Quite a while later, fear did take hold of him, and he began writing something about goodwill, but what he would write on a piece of paper one day would no longer be visible the next day. (Actually, this can happen to anyone in that world. What the outer self writes without the compliance of the inner self at the same time - therefore what is written under coercion rather than in freedom - spontaneously deletes itself.)

[5] Then the new heaven began to be established by the Lord. In the light from that heaven, Melanchthon began to think that he might actually be in error. He started to feel anxiety about what his final outcome was going to be. He became aware of some deep ideas that had been impressed on him earlier about goodwill. In that state of mind he did some research in the Word. His eyes were opened and he saw that the Word was completely full of loving God and loving our neighbor. He came to see that what the Lord said was true - that all the Law and the Prophets, that is, the Word as a whole, did indeed hinge on these two commandments [Matthew 22:40].

He was then moved to another house much deeper to the south on the western side. He had a conversation with me there, and told me that now his writing about goodwill was not disappearing the way it used to; it would fade somewhat, but it was still legible the following day.

[6] I was surprised by the fact that when he walked, his footsteps made a clanking sound, like someone walking across cobblestones in iron shoes.

To these points I might add that once, when some spirits who had recently arrived from earth came to his apartment to see him and speak with him, he called on one of the magic spirits who had the ability to project images to look like furniture and accessories. That spirit decorated his apartment with apparent wall-hangings, carpets with a rose pattern, and a bookcase in the middle of the room. As soon as the visitors left, all that disappeared, though, and the apartment returned to its bare lime-plastered walls and its stark emptiness. But this happened when he was in that first state.