369. (i) It is being linked with God, which affords a person salvation and everlasting life.

Man was created to be capable of being linked with God. For he was created a native of heaven and also a native of the world. In so far as he is a native of heaven, he is spiritual, but in so far as he is a native of the world, he is natural. A spiritual person can think about God and grasp ideas relating to God; he can also love God, and be attracted by what comes from God. It follows from this that he can be linked with God.

It is beyond the remotest possibility of doubt that a person can think about God, and grasp ideas relating to God. For he can think about the oneness of God, about the being of God, which is Jehovah, the immensity and eternity of God, Divine love and Divine wisdom, which comprise the essence of God, His omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence; about the Lord the Saviour His Son, and redemption and mediation; also about the Holy Spirit, and finally about the Divine Trinity. All of these are ideas relating to God; in fact, they are God. He can, moreover, think about the activities of God, which are in the first place faith and charity, as well as many other things which come forth from these two.

[2] It is evident that a person can not only think about God, but also love God, from the two commandments of God Himself, which run like this:

You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. This is the first and great commandment. The second is similar to it: you are to love your neighbour as yourself, Matthew 22:37-39; Deuteronomy 6:5.

It is evident from the following passage that a person can perform God's commandments, and that this is loving God:

Jesus said, He who has my commandments and does them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and show myself to him, John 14:21.

[3] Furthermore, what is faith but a link with God by means of truths, which belong to the understanding and thus to thought; and what is love but being linked with God by means of various kinds of good, which belong to the will and thus to the affection? God's link with man is a spiritual link in the natural; and man's link with God is a natural link derived from the spiritual. It was for the purpose of this linking that man was created a native of heaven and at the same time of the world. As a native of heaven he is spiritual, and as a native of the world he is natural. So if a person becomes spiritually rational and at the same time spiritually moral, he is linked to God, and this link affords him salvation and everlasting life. However, if a person is only naturally rational and also naturally moral, God is certainly linked with him, but he is not linked with God. The result is his spiritual death, which considered in itself is natural life devoid of spiritual life; for the spirituality, in which is God's life, in his case is extinguished.