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.

340. 2. Briefly Put, Faith Is Believing That People Who Live Good Lives and Believe the Right Things Are Saved by the Lord

We are created for eternal life. All of us are capable of inheriting it, provided we use in our lives the means of salvation that have been prescribed for us in the Word. On these points all Christians agree, as do all non-Christians who have religion and sound reason.

There are indeed many means of being saved, but each and every one of them relates to living a good life and believing the right things. Therefore they all relate to goodwill and faith, for goodwill is living a good life and faith is believing the right things. These two universal categories of means of being saved - goodwill and faith - are not just prescribed for us in the Word, they are commanded.

From the fact that they are commanded it follows that goodwill and faith give us the capacity of providing ourselves with eternal life through a power that is assigned and given to us by God. The more we use that power and look to God, the more God increases the power until he turns every aspect of our earthly goodwill into spiritual goodwill and every aspect of our earthly faith into spiritual faith. In this way God brings dead goodwill and faith to life, and brings us to life as well.

[2] Two things have to come together before we can be said to be living a good life and believing the right things. In the church these two things are called our inner self and our outer self. When our inner self has good intentions and our outer self has good actions, then the two unite. Our outer self acts from our inner self, and our inner self acts through our outer self; we act from God and God acts through us. On the other hand, if our inner self has evil intentions, but our outer self still has good actions, nonetheless both are acting from hell. Our intentions come from hell and our actions are hypocritical. Our hellish intentions are inside every hypocritical thing we do, like a snake inside a plant or a grub inside a flower.

[3] If people know not only that we have an inner and an outer self but also what they are and that the two can work together either actually or seemingly, and also that our inner self lives on after death but our outer self is buried, they have access to an abundance of secrets about heaven and the world. People who unite these two in themselves for a good purpose become happy forever, but people who divide them, or worse yet if they unite them for an evil purpose, are unhappy forever.

780. For the purpose of being constantly present with me, the Lord has disclosed the spiritual meaning of his Word to me; in that meaning, divine truth stands forth in its own light, and the Lord is forever present in that light. His presence in the Word comes exclusively through its spiritual meaning. Through the light of the spiritual meaning, the Lord passes into the shadows in which the literal meaning stands, much the way the sun's light during the daytime passes through an intervening cloud. (I have shown above [776] that the Word's literal meaning is like a cloud and its spiritual meaning is its glory; and the Lord himself is the sun from which that light comes; therefore the Lord is the Word.)

The glory with which the Lord is going to come (Matthew 24:30) means the divine truth in its own light; the Word's spiritual meaning exists in this light. This is clearly shown in the following passages.

The voice of one crying in the desert, "Prepare a way for Jehovah. The glory of Jehovah will be revealed, and all flesh will see it. " (Isaiah 40:3, 5)

Shine, because your light has come and the glory of Jehovah has risen upon you. (Isaiah 60:1 to the end)

I will give you as a covenant to the people, as a light for the nations. I will not give my glory to another. (Isaiah 42:6, 8; 48:11)

Your light will break forth like the dawn. The glory of Jehovah will gather you in. (Isaiah 58:8)

The whole earth will be filled with the glory of Jehovah. (Numbers 14:21; Isaiah 6:1-3; 66:18)

In the beginning was the Word. In it there was life, and that life was the light for humankind. He was the true light. And the Word became flesh, and we saw his glory, glory like that of the only begotten child of the Father. (John 1:1, 4, 9, 14)

The heavens will tell the glory of God. (Psalms 19:1)

The glory of God will enlighten the holy Jerusalem. Its lamp is the Lamb. The nations that are being saved will walk in his light. (Revelation 21:23-24)

Not to mention many other passages.

Glory means divine truth in all its fullness, because every magnificent thing that exists in heaven comes from the light that emanates from the Lord, and in its essence that light, which emanates from the Lord as the sun of the spiritual world, is divine truth.