Other sheepfolds...

There are north of seven billion people on earth. Christianity is the biggest religion, with more than 2 billion people... which leaves 5 billion who might wonder what Christians think will happen to non-Christians!

In the Gospel of John, there are seven places where Jesus likens himself to something metaphorical, sometimes called the 7 "I am" statements. Some of them can sound pretty exclusive. Let's take a look at the texts:

Here are three statements that are clear promises to people who are actual Christians -- i.e., they believe in it, and they live by it. They aren't excluding anyone, but there's certainly an implication that this is THE way:

“Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, 'I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life'.” (John 8:12)

“I am the door of the sheep... I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” (John 10:7, 9)

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.” (John 11:25)

Next, here are two more statements that make a similar promise, but that also state that if you don't accept Jesus, you won't be saved:

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman... Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” (John 15:1, 4, 5, 9)

Earlier in John's gospel, there's a 6th "I am" statement, or really a nested pair of statements. They have two special characteristics. Here's one of the pair:

“Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." And further, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day." (John 6:35, 44).

There's a new idea here. The "Father" draws people to Jesus. This is a reference to the influx from the Divine into our minds, that is pulling us out of our swamp. This "pull" gets us to open the Word, to "come to Jesus", to seek spiritual guidance.

In this same story, in John 6, Jesus also says this,

"'I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world....' Then Jesus said unto them, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.'" (John 6:35, 41, 48, 51)

This was a tough teaching. It seems like many people didn't understand that Jesus wasn't talking about literal flesh and blood. In verses 60 and 66, it says,

"Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? ... From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. (John 6:60, 66)

There's been a long argument in the Christian church about the meaning of this. Was Jesus talking about his actual blood? His actual flesh? Were Christians supposed to practice cannibalism? No. In New Christian thought, we're always looking at the internal significations of the words in the literal sense. Bread and flesh refer to good. Blood and wine refer to truth. We need to try to be good, and to try to learn truth. Jesus was showing us what good looks like, and teaching us true ideas.

Here's a passage from one of Swedenborg's works:

Since all things that are spiritual and heavenly relate exclusively to goodness and truth, it follows that flesh means good action that relates to goodwill and blood means truth that relates to faith. On the highest level, these words mean the divine goodness of the Lord's love and the divine truth of the Lord's wisdom. (True Christianity 706)

There's much more detail in that referred-to section, and in the following ones; they convincingly base this interpretation on many Bible passages. They're well worth reading!

Now, getting back to the "I am" statements... here's the seventh one. It shows some ecumenism:

“I am the good shepherd.... I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.... And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” (John 10:11, 14)

These other sheep are people of the spiritual church, "those guided and governed by spiritual truth and good". Arcana Coelestia 7035.

Today, wherever people seek true wisdom and practice a genuine love towards their neighbor, those are the "other sheepfolds". There's spiritual truth and good in all corners of the earth. From the dawning of spiritual awareness, the Lord's love and wisdom has been flowing into people's minds -- received dimly or clearly, or sometimes mostly rejected. When, relatively recently, oral traditions gradually gave way to written ones, the "Ancient Word", as Swedenborg names it, was spread across much of the inhabited world. Fragments of it were preserved in the Old Testament, and in other ancient sacred texts.

In John 10:14, while there's an expectation that the sheepfolds will converge into one, it's not disqualifying to be in another fold now. That's something that we need to dig into. Does a person have to be Christian to be saved? What if they are a good Buddhist whose ruling love is a love of the neighbor? Or a good Muslim who seeks to know and do the will of Allah?

Here's a striking passage from Luke:

"...they shall come from the east and the west, and from the north and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God; and behold, there are last who shall be first, and there are first who shall be last." (Luke 13:23, 28-30)

From the Book of Revelation, there's this, too:

"After these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of [all] tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands..." (Revelation 7:9)

Finally, here's a useful reinforcing quote from Secrets of Heaven 1032:

"The Lord has mercy on the whole human race. He wants to save everyone in the entire world and to draw all people to himself. The Lord's mercy is infinite; it does not allow itself to be restricted to the few within the church but reaches out to everyone on the face of the earth."

How do we reconcile the exclusive-sounding sayings with the inclusive-sounding ones? In New Christian teaching, anyone who is in a love of good, or in a love of truth where there is good, will be saved. And, we acknowledge that truth and good come from the Lord, not from ourselves. Anyone, in any belief system, who does not seek God's help in escaping evil loves and false ideas, will stay stuck. Anyone who genuinely, persistently, humbly seeks good and truth is in the "spiritual church", i.e., in one of the sheepfolds.

Do some sheepfolds have better pastures than others? Yes. Do religions vary in the amount of truth they convey, or in the quality of the practices that they recommend and live by? Of course they do. For the New Christian Bible Study, do we think that Christianity is the best road? Yes. Is it the only road? No. Is it the only destination? Maybe.

Jesus said He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He was the Word in human form -- spiritual truth. There's no way to salvation without setting out on the Way, seeking the Truth, and living a Life of good. You can start from anywhere. As you approach the top of the mountain, you'll be getting closer to the place where the light is clearest.

