The concept of a "church" in the Writings is both complex and beautifully organic, linked with teachings on the nature of the Lord and the resulting nature of mankind.

The Writings say that the Lord, in His essence - His actual substance - is perfect, infinite love, a love that powered creation, that is the ultimate source of reality, and that sustains reality constantly. That love is expressed in form as perfect, infinite wisdom, which gave form to creation and gives form to reality.

Deep stuff! You can read more about that elsewhere, but what matters here is that all of creation, from the smallest elements to the whole of the universe, reflects that same structure. It's present in nature itself, powered by the heat (love) and light (wisdom) of the sun. It's present in the essential forms of life, with plants (which are rooted; which change little; which are unfeeling; which are powered by light) representing elements of wisdom and animals (warm, feeling, mobile, ever-changing, powered by heat) representing forms of love. It's present in the near-universal division into male (wisdom) and female (love) aspects of plants and animals alike.

That structure is also in each of us. In common language we might call these our hearts and our minds - what we want and what we think. The Writings commonly talk of them as good (love; what we want in our hearts) and truth (wisdom; what we know in our minds) or as will (heart) and understanding (mind). Not only do these elements define us, they are also key to our spiritual fates. We can use them to accept the Lord's love, come into the good of life and ultimately go to heaven. We can also use them to reject the Lord's love and trot off to hell.

And there are further layers. The Writings say that all human societies are in human form, with functions analogous to the human body. This is true from small groups like families to large companies to entire nations and ultimately to both the entire human race in this world and the entirety of heaven in the next.

Among the most important human societies are, naturally, churches. Since the concept of a "church" is based on the human form, though, churches as referred to in the Writings can take many forms. At one end of the scale, any one person who has true ideas of right and wrong and lives by them is a church himself or herself. At the other end of the scale, all those in the whole world who believe in love of the neighbor – and act from that belief – collectively make up one church.

Many other varieties lie between those two extremes, but most references to "church" in the Writings mean the community of those who have the Word, know the Lord, and follow His commandments. These people have access to the best possible truth and deepest possible understanding about the nature of the Lord and what He wants from us.

Such a church plays a vital role: The Lord works through it to get ideas about being good into people's minds and the desire to be good into the inner recesses of their hearts, reaching far beyond that church itself to touch everyone in the world. In fact, the Writings say there is in essence a marriage between the Lord and the church, with the church in the role of the bride and wife, producing true ideas and good desires the way a wife produces children.

To protect this function, the Lord has made sure that throughout history (and a good bit of prehistory) there has always been a church filling this role.

The first of these was the Most Ancient Church, represented by Adam; it was inspired by love of the Lord. The second was the Ancient Church, represented by Noah; it was inspired by love of the neighbor and knowledge of the Lord. The third was the Israelitish Church, which had no interior love of good but preserved ideas of the Lord. The fourth was the primitive Christian church, which had a new, more direct understanding based on the Lord's teachings. The fifth, according to the Writings, is to be based on the deeper understanding offered through the Writings and their explanations of the Bible.

There is much more that could be said, but we'll just emphasize one other point:

We as individuals are who we are based on what we love, not what we know. We will go to heaven or to hell based on what we love, not what we know. Knowing, thinking and seeking truth are important things, but their purpose is to shape, guide and serve our loves; love is ultimately what matters. The Writings make it abundantly and repeatedly clear that it is the same with churches: They are ultimately based on love, not knowledge, on their determination to serve the neighbor, not their external forms of worship. And if churches share that common purpose of serving the neighbor then they are in essence one, with doctrinal variations being of little consequence.

(References: Apocalypse Revealed 533; Arcana Coelestia 407, 768, 1799 [3-4], 2048, 2853 [2-3], 2910, 2982, 3310, 3773, 3963 [2], 4292, 4672, 4723, 5826 [2-3], 6637, 6648, 8152, 9256 [4-5], 9276 [2]; Conjugial Love 116; Heaven and Hell 57; The Word 8; The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture 99, 104)

