654. It Is What Our Faith Is United to That Determines the Verdict We Receive. If We Have a True Faith That Is United to Goodness, the Verdict Is Eternal Life; If We Have a Faith That Is United to Evil, the Verdict Is Eternal Death

Deeds of goodwill appear similar in outward form regardless of whether they are done by Christians or non-Christians. Both kinds of people exercise civility and morality by doing good things for their companions, and these are at least somewhat like actions of love for their neighbor. Indeed, non-Christians give to the poor, help the needy, and hear sermons in places of worship. Who is in a position, though, to judge whether those acts, which are good in outward form, are also good in inward form - that those earthly good actions are also spiritually good? The only basis for such a conclusion is the faith that accompanies those actions. It is faith that reveals their quality. Faith brings God into those actions; faith also unites itself to those actions in the inner self, which causes deeds of earthly goodness to become inwardly spiritual.

The truth of this can be fully seen in the chapter on faith, in the following points made there: Faith is not alive before it is united to goodwill. Goodwill becomes spiritual through faith, and faith becomes spiritual through goodwill. Faith without goodwill is not real faith, because it is not spiritual; goodwill without faith is not real goodwill, because it has no life. Faith and goodwill apply themselves to each other and are united mutually and reciprocally. The Lord, goodwill, and faith form a unity in the same way our life, our will, and our intellect form a unity; if we separate them, each one crumbles like a pearl that is crushed to powder [362-367].

649. A similar thing would happen to us if we were to embrace the faith of the new church but also hold onto the faith of the former church regarding the assignment of the Lord's merit and justice, since from the latter concept as from a root, all the dogmas of the former church rise up like shoots.

If this were to happen, it would be like people escaping from five of the dragon's horns but getting caught on the other five. It would be like running away from a wolf but stumbling onto a tiger. It would be like climbing out of a dry pit only to fall into a pit full of water and drown.

In this circumstance, we could easily return to all the teachings of our former faith. (Their true nature is exposed above.) We could easily then succumb to the damaging belief that we are able to assign and apply the Lord's divine attributes to ourselves, namely, his redemption and his justice, which in actuality can only be adored by us but not applied as part of us. If we were to succeed in assigning or applying the Lord's redemption and justice to ourselves we would be consumed as if we had been thrown unprotected into the sun, even though the sun's light allows us to see and its warmth keeps our bodies alive. (I have shown above [640] that the Lord's merit is redemption, and that his redemption and justice are two divine attributes that cannot be joined to us.)

We must all therefore take care not to write the former church's concept of assigning merit on top of the new church's concept of assigning spiritual credit or blame, since doing so would have tragic consequences that would stand in the way of our salvation.