A Brief Exposition of New Church Doctrine # 57
57. I foresee that very many people at this day, imbued with the paradoxes of this faith, will say, "How can theological matters be perceived by the understanding? Are they not spiritual things which transcend it? Explain, therefore, if you can, the mystery of redemption and justification, so that reason may view it and acquiesce therein." This mystery shall therefore be disclosed as follows.
Who does not know that God is one, and that beside Him there is no other God; that God is Love itself and Wisdom itself, or that He is Good itself and Truth itself; that the self-same God descended as to Divine Truth, which is the Word, and assumed the Human in order to remove hell, thus damnation from man; that He accomplished this by combats with, and victories over, the devil, that is, over the hells which at that time were infesting and spiritually slaying every man coming into the world; that afterwards He glorified His Human by uniting in it Divine Truth with Divine Good and thus returned to the Father from Whom He came forth? When these things are perceived the following passage in John can be understood:
The Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . and the Word was made flesh. John 1:1, 14.
Also this passage in the same Evangelist can then be understood:
I came forth from the Father and am come into the world; again I leave the world and go to the Father.John 16:28.
From these statements it is evident that, without the Advent of the Lord into the world, no mortal could have been saved, and that they are saved who believe on Him and live well. This view of faith appears clearly as in the day to the sight enlightened by the Word; and this is the form of the Faith of the New Church, as may be seen below, nos. 116-117, where the Faith of the New Heaven and of the New Church in its universal and particular forms is given.
