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.

579. Because We Are All Redeemed, We Are All Capable of Being Regenerated, Each of Us in a Way That Suits the State We Are In

To clarify the statement in the heading, I need first to say something about redemption. The Lord came into the world for two main reasons: to move hell away from both angels and people; and to glorify his own human nature. Before the Lord's Coming, hell had grown so much that it was assaulting the angels of heaven. By placing itself between heaven and the world, hell had also become able to intercept the communication between the Lord and human beings on earth; as a result, no divine truth or goodness from the Lord was able to get through to human beings. A total damnation threatened the entire human race, and the angels of heaven would not have been able to maintain their integrity for long either.

[2] In order to move hell out of the way and to remove the impending threat of total damnation, the Lord came into the world, relocated hell, brought it under control, and made heaven accessible again, so that he would be able to be present among people on earth and regenerate and save those who were living according to his commandments. All who are regenerated are saved. This is what is meant by the statement in the heading that because we are all redeemed, we are all capable of being regenerated. And because being regenerated is the same thing as being saved, we are all also capable of being saved.

Therefore the teaching of the church that without the Lord's Coming no one could have been saved should be taken to mean that without the Lord's Coming no one could have been regenerated.

[3] As for the second purpose for which the Lord came into the world - to glorify his human manifestation - he did this in order to become the Redeemer, the Regenerator, and the Savior to eternity. There is a belief that because the Lord carried out a redemption while he was in the world, therefore we have all already been redeemed. We should not believe that. We should believe instead that forevermore he redeems people who believe in him and do what he says. On this topic, see further in the chapter on redemption.

177. 6. The Nicene and Athanasian views of the Trinity led to a faith that has perverted the whole Christian church. On the Nicene and Athanasian Trinity being a trinity of gods, see the evidence from those creeds given above at 172. Those creeds gave rise to the faith in the modern-day church, which is a faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The faith in God the Father is that he assigns and ascribes to us the justice of his Son the Savior. The faith in God the Son is that he intercedes and bargains for us. The faith in the Holy Spirit is that he actually instills the justice of the Son that has been assigned to us and seals it as an established fact by justifying us, sanctifying us, and regenerating us. This is the modern faith, which is enough evidence all by itself to prove that the church acknowledges and worships a trinity of gods.

[2] In any church, not only all its worship but also all its dogma ultimately go back to that church's faith. You could say, then, that the nature of a church's faith determines the nature of its teachings. It follows that the faith in question, because it is a faith in three gods, has perverted every aspect of the church. Faith is an origin; teachings are derived from it. What is derived receives its essence from its origin.

If you carefully examine the church's individual teachings - for example, on God, the person of Christ, goodwill, repentance, regeneration, free choice, the selection of the chosen people, the purpose of the sacraments of baptism and the Holy Supper - you will clearly see that there is a trinity of gods in each one of them. If some teaching does not make the Trinity completely apparent, it still flows from the Trinity the way water flows from a spring.

I cannot present an examination of this kind here, but it would be worth presenting at some point, to open people's eyes to the relationship between teachings and faith. Therefore I will show this relationship in an appendix to this work.

[3] The church's faith in God is like a body's soul. The church's teachings are like the body's limbs.

Faith in God is also like a queen, and dogmatic teachings are like her court officials. Just as the officials hang on the queen's every word, so dogmatic teachings depend on the stated faith.

One can judge solely from its faith how a given church understands the Word. A faith adapts the Word to itself. As if the faith had ropes, it pulls whatever it can get from the Word in its own direction.

If a faith is false, it commits prostitution with every truth in the Word, dragging that truth into perversion and falsifying it. A false faith drives us spiritually insane. If a faith is true, it agrees with the whole Word. The God of the Word, who is the Lord God the Savior, then pours light into that faith, blesses it with his divine assent, and makes us wise.

[4] The modern-day faith (which in its inner form is a faith in three gods, although in its outer form it is a faith in one God) has extinguished the light in the Word and has removed the Lord from the church. It has quickly turned the church's morning into night. (This point too will be seen in the appendix.) The changes in the faith were made by heretics before the Council of Nicaea as well as heretics at the council and after it.

How much trust should we put in councils when they do not use the door to enter the sheepfold? Instead they "climb up some other way," as the Lord says in John 10:1, 9. The debating at those councils was like the walking of a blind person by day or a sighted person by night, each of whom fails to see a great pit before falling into it.

For example, how much trust should we put in councils when they have established the notions of viewing the pope as Christ's representative, deifying dead people, calling on them as supernatural powers, venerating their images, authorizing indulgences, splitting the Eucharist, and more? How much trust should we put in the council that established the horrendous idea of predestination and erected it as a religious icon in front of all church buildings?

Instead, my friend, as you approach the Word, go to the God of the Word and enter the sheepfold of the church through the Door. Then you will be enlightened. Then, as if you were on a mountain top, you will see the earlier tracks and mistaken turns in the dark forest at the foot of the mountain - not only those of many other people, but also your own.