1. Survey of Teachings of the New Church Meant by the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation

[Author’s Preface]

AFTER publishing, within the span of a few years, several larger and smaller works on the New Jerusalem (which means the new church that the Lord is going to establish), and after unveiling the Book of Revelation, I resolved to publish and bring to light the teachings of the [new] church in their fullness, and thus to present a body of teaching that was whole. But because this work was going to take several years, I developed a plan to publish an outline of it, to give people an initial, general picture of this church and its teachings. When a general overview precedes, all the details that follow, of however wide a range, stand forth in a clear light, because they each have their own place within the overall structure alongside things of the same type.

This briefing does not include detailed argumentation; it is shared as advance notice, because the points it contains will be fully demonstrated in the work itself.

First, however, I must present the teachings concerning justification as they exist today, in order to highlight the differences between the tenets of today’s church and those of the new church.

107. Nevertheless, today these beliefs have been so thoroughly wiped out among Roman Catholics that they scarcely know the least thing about them. These beliefs have been forgotten not because they were overturned by papal decree but because they were covered over by external facets of worship. In general these are adoring the vicar of Christ, calling on the saints, and venerating images; they are especially things that affect our physical senses with an impression of holiness, such as the Mass, which is conducted in a language people do not understand, the vestments, the candles, the incense, and the spectacular processions; also the mysteries surrounding the Eucharist.

Although the early Roman church believed that faith justifies us through assigning us the merit of Christ, the external facets just listed and many others like them have moved this concept out of sight and removed it from memory, as if it were something buried in the ground, covered with a large stone, and guarded by monks so that it will not be dug up and brought back to mind. The danger in its being brought back to mind is that it would undermine people’s belief in the monks’ supernatural power to forgive their sins, and justify, sanctify, and save them; and that would end the monks’ status as holy, their dominance over others, and their quest for wealth.

60. 14 The teachings of faith of the modern-day church attribute to God qualities that are merely human: they say, for example, that God looked at the human race with anger; that he needed to be reconciled to us; that he was in fact reconciled through his love for his Son and through the Son’s intercession; that he needed to be appeased by seeing his Son’s wretched suffering, and this brought him back into a merciful attitude; that he assigns the Son’s justice to unjust people who beg him for it on the basis of their faith alone, and turns them from enemies into friends and from children of wrath into children of grace.