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.

183. 9. Many absurd, alien, imaginary, and misshapen ideas of God have come into existence from the Athanasian Creed's assertion of a trinity of persons, each of whom is individually God. The teaching that there have been three divine persons from eternity - the chief of all teachings in Christian churches - has produced many unseemly ideas about God that are unsuitable for the Christian world, especially since that world could be and ought to be a light revealing God and his unity to all the peoples and nations in the four quarters of the earth.

All who live outside the Christian church, both Muslims and Jews, as well as other non-Christians with whatever kind of worship, have rejected Christianity solely because of its belief in three gods. Christian missionaries know this. They are extremely careful not to publicize the trinity of persons taught in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, because people would go away laughing.

[2] The teaching that there have been three divine persons from eternity has produced absurd, ludicrous, and silly mental images. In fact, these mental images keep coming up in any of us who continue to believe the words of this teaching. They rise up through our ears and eyes into the visualization in our thoughts.

The images are that God the Father sits high above our heads. The Son sits by his right hand. The Holy Spirit sits in front of them both, listening to them and then immediately running around the planet dispensing the gifts of justification according to their decision. The Holy Spirit instills those gifts, turning children of anger into children of grace and the damned into the chosen.

I challenge learned clergy and educated laity to check and see whether they harbor any other picture besides this one in their minds. This picture, you see, flows in spontaneously from this teaching (see the memorable occurrence above at 16).

[3] This teaching also leads people to conjecture what the three talked about before the world was created. Did they talk about creating the world? Did they talk about predestining people and justifying them, as the Supralapsarians would have us believe? Did they talk about redemption? For that matter, what have they been saying to each other since the world was created? What is the Father saying, with his power and authority of assigning spiritual credit and blame? What is the Son saying, with his power of mediating? This teaching also leads some to conjecture that it belongs to the Son's mercy to assign people spiritual credit or blame, which is the same as choosing them for hell or heaven, since the Son generally intercedes for all people and specifically intercedes for some individuals. Toward these individuals the Father has an attitude of grace because he is moved with love for the Son, having seen the Son's anguish on the wood of the cross.

Anyone can see that these conjectures are a form of irrationality about God. Yet in the Christian churches they are sacred objects that we have to kiss with our lips. Nevertheless, we must not give them close mental attention, because they transcend rationality and will make us insane if they are raised from our memory into our intellect. This precaution, though, does not do away with our mental picture of three gods - it just gives us a stupid belief. Thoughts about God that are based on this faith resemble the footsteps of someone sleepwalking and dreaming in the dead of night, or the footsteps of someone born blind who is walking in the light of day.

220. 4. The curtains, veils, and pillars in the tabernacle represented the types of good and truth that exist in the Word's literal meaning. The tabernacle that Moses built in the desert represented heaven and the church, which is why Jehovah revealed the form of it on Mount Sinai. All the objects inside the tabernacle - the lampstand, the golden incense altar, and the table for showbread - represented and meant what is holy in heaven and the church. The most holy place, which contained the ark of the covenant, represented and therefore meant the inmost aspect of heaven and the church. The law written on two tablets meant the Word. The angel guardians above it meant safeguards to prevent violation of the Word's holiness.

Since outer things derive their essence from inner things, and outer and inner things together derive their essence from what is inmost, which in this case was the law, therefore all aspects of the tabernacle represented and meant the holy things in the Word.

It follows from this that the outermost features of the tabernacle - the curtains, veils, and pillars that were coverings, containers, and structural supports - meant the outermost aspects of the Word, which are the forms of truth and goodness in its literal meaning. Because this was their meaning, all the curtains and veils were made of cotton interwoven with blue and purple threads, and with double-dyed scarlet threads, depicting angel guardians (Exodus 26:1, 31, 36).

Where Secrets of Heaven deals with this chapter in Exodus [Secrets of Heaven 9592-9692], I have explained both generally and specifically what the tabernacle and its contents represented and meant. There I have shown that the curtains and veils represented outer aspects of heaven and the church, and therefore outer aspects of the Word as well. The cotton or linen meant truth from a spiritual origin. The blue threads meant truth from a heavenly origin. The purple threads meant heavenly goodness. The double-dyed cloth meant spiritual goodness. Angel guardians meant protection of the inner aspects of the Word.