3310. 'A man of the field' means the good of life that has its origin in matters of doctrine. This is clear from the meaning of 'the field'. In the Word reference is made in many places to the earth (or the land), the ground, and the field. When used in a good sense 'the earth' means the Lord's kingdom in heaven and on earth, and so the Church, which is the Lord's kingdom on earth. 'The ground' is used in a similar though more limited sense, 566, 662, 1066-1068, 1262, 1413, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118 (end), 2928; and the same things are also meant by 'the field', though in a more limited sense still, 368, 2971. And since the Church is not the Church by virtue of matters of doctrine except insofar as these have the good of life as the end in view, or what amounts to the same, unless matters of doctrine are joined to the good of life, 'the field' therefore means primarily the good of life. But in order that such good may be that of the Church, matters of doctrine from the Word which have been implanted within that good must be present. In the absence of matters of doctrine the good of life does indeed exist, but it is not as yet that of the Church, and so not as yet truly spiritual, except in the sense that it has the potentiality to become so, like the good of life as this exists with gentiles who do not possess the Word and therefore do not know the Lord.

[2] That 'the field' is the good of life in which the things of faith, that is, spiritual truths existing with the Church, are implanted, becomes quite clear from the Lord's parable about the sower in Matthew,

A sower went out to sow, And as he sowed some fell on the pathway, and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil, ¹ and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil ² , but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them. But some fell on good soil ² and yielded fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has an ear to hear let him hear. Matthew 13:4-9; Mark 4:3-9; Luke 8:5-8.

This describes four types of land or ground within the field, that is, within the Church. The fact that here 'the seed' is the Lord's Word, and so the truth which is called the truth of faith, and that 'the good soil' is the good which is called the good of charity is evident to anyone, for it is the good in man that receives the Word. 'The pathway' is falsity, 'rocky ground' is truth which is not rooted in good, 'thorns' are evils.

[3] With regard to the good of life which has its origin in matters of doctrine being meant by 'a man of the field', the position is that those who are being regenerated first of all do good as matters of doctrine direct them, for they do not of themselves know what good is. They learn to do good from matters of doctrine concerning love and charity; from these they know who the Lord is, who the neighbour is, what love is, and what charity is, and so what good is. Those who have come into this stage are stirred by the affection for truth and are called 'men (vir) of the field'. But after that, once they have been regenerated they do good not from matters of doctrine but from love and charity, for the good itself which they have learned about through matters of doctrine exists with them, and they are in that case called 'men (homo) of the field'. It is like someone who is by nature inclined to commit adultery, steal, and murder but who learns from the Ten Commandments that such practices belong to hell and so refrains from them. In this state he is influenced by the Commandments, for he fears hell and learns from those Commandments and similarly from much else in the Word how he ought to conduct his life. In his case when he does what is good he does it from the Commandments. But when good exists with him he starts to loathe adultery, theft, and murder to which he was previously inclined. In this state he no longer does what is good from the Commandments but from the good which by now resides with him. In the first state the truth he learns directs him to good, but in the second state good is the source of truth taught by him.

[4] The same also applies to spiritual truths which are called doctrinal and are more interior Commandments still. For matters of doctrine are interior truths which the natural man possesses, the first truths there being sensory ones, the second truths being factual, and interior truths matters of doctrine. The latter are based on factual truths inasmuch as a person can have and retain no idea, notion, or concept of them except from factual truths. But the foundations on which factual truths are based are sensory truths, for without sensory truths nobody is able to possess factual ones. Such truths, that is to say, factual and sensory, are meant by 'a man skilled in hunting', but matters of doctrine are meant by 'a man of the field'. Such is the order in which those kinds of truths stand in relation to one another in man. Until a person has become adult therefore, and through sensory and factual truths possesses matters of doctrine, he is incapable of being regenerated, for he cannot be confirmed in the truths contained in matters of doctrine except through ideas based on factual and sensory truths - for nothing is ever present in a person's thought, not even the deepest arcanum of faith there, which does not involve some natural or sensory idea, though generally a person is not aware of the essential nature of such ideas. But in the next life the nature of them is revealed before his understanding, if he so desires, and also a visual representation before his sight, if he wants it; for in the next life such things can be presented before one's eyes in a visual form. This seems unbelievable but it is nevertheless what happens there.

Footnotes:

356. It is different for people who have acquired intelligence and wisdom by means of their insights and information, people who have applied everything to the service of their lives and have at the same time acknowledged the Divine Being, loved the Word, and led a life both spiritual and moral (as described above in 319). For them, learning served as a means to being wise and for substantiating matters of faith. The deeper levels of their minds are perceived and even seen as transparent to the light, with a bright color, fiery or azure, like that of clear diamonds or rubies or sapphires, depending on the support they derived, from their learning, for the Divine and for divine truths. True intelligence and wisdom look like this when they are presented visually in the spiritual world. This comes from heaven's light, which is divine truth emanating from the Lord, the source of all intelligence and wisdom (see above, 126-133).

