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)

4672. 'And he, still a boy' means at first. This is clear from the meaning of 'a boy' - when this expression is used to refer to a new Church - as at first, that is, as the first state of that Church. For the Church is like an infant, a boy, a man, and at length an old man, in that it passes as the individual does through its own phases of life. The Church also resembles the human being in general, and is actually called one. Furthermore, within the Church which is called 'a boy' because of the phase it is at, and which is by nature such that it soon becomes wayward, the Lord is present at first, both with those who teach and those who learn. But after a while they dissociate themselves from Him, as is also represented by the brothers throwing Joseph into the pit and selling him.

[2] Every Church which begins with faith is like this, but a Church beginning with charity is different. A Church that begins with faith is controlled solely by the understanding, and the understanding by that which has been inherited, namely self-love and love of the world. These loves induce the understanding to gather texts from the Word which support their desires, and to give its own interpretation to those which do not support them. It is different in the case of a Church which begins with charity. This Church is controlled by good, the Lord being within that good. For good which is the good of charity and love is a mediator between the Lord and faith; and unless it is there as a mediator between them no spiritual communication is possible. Without that intermediary He cannot possibly flow into faith. If evil exists there instead of good it drives away the Lord and casts aside or else perverts everything that is the Lord's and so the whole of faith; for faith comes from Him through good.

3870. 'That I was hated' means the state of faith if there is no will corresponding to it. This is clear from the meaning of 'hated' as not loved, for this is the state of faith if the will does not correspond to it. The subject in the internal sense is the advance of a person's regeneration from what is external to what is internal, that is, from the truth of faith towards the good of charity. Truth which is the truth of faith is external, and good which is the good of charity is internal. So that it may be living, truth which is the truth of faith must be introduced into the will so as to receive life there. For truth which issues from knowledge is not living, only truth which issues from the will. Through the new will which the Lord creates in man life flows in from Him. The life which comes first manifests itself in obedience, this being the first degree of the will. The life which comes second manifests itself in the affection for doing what is true, this being a more advanced degree of the will, which is arrived at when delight and blessing are felt in the doing of what is true. Unless faith advances in this way truth does not become truth but something separated from life. Sometimes it becomes the corroboration of falsity, sometimes persuasive belief, and so something debased, for it couples itself to man's evil affection or desire, that is, to the will that is properly his own and the reverse of charity. Such is the faith which is believed to be true faith by many at the present day; they believe that this faith is able - of itself, without the works of charity - to save a person.

[2] But this faith - that is to say, faith separated from charity and therefore contrary to charity - is represented later on by Reuben's lying with Bilhah his father's concubine, Genesis 35:22, and by the expression of disgust by Jacob, who by then was named Israel, in the following words,

Reuben, my firstborn, you are my strength and the beginning of my power. Unstable as water, may you not excel, for you went up to your father's bed; then you defiled it. He went up to my couch. Genesis 49:3-4.

Also described in that chapter, by means of Simeon and Levi, is the contrariety to charity of the will and affection that go with this faith, namely faith separated from charity, in the following words,

Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. Into their secret place let my soul not come; in their assembly let not my glory be united; for in their fury they killed a man, and in their wilfulness they hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their fury, for it is fierce, and their anger, for it is severe. I will divide them in Jacob, and will scatter them in Israel. Genesis 49:5-7.

That faith separated from charity is described in this case by Simeon and Levi will in the Lord's Divine mercy be shown later on.