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.

31. 4. God's infinity in relation to space is called immensity; in relation to time it is called eternity. Yet although these are related, there is nonetheless no space in God's immensity, and no time in his eternity. God's infinity in relation to space is called "immensity" because immense is associated with "large" and "huge," and also with extension and spaciousness within extension. God's infinity in relation to time, however, is called eternity because the phrase "to eternity" means "in an endless succession of stages measurable in units of time. " To clarify: we describe the earth itself and its surface in spatial terms and the earths rotation and orbit in temporal terms. The earths motions anchor our measurements of time, and the earth itself anchors our measurements of space. In consequence of our senses, space and time are also present in a similar way in the perception of our minds as we reflect. In God, however, there is no space and time, as I have shown just above, yet space and time originate from God. Therefore "immensity" means his infinity in relation to space, and "eternity" means his infinity in relation to time.

[2] Angels in heaven see God's immensity as the divineness of his underlying reality and God's eternity as the divineness of his capacity to become manifest. They also see God's immensity as the divineness of his love and God's eternity as the divineness of his wisdom. The reason is that angels remove space and time from divinity; this gives rise to the concepts just mentioned. Since we on earth cannot help basing our thinking on ideas that are spatial and temporal, we cannot conceive of the immensity of God before there was space or the eternity of God before there was time. In fact, if we try to conceive of them, our mind more or less loses consciousness, like a shipwrecked person who has fallen in the ocean or like someone being swallowed in an earthquake. Indeed, if we rashly persevere in that pursuit, we can easily go insane and end up denying the existence of God.

[3] Once I myself was in a state like that. I thought and thought about what God did from eternity, what he did before the world was constructed. I wondered whether he debated the act of creation and worked out a sequence he would follow. I pondered whether mental debate was possible in a pure vacuum, and other useless questions. To prevent these considerations from driving me insane, the Lord lifted me into the atmosphere and light of inner angels. As factors related to space and time in my former thinking were somewhat removed there, I became able to understand that God's eternity is not an eternity of time. Since there was no time before the world came about, I realized that it was completely pointless to ponder such questions about God. Furthermore, since the Divine "from eternity," that is, the Divine independent of time, did not involve days, years, and centuries - they were all an instant for God - I concluded that God did not create the world in a preexisting context of time; time was first introduced by God as part of creation.

[4] In addition, I would like to relate something worth mentioning. At one extreme end of the spiritual world, two statues of monstrous human forms appear with wide open mouths and gaping jaws. People whose thinking about God from eternity is pointless and insane seem to themselves to be swallowed up by these statues. The statues are really the delusions people hurl themselves into when they think discordant and unseemly thoughts about God before he created the world.

215. Some of the truths in the Word's literal meaning are apparent truths rather than naked truths. They are like similes or comparisons taken from earthly situations, which are therefore accommodated and adapted to the grasp of people who are simple or young. Nevertheless, because they are correspondences they are still vessels and dwelling places for genuine truth. They are vessels that contain genuine truth the way a crystal goblet contains fine wine or a silver plate holds palatable food. They are like garments that clothe, like a baby's swaddling cloths or a young woman's beautiful clothing. They are like facts our earthly selves know that also involve our awareness and love of spiritual truth. The naked truths that are enclosed, contained, clothed, and involved are in the Word's spiritual meaning. There is also naked goodness in the Word's heavenly meaning.

Let me illustrate this from the Word:

[2] Jesus said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, because you clean the outside of your cup and plate, but the insides are full of plundering and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of your cup and plate, so that the outside may be clean as well. " (Matthew 23:25-26)

In saying this the Lord used similes and comparisons that are also correspondences. He mentioned a cup and a plate. A cup does not just relate to the truth in the Word; it also means that truth. A cup relates to wine, and wine means truth. A plate relates to food, and food means goodness. Therefore cleaning the inside of their cup and plate means using the Word to purify the inner things in their mind related to their will and thought. "So that the outside may be clean as well" means that by doing this, their outer aspects - their actions and conversations - would be purified, because the essence of actions and conversations comes from within.

[3] For another example,

Jesus said, "There was a rich person who wore purple and fine linen and indulged himself splendidly every day. And there was a poor person named Lazarus, covered with sores, who was put on his porch. " (Luke 16:19-20)

Here again, in saying this the Lord used similes and comparisons that were correspondences with spiritual content. The rich person means the Jewish nation. He is called rich because the Jewish nation had the Word, and the Word contains spiritual wealth. The purple and fine linen he wore mean the goodness and truth of the Word: the purple means the Word's goodness; the fine linen means its truth. "Indulging himself splendidly every day" refers to the delight that the Jews felt because they had the Word and heard many things from it in their temples and synagogues. Lazarus, the poor person, means the people outside the Jewish church, because they did not have the Word. Lazarus being put on the rich person's porch means that people outside the Jewish church were despised and rejected by the Jews. Lazarus's sores mean that people outside the church had many false beliefs because they did not know the truth.

[4] Lazarus means the people outside the Jewish church because the Lord loved the people outside the church just as he loved Lazarus (John 11:3, 5, 36), raised him from the dead, called him his friend (John 11:11), and gave him a place at his table (John 12:2).

As the two passages quoted just above make clear, things that are good and true in the Word's literal meaning are like vessels or clothing for the naked goodness and truth that lie hidden in the Word's spiritual and heavenly meanings.

[5] Since this is the nature of the Word in its literal meaning, it follows that if we have divine truths and we have faith that the Word is divinely holy at heart, and better still if we have faith that the Word is divinely holy because of its spiritual and heavenly meanings, then as we read the Word in enlightenment from the Lord we see divine truths in earthly light. The light of heaven in which the Word's spiritual meaning exists then flows into the earthly light in which the Word's literal meaning exists and lights up the intellectual faculty in us that is called rationality. It causes our rationality to see and acknowledge divine truths both where they stand out and where they are hidden. For some people, divine truths flow in with heaven's light even when they are not aware of it.