644. We have seen, then, that the Word speaks of an assigning of spiritual credit or blame [after death]. Leaders and officials in the Christian churches have taken these passages to mean we are given spiritual credit if we have a faith that is inscribed with the justice and merit of Christ. Why? Because for fourteen centuries, from the time of the Council of Nicaea, they had not been willing to find out that faith meant anything other than this. Therefore this was the only faith that occupied their memory and became systematized in their mind. From that time on, this faith developed a light of its own that was like a bonfire at night. In that light, this faith looked like the profoundest of theological truths, a verity on which all other truths were leaning, one on top of the other. All other truths would have collapsed, they felt, if this chief truth, this central pillar were removed.

Therefore if they had given thought while reading the Word to any other meaning of faith than "the faith that assigns Christ's merit to us," that light and their entire theology would have been extinguished, and a darkness would have arisen and caused the entire Christian church to fade away. Therefore that concept of faith was left in place, "like the stump of a root in the ground, once the tree had been cut down and destroyed, until seven times would pass over it" (Daniel 4:23).

As for today, are there any leaders of the church devoted to this teaching who do not stuff their ears with cotton when that concept of faith comes into question? They do not want to hear it.

O reader of mine, unblock your ears and read the Word, and you will clearly perceive different concepts than the ones you have convinced yourself of until now - a different meaning of faith and a different sense of how spiritual credit or blame are assigned.