[2] The focal planes of this light in which the shadings stand forth like colors are the deeper levels of the mind; and it is the validations of divine truths through what we find in nature - that is, by learning - that produce these shadings. ¹ Actually, our inner mind probes the material in our natural memory and uses the fire of heavenly love to refine (so to speak) the things there that support it, to draw them off and purify them to the point that they become spiritual concepts. We are not aware that this is going on as long as we are in our physical bodies because in this state, though we are thinking both spiritually and naturally, we still do not notice what we are thinking spiritually but only what we are thinking naturally. However, once we have arrived in the spiritual world we are not aware of what we once thought naturally, in this world, only what we were thinking spiritually. This is how our state changes.

[3] We can see from this that we become spiritual by means of our insights and learning and that these are means of becoming wise only for people who acknowledge the Divine Being in both faith and life.

These people are received into heaven before others and live there with the ones who are in the center (43) because they are in more light than others. In heaven they are the intelligent and wise ones who shine like the radiance of the firmament and gleam like stars. The simple people there, though, are the ones who have acknowledged the Divine Being and have loved the Word and led a spiritual moral life, but who have not developed the deeper levels of their minds through insights and learning in the same way. The human mind is like soil whose quality depends on the way it is tilled.

[4] References to Passages in Secrets of Heaven Concerning Different Types of Knowledge.

We should saturate ourselves with information and knowledge, because it is through them that we learn to think, then to sort out what is true and good, and ultimately to be wise: 129, 1450-1451, 1453, 1548, 1802. Factual information constitutes the elemental basis on which our civic and moral lives as well as our spiritual lives are built and grounded; and it is learned with a view to using it: 1489, 3310. Real knowledge opens a path to the inner person, and then unites that person with the outer in proportion to useful action: 1563, 1616. Our rational functioning is born through information and knowledge: 1895, 1900, 3086. This does not happen through knowledge itself, however, but through the affection of putting it to use: 1895.

[5] There are facts that are open to divine truths and facts that are not: 5213. Empty information should be destroyed: 1489, 1492, 1499, 1580 [1581?]. Information is "empty" if it aims at and strengthens love for ourselves and love for the world, and if it leads us away from love for God and our neighbor. This is because such influences close off the inner person, even to the point that we cannot accept anything from heaven: 1563, 1600. Facts may be a means to wisdom or a means to insanity. Through them the inner person is either opened or closed, and rational functioning either nurtured or destroyed: 4156, 8628, 9922.

[6] The inner person is opened and is progressively completed by means of information if we have constructive activity as our goal - especially activity that focuses on our eternal life: 3086. Then the heavenly and spiritual characteristics of our spiritual person reach out to the information that is in our natural person, and adopt whatever is suitable: 1495. Then the Lord draws out whatever is useful for heavenly life from the information in our natural person, by way of the inner person, and elaborates and exalts it: 1895-1896, 1900-1902, 5871, 5874, 5901. Facts that do not fit, or that oppose, are banished to the sides and eliminated: 5871, 5886, 5889.

[7] The sight of the inner person selects from the information of the outer person only those items that suit its love: 9394. In the view of the inner person, the items that suit its love are in full light, in the center, while those that do not suit are off to the sides, in the shadows: 6068, 6085 [6084?]. Suitable facts are grafted onto our loves step by step, and, so to speak, dwell in them: 6325. We would be born into discernment if we were born into love for our neighbor, but since we are born into love for ourselves and the world, we are born into complete ignorance: 6323, 6325. Information, discernment, and wisdom are children of love of God and our neighbor: 1226, 2049, 2116.

[8] It is one thing to be wise, another to be discerning, another to be well informed, and another to act; still, to the extent that we are alive spiritually, these follow in a sequence and are all together at once when we act, or in our deeds: 10331. Further, it is one thing to be well informed, another to acknowledge, and another to have faith: 896.

