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.

115. 1. Redemption was actually a matter of gaining control of the hells, restructuring the heavens, and by so doing preparing for a new spiritual church. I can say with absolute certainty that these three actions are redemption, because the Lord is bringing about redemption again today. This new redemption began in the year 1757 along with a Last Judgment that happened at that time. The redemption has continued from then until now. The reason is that today is the Second Coming of the Lord. A new church is being instituted that could not have been instituted unless first the hells were brought under control and the heavens were restructured.

Because I have been allowed to see it all I could describe how the hells were brought under control and how the new heaven was built and put into the divine design, but that would be the subject of a whole work. In a little work published in London in 1758 I did lay out how the Last Judgment was carried out.

Gaining control over the hells, restructuring the heavens, and establishing a new church was redemption because without those actions no human being could have been saved. In fact, they follow in a sequence. The hells had to be controlled first before a new angelic heaven could be formed, and that heaven had to be formed before the new church on earth could be instituted, because people in the world are so closely connected to angels from heaven and spirits from hell that at the level of the inner mind they are one. This point will be taken up in the last chapter of this book, which specifically covers the close of the age, the Coming of the Lord, and the New Church [753-791].

274. I have been given the opportunity to see people born on islands who were reasonable about civic issues but knew nothing at all about God. In the spiritual world they look like baboons. Because they have been born human and therefore have a capacity for receiving spiritual life, they are taught by angels and are brought to life by concepts of the Lord as a human being.

What human beings are like when left to themselves becomes obvious from the people who are in hell. Some such people are scholars and leaders of the church who do not want even to hear about God; they certainly cannot mention God themselves. I have seen people like this and have talked to them. I have also talked to people who would explode with rage and anger when they heard anyone talk about the Lord.

On this basis, then, consider what people would be like if they had never heard about God, when this is what some people are like even though they have spoken about God, written about God, and preached about God.

People are like this because of their wills, which are evil. Their wills, as I said before, control their intellects and take away the truth that is in them from the Word.

If people had the capability of knowing on their own that there is a God and a life after death, why would they not know that we live on as people after death? Why would they believe that our soul or spirit is like wind or ether? Why would they imagine the spirit to be something that has no eyes to see with, no ears to hear with, no mouth to speak with - at least not before it rejoins its corpse and skeleton?

Imagine a body of teaching that was hatched solely by the light of our own reason. Would it not teach that the proper object of worship ought to be we ourselves? This has in fact been taught for centuries and is still being taught now by people who know from the Word that God alone is to be worshiped. No other form of worship generated by us is possible - not even worship of the sun or the moon.