7035. 'Israel is My son, My firstborn' means that those guided and governed by spiritual truth and good have been adopted. This is clear from the meaning of 'son', when used by Jehovah or the Lord to speak of those who belong to the spiritual Church, as one who has been adopted, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'firstborn' as the faith that is wedded to charity, which the spiritual Church possesses, dealt with in 367, 2475, 3725, 4925, 4926, 4928, 4930; and from the representation of 'Israel' as the spiritual Church, dealt with in 6637. 'Israel is My son, My firstborn' means that those guided and governed by spiritual truth and good - that is, those belonging to the spiritual Church - have been adopted and so recognized as sons because the Lord saved them by His Coming into the world, see 6854, 6914. For this reason also, as well as by virtue of their faith in the Lord, they are called 'the firstborn son'; and they are the ones who are meant by the Lord in John,

And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice, and there will be one flock and one Shepherd. John 10:16.

3387. 'For he was afraid to say, My wife, [thinking,] The men of the place may perhaps kill me on account of Rebekah' means that it was impossible for Divine Truths themselves to be disclosed, and so for Divine Good to be received. This is clear from the meaning of 'being afraid to say' as an inability to disclose; from the meaning of 'wife', who is Rebekah here, as the Lord's Divine Rational in respect to Divine Truth, dealt with in 3012, 3013, 3077; from the meaning of 'killing me' as good not being received, for 'Isaac', to whom 'me' refers here, represents the Divine Good of the Lord's Rational, 3012, 3194, 3210 - good being said 'to be killed' or to perish when it is not received, for it ceases to exist with that person; and from the meaning of 'the men of the place' as people who possess matters of doctrine concerning faith, dealt with just above in 3385. From these meanings it is now evident what the internal sense of these words is, namely: If Divine truths themselves were disclosed they would not be received by those who possess matters of doctrine concerning faith because those truths go beyond the whole range of their rational grasp of things, and so go beyond the whole of their faith, and as a consequence of this no good at all could flow in from the Lord. For good from the Lord, or Divine good, cannot flow in except into truths, for truths are the vessels for good, as shown many times.

[2] Truths or appearances of truth are given to a person to enable Divine Good to develop the understanding part of his mind, and so the person himself, for truths exist to the end that good may flow in. Indeed without vessels or receptacles good has nowhere to go, for it can find no condition answering to itself. Where no truths exist therefore, that is, where they have not been received, neither does any rational or human good exist; and as a consequence the person does not possess any spiritual life. Therefore, so that a person may nevertheless possess truths, and from these receive spiritual life, appearances of truth are given, to everyone according to his ability to grasp them; and these appearances are acknowledged as truths because they have the capacity to hold Divine things within them.

[3] So that it may be known what appearances are and that they are what serve a person as Divine truths, let the following be used by way of illustration: If man were told that in heaven angels have no concept of place, and so no concept of distance, but that instead they have concepts of state, he could not possibly grasp it, for he would suppose from this that nothing distinct and separate existed but that everything was fused together, that is to say, all the angels were together in a single place. Yet everything there is so distinct and separate that nothing could ever be more so. Places, distances, and intervals of space which exist in the natural order exist in heaven as states, see 3356. From this it is evident that all the things that are stated in the Word about places and intervals of space between objects, also ideas that are formed from these and expressed through them, are appearances of truth; and unless everything were stated by means of those appearances it would in no way be received and would as a consequence be scarcely anything; for the concept of space and time is present in almost every single detail of a person's thought as long as he is in the world, that is, living within space and time.

[4] The fact that the Word speaks according to appearances involving space is clear from almost every single part of it, as in Matthew,

Jesus said, How is it that David says, The Lord [said] to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool? Matthew 22:43-44.

Here the expression 'sitting at the right hand' is derived from the concept of place and so according to the appearance - when in fact it is a state of the Lord's Divine power which is described by that expression. In the same gospel,

Jesus said, Hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Matthew 26:64.

Here similarly 'sitting at the right hand' and also 'coming on clouds' are expressions derived from men's concept of place, whereas the concept angels have is one of the state of the Lord's power. In Mark,

The sons of Zebedee said to Jesus, Grant us to sit in Your glory, one on Your right hand and the other on Your left. Jesus replied, To sit at My right hand and at My left is not Mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared. Mark 10:37, 40.

From this it is evident what kind of concept the disciples had of the Lord's kingdom, that is to say, one that involved sitting on the right hand and on the left. Such being the concept they had of it the Lord also replied to them in a way they could understand and so by an appearance that could be seen by them.

[5] In David,

Like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, he rejoices as a mighty man to run the course. From the end of the heavens is His going forth, and His circuit to the ends of them. Psalms 19:5-6.

This refers to the Lord, the state of whose Divine power is described by means of such things as belong to space. In Isaiah,

How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the dawn! You said in your heart, I will go up into the heavens, above the stars of God ¹ I will raise my throne. I will go up above the heights of the clouds. Isaiah 14:12-14.

'Falling from heaven', 'going up the heavens', 'raising a throne above the stars of God', 'going up above the heights of the clouds' are all expressions derived from the concept and appearance of space or a place, and are used to describe self-love profaning holy things. Since celestial and spiritual things are presented to man by means of and according to visual objects like these, heaven too is therefore described as being on high when in fact it is not on high but in that which is internal, 450, 1380, 2148.

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