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.

356. (a) We are able to acquire faith for ourselves. This was shown in the third part of this chapter above, 343-348. This is also clear from the fact that faith in its essence is truth and any of us can acquire truths for ourselves from the Word. As we acquire truths and love them, we begin to acquire faith.

Furthermore, if we were unable to acquire faith for ourselves, all the passages in the Word that command faith would be pointless. For example, we read that it is the Father's will for us to believe in the Son. Those who believe in him have eternal life. Those who do not believe will not see life [John 3:36; 6:40]. We also read that Jesus will send the Comforter, who is going "to convict the world of sin" because it did not believe in him [John 16:8-9], not to mention many other passages listed above in 337, 338.

For another thing, all the apostles preached faith, specifically a faith in the Lord God our Savior Jesus Christ. What would be the point of all this if we were supposed to stand waiting for something to flow in, with our arms hanging down as if we were statues with movable limbs? In that case our limbs, unable to move themselves into a position to receive faith, might be moved from within toward something that was not faith.

Yet this is what is taught by the modern-day orthodoxy in the Christian world that separated from the Catholics:

As far as goodness is concerned, we are so totally corrupt and dead that after the fall but before regeneration not even a spark of spiritual force remains extant in our nature that would enable us to prepare ourselves for the grace of God, or to take it if it were offered, or to be open to his grace on our own and by ourselves, or in spiritual matters to have our own ability to understand, believe, embrace, think, will, start, finish, act, operate, co-operate, or adapt and accommodate ourselves to grace, or to have the power for a complete conversion or half a conversion or the least part of a conversion on our own. When it comes to spiritual things related to the salvation of our soul, we are like the statue of salt that Lot's wife became; we are like a log or a stone devoid of life, which lacks the benefit of eyes, or a mouth, or any senses. Nevertheless we have the ability to move and control our external limbs in order to go to public gatherings and hear the Word and the Gospel.

These statements appear in the book put out by the Lutheran church called the Formula of Concord, in the Leipzig edition of 1756, pages 656, 658, 661, 662, 663, 671, 672, 673. When priests are inaugurated they swear on this book and therefore swear to this faith. Calvinists have a similar faith.

Anyone with reason and religion would hiss at these absurd and ridiculous statements. People would say to themselves, "If this were the case, what would be the point of the Word? What would be the point of religion? What would be the point of the priesthood? What would be the point of preaching? They would be pointless - they would be sounds that mean nothing. "

Take some non-Christians who have good judgment whom you are hoping to convert and tell them that this is Christianity's approach to conversion and faith. Surely they will think of Christianity as a container with nothing inside it. If you take away all apparent human autonomy, how could they think of Christianity as anything else?

These points will be presented in clearer light in the chapter on free choice.

92. 4. The "Son of God" is the human manifestation in which God sent himself into the world. The Lord frequently says that the Father sent him, or that he was sent by the Father (for example, Matthew 10:40; 15:24; John 3:17, 34; 5:23-24, 36-38; 6:29, 39-40, 44, 57; 7:16, 18, 28-29; 8:16, 18, 29, 42; 9:4; and very often elsewhere). The Lord says this because being sent into the world means coming down among people, which he did through the human manifestation he took on through the Virgin Mary.

The human manifestation really is the Son of God, in that he was conceived by Jehovah God as the Father, as it says in Luke 1:32, 35.

He is called "the Son of God," "the Son of Humankind," and "the Son of Mary. " "The Son of God" means Jehovah God in his human manifestation. "The Son of Humankind" means the Lord in his role as the Word. "The Son of Mary" properly means the human manifestation he took on. Just below we will show that "the Son of God" and "the Son of Humankind" have the meanings just mentioned. As for "the Son of Mary" meaning just the human manifestation, this is obvious from human reproduction. The soul comes from the father, the body from the mother. The soul is in the fathers semen; it is clothed with a body in the mother. To put it another way, everything we have that is spiritual comes from our father; everything physical comes from our mother.

In the Lord's case, the divine nature he had came from Jehovah his Father; the human nature he had came from his mother. These two natures united together are "the Son of God. " The truth of this is clearly substantiated by the Lord's birth, as recorded in Luke: "The angel Gabriel said to Mary, The Holy Spirit will descend upon you and the power of the Highest will cover you; therefore the Holy One that is born from you will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).

Another reason why the Lord described himself as "sent" by the Father is that "someone who has been sent" has a similar meaning to "an angel. " The word "angel" in the original language means "one who has been sent. " [The Lord] is said to be [an angel] in Isaiah, "The Angel of the Faces of Jehovah has freed them. Because of his love and his mercy he redeemed them" (Isaiah 63:9); and in Malachi, "Suddenly the Lord will come to his temple - the One you seek, the Angel of the Covenant, whom you desire" (Malachi 3:1); besides other passages.

Where we discuss the divine Trinity below in chapter 3 of this work [163-188] it will become clear that the divine Trinity - God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - exists within the Lord; the Father in him is the divinity he draws on, the Son is his divine human manifestation, and the Holy Spirit is the divine power that radiates [from him].