[9] The factual knowledge of the outer or natural person is in the world's light, while the truths that have become matters of faith and love, and have thus come to life, are in heaven's light: 5212. Truths that are suited to spiritual life are grasped through natural ideas: 5510. Spiritual inflow is from the inner or spiritual person into the information that is in the outer or natural person: 1940, 8005. Facts are receptacles and, so to speak, vessels of the good and the true elements of the inner person: 1469, 1496, 3068, 5489, 6004, 6023, 6052, 6071, 6077, 7770, 9922. They are like mirrors in which the good and true elements of the inner person appear as in an image: 5201. They are all there together in their most concrete form: 5373, 5874, 5886, 5901, 6004, 6023, 6052, 6071.

[10] Inflow is spiritual and not physical: that is, there is an inflow from the inner person into the outer and therefore into its information, but not from the outer into the inner and therefore not from information into the truths of faith: 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427-5428, 5478, 6322, 9110-9111 [9401?]. We are to start from the truths of the church's teaching, which are drawn from the Word, and this teaching should first be acknowledged: it is legitimate to consider facts on this basis: 6047. This means that for people who are affirmatively disposed toward the truths of faith, it is legitimate to use facts intellectually to confirm them, but not for people who are negatively disposed: 2568, 2588, 4760, 6047. People who will not believe divine truths unless they are convinced by the facts will never believe: 2094, 2832. To enter into the truths of faith from factual information is disorderly: 10236. People who do this become insane in matters that concern heaven and the church: 128-130. They fall into the distortions of evil: 232-233, 6047. In the other life, when they think about spiritual matters, they seem to become drunk: 1072. More on their nature: 196. Examples illustrating that spiritual matters cannot be grasped if they are entered from factual information: 233, 2094, 2196, 2203, 2209. Many of the learned are more insane in spiritual matters than simple people because they are negatively disposed, confirming [their opinions] by the information that is constantly and abundantly in their view: 4760, 8629.

[11] People who argue against the truths of faith on the basis of information argue keenly because they depend on sensory illusions, which captivate and convince because they are hard to dispel: 5700. What sensory illusions are and what they are like: 5084, 5094, 6400, 6948. People who understand nothing of the truth and who are also involved in evil can argue about what is true and good in matters of faith without understanding them: 4213 [4214?]. It is not a matter of intelligence simply to confirm a dogma, but to see whether it is true or not before one confirms it: 4741, 6047.

[12] After death, factual knowledge makes no difference-[what make a difference are] the things we have drawn out for understanding and life: 2480. Everything we have learned still endures after death; it merely becomes dormant: 2476-2479, 2481-2486.

[13] The same facts are false for evil people, because they are applied to evil ends, that are true for good people because they are applied to good ends: 6917. True information is not true for evil people, even though things seem true when they say them, because there is evil within them: 10331.

[14] An example of the kind of craving for knowledge spirits have: 1993 [1973?]. Angels have a tremendous desire to know and to be wise, because information, intelligence, and wisdom are spiritual food: 3114, 4459, 4792, 4976, 5147, 5293, 5340, 5342, 5410, 5426, 5576, 5582, 5588, 5656 [5655?], 6277, 8562, 9003. The knowledge of the ancients was a knowledge of symbols and images, through which they led themselves into a familiarity with spiritual matters; but at the present time this knowledge has been totally effaced: 4844, 4749, 4964-4965.

[15] Truths on a spiritual level cannot be grasped without a knowledge of the following universal principles:

1. Everything in the universe goes back to the good and the true and their union in order to be anything - that is, to love and faith and their union.

2. People have discernment and volition: discernment is the receptacle of what is true, and volition the receptacle of what is good. Everything in us goes back to these two and to their union just as everything [in the universe] goes back to the good and the true and their union.

3. There is an inner and an outer person, as distinct from each other as heaven and the world; yet they must become one if the person is to be truly human.

4. Heaven's light is the light the inner person is in, and the world's light is the light the outer person is in. Heaven's light is what is essentially divine and true, the source of all intelligence.

5. There is a responsiveness between the things in the inner person and those in the outer, so that things from either side appear in a different guise on the other side - so different that they cannot be identified without a knowledge of correspondences.

Without knowledge of these and many other matters, only incongruous concepts can be grasped and formed of truths on the spiritual and heavenly levels. This means that without these universal principles, the information and insights of the natural person can scarcely serve for the discernment and development of the rational person. This shows how necessary elementary information is.

Footnotes: