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.

378. 9. There Is Faith That Is True, Faith That Is Illegitimate, and Faith That Is Hypocritical

From its cradle, the Christian church was attacked and torn apart by schisms and heresies. As time went on, it was lacerated and butchered by them, much like the person we read about who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and was surrounded by robbers; after they stripped him and beat him up, the robbers left him half-dead (Luke 10:30).

The end result was what we read in Daniel about that church: "In the end desolation [will fly in] on a bird of abominations; even to the close and the cutting down, it will drip steadily upon the devastation" (Daniel 9:27); and the Lord's statement: The end will come when you see the abomination of desolation that Daniel the prophet foretold (Matthew 24:14-15).

What happened to the church could be compared to a ship loaded down with merchandise of the highest quality. It was battered by storm winds immediately upon leaving port and a little later was wrecked at sea and sank. Some of its cargo was spoiled by water and some was carried off by fish.

[2] Church history makes it clear that from its infancy the Christian church was assaulted and torn apart. For example, even in the time of the apostles it was assaulted by Simon, who was a Samaritan by birth and a sorcerer by trade (see Acts of the Apostles 8:9 and following). It was also assaulted by Hymenaeus and Philetus, whom Paul mentions in his Epistle to Timothy []; and by Nicolas, whose followers were the so-called Nicolaitans mentioned in Revelation 2:6 and Acts of the Apostles 6:5; not to mention Corinth.

Just after the time of the apostles, many others went into revolt. For example, the Marcionites, the Noetians, the Valentinians, the Encratites, the Cataphrygians, the Quartodecimans, the Alogians, the Catharans, the Origenists or Adamantines, the Sabellians, the Samosatenians, the Manicheans, the Meletians, and finally the Arians.

After that, armies of heretical movements invaded the church - the Donatists, the Photinians, the Acatians or Semi-Arians, the Eunomians, the Macedonians, the Nestorians, the Predestinarians, the Papists, the Zwinglians, the Anabaptists, the Schwenkfeldians, the Synergists, the Socinians, the Antitrinitarians, the Quakers, the Herrnhuters, and many others.

At length Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin prevailed over them all. Their teachings are dominant today.

[3] There are three main reasons why there were so many disputes and rebellions in the church: (1) the divine Trinity was misunderstood; (2) there was no just concept of the Lord; (3) the suffering on the cross was taken to be redemption itself.

The truth about these three things is essential to the faith the church is based on, the faith from which it is called a church. If people did not know the truth about these three things, it was inevitable that everything about the church would be dragged first off course and finally in the opposite direction. It was also inevitable that when the church arrived at that stage it would still believe that it had a true faith in God and a belief in all God's truths.

This situation among these people in the church is like people who put a blindfold over their eyes and believe they are walking in a straight line, although step after step they are actually veering off course and eventually heading in the opposite direction, where there is a pit into which they fall.

The only way the wandering people of the church can be redirected onto the road of truth is by their knowing what true faith is, what illegitimate faith is, and what hypocritical faith is. Therefore this will be demonstrated.

a. There is only one true faith; it is faith in the Lord God our Savior Jesus Christ. It exists in people who believe that he is the Son of God, that he is the God of heaven and earth, and that he is one with the Father.

b. Illegitimate faith is all faith that departs from the one and only true faith. Illegitimate faith exists in people who climb up some other way and view the Lord not as God but only as a human being.

c. Hypocritical faith is no faith at all.

464. 1. The teachers of the Augsburg Confession assert that we human beings have been so deeply corrupted through the fall of our first parents that in spiritual matters concerning our conversion and salvation we are by nature blind. When the Word of God is preached we do not and cannot understand it. Instead, we regard it as foolishness. Of our own accord we never move closer to God; on the contrary, we are an enemy of God, and remain so until from pure grace without any cooperation on our part we are converted, given faith, regenerated, and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word as it is preached and heard. (Page 656)

2. We believe that in spiritual and divine matters, the mind, heart, and will of unreborn human beings are entirely unable to understand, believe, comprehend, think, will, start, finish, enact, work, or cooperate through their own natural powers. Instead, we are utterly corrupt and dead to what is good, so that in our nature after the Fall but before our regeneration not the least spark of spiritual power remains that would enable us to prepare ourselves for the grace of God, or accept it once it was offered, or adapt ourselves to it, or make room for it on our own; or contribute to, perform, bring about, or cooperate in our own conversion, in whole or by half or to the least extent, either by acting on our own or even by seeming to act on our own. Instead, we are a slave of sin and the property of Satan, who supplies our driving force. Therefore because of our corrupt powers and depraved nature, our earthly free choice is active and effective only in areas that are displeasing and hostile to God. (Page 656)

3. In civic and earthly matters we human beings are industrious and ingenious, but in spiritual and divine matters, which concern the salvation of our souls, we are like a log, a stone, and Lot's wife when she became a pillar of salt, which have no functioning eyes, mouth, or senses. (Page 661)

4. We human beings do retain locomotive power to control our outer parts, to hear the Gospel, and to meditate on it to some extent, but nevertheless in our private thoughts we despise it as foolishness and cannot believe it. In this respect we are worse than a log, unless the Holy Spirit begins to work within us and kindles and develops faith, obedience, and other God-pleasing virtues. (Page 662)

5. According to a certain kind of reasoning it could be said that we are not a stone or a log, because a stone and a log do not fight back, nor do they comprehend or even feel what is being done to them. But until human beings have been converted to God, of their own will they fight against God. It is true that before conversion we human beings are rational creatures that have understanding - but not in divine matters. And we do have a will - but we do not will anything that is good for our salvation. We have nothing to contribute to our own conversion, and in this sense we are worse than a log or a stone. (Pages 672, 673)

6. Conversion is entirely the work, gift, and product of the Holy Spirit, which brings it about and develops it by its own strength and power through the Word in our mind, heart, and will, as if we were a passive subject. We do nothing for the process; we only experience it. Yet this does not take place the way a statue is formed from a block of stone or a seal is pressed into wax, because the wax lacks both awareness and will. (Page 681)

7. Some church fathers and more recent theologians say, "God draws, but he draws the willing," meaning that our will plays some role in our conversion. But this does not square with sound teachings, which confirm that human free choice plays no role in conversion. (Page 582)

8. In the outer things of the world, which are subject to reason, we still have a little bit of intellect, power, and our faculties left, although these wretched remnants are profoundly disabled, and what little is left is itself infected and contaminated with poison resulting from hereditary disease, so that before God they are inconsequential. (Pages 640, 641)

9. In our conversion, in which we turn from children of wrath into children of grace, we do not cooperate with the Holy Spirit. In fact, the conversion of human beings is a task that belongs solely to the Holy Spirit. (Pages 219, 579 and following, 663 and following; appendix page 143)

Nevertheless, people who have been reborn are able to cooperate, through the power of the Holy Spirit, although they remain profoundly weak. They function well as far and as long as they are led, ruled, and governed by the Holy Spirit. But even then they do not cooperate with the Holy Spirit the way two horses pull a wagon together. (Page 674)

10. Original sin is not some wrong that we perpetrate in act; instead it is something deeply embedded in our nature, substance, and essence. It is the fountainhead of all actual sins, with the result that the things we think and say are depraved and the things we do are evil. (Page 577)

That hereditary sickness, which has corrupted our whole nature, is dreadful sin. It is indeed the beginning and origin of all sins; all transgressions flow from it as their root and source. (Page 640)

Even in our inmost parts and the deepest recesses of our heart, our nature is totally infected and corrupted before God by that sin, as if it were a spiritual leprosy. Because of this corruption our character is accused and damned by the law of God, so that by nature we are children of wrath and the property of death and damnation, unless with the aid of Christ's merit we are liberated and kept safe from this evil. (Page 639)

As a result there is a total absence or deprivation of the original righteousness that was ours from creation in paradise, [namely,] the image of God, and this absence has led to the impotence, incompetence, and stupidity that render us completely inept in regard to all divine and spiritual matters. In place of the lost image of God in us, there lies within our mind, intellect, heart, and will the inmost, worst, deepest, unfathomable, unspeakable corruption of our entire nature and of all our powers, especially the higher and principal faculties of our soul. (Page 640)