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.

110. 1. After we die we are all assigned either blame for the evil or else credit for the goodness to which we have devoted ourselves. In order to make this clear, I will break it down into the following pieces: (a) We all have our own individual life. (b) Our life stays with us after we die. (c) At that point, evil people are assigned blame for the evil that constituted their life, and good people are assigned credit for the goodness that constituted theirs.

(a) We all have our own individual life. This is well known. Each of us is differentiated from everyone else. There is an unending variety among people, and nothing about us is identical; so we each have our own unique selfhood.

This becomes very clear when we consider human faces. Not one face is absolutely identical to any other face, nor could there ever be two identical faces to eternity, because no two minds are alike, and the face reflects the mind. Our face, as they say, is a mirror of our mind, and our mind is formed and shaped by our life.

If we did not have our own unique life (just as we have our own unique mind and our own unique face), after death we would not have a life that was differentiated from anyone else’s. In fact, there would be no heaven, since heaven consists of an unending variety of people. The form heaven takes is possible only because of all the varieties of souls and minds, arranged into a design in such a way that they all work together as one. They work together as one due to the one whose life is present within each of them, like the soul within a human being. If this were not the case, heaven would fall apart because that form would collapse. The Lord is the one who is the source of life for each and every person there and is the force that holds the entire form together.

[2] (b) Our life stays with us after we die. The church recognizes this from statements in the Word. For example, “The Son of Humankind is going to come; then he will repay all people according to their deeds” (Matthew 16:27). “I saw books opened. All were judged according to their works” (Revelation 20:12, 13). “In the day of judgment, God will repay all according to their works” (Romans 2:6; 2 Corinthians 5:10). The works according to which we will be repaid are our life; our life produces these works, and they are done in accordance with our life.

For many years now I have been allowed to be among angels and talk to new arrivals from the physical world. As a result I can testify that all of us are explored there to see what kind of life we have; the life we formed in the world stays with us to eternity. I have spoken with people who lived centuries ago, whose lives I knew about from historical accounts, and recognized that they fit the description.

I have been told by angels that it is impossible for our life to be changed after death, because it is organized around the love and faith we had, and the things we did as a result. If our life were to be changed, it would tear apart that whole structure, and that could never happen. Changes in that structure are possible only while we are alive in the physical body; such changes are completely impossible in the spiritual body once our physical body has been cast off.

[3] (c) At that point, evil people are assigned blame for the evil that constituted their life, and good people are assigned credit for the goodness that constituted theirs. Being assigned blame for evil after we die is not the same as being accused or charged or declared guilty or judged [by someone else], the way we would be in the physical world. We are assigned blame by the evil itself that is within us. Evil people freely choose to leave good people, since the two types of people cannot coexist. The pleasures involved in loving what is evil are completely opposite to the pleasures involved in loving what is good. In the spiritual world, each type of person exudes an atmosphere of what pleases her or him, just as different types of plants on earth give off their own unique odor. There, these exhalations are not absorbed or covered up by the physical body the way they used to be in the physical world; instead they flow forth freely from the individual’s love into the spiritual atmosphere. Evil is sensed there as having its own smell; therefore the presence of evil itself is what accuses us, charges us, declares us guilty, and judges us — not in the presence of some judge but in the presence of anyone who is devoted to goodness. This is what the “assigning of blame for evil” means.

The assigning of credit for goodness happens in much the same way. We are assigned credit for goodness if in the world we acknowledged that everything good about us was and is from the Lord and none of it came from ourselves. People who acknowledge this undergo a preparation first and are then brought into the inner pleasures associated with the goodness they love. After that a pathway opens up for them, leading to a community in heaven where the angels take delight in things that are in harmony with what the new arrivals take delight in. This is the Lord’s doing.

14. Teachings from the Formula of Concord on merit:

(a) It is false that we merit the forgiveness of sins through our works. It is false that we are counted righteous because of the righteousness of our reason. It is false that reason by its own powers is able to love God above all things and to fulfill God’s law (page 64).

(b) Faith does not make people righteous because it is such a good work or such a fine virtue, but because it lays hold of and accepts the merit of Christ in the promise of the holy gospel (pages 76, 684).

(c) The promise of the forgiveness of sins and of being made righteous on account of Christ is not conditional upon our merits; it is offered for free (page 67).

(d) We sinful people are justified before God, that is, absolved of our sins and of the judgment of damnation that we deserve, and we are accepted as children and heirs of God, without the least bit of our own merit, apart from all preceding, present, or subsequent works that we do. We are justified on the basis of sheer grace, because of the sole merit of Christ, which is reckoned to us as righteousness (page 684).

(e) Good works follow faith, forgiveness of sins, and regeneration. Whatever in these works is still sinful or imperfect should not even be counted as sin or imperfection, precisely for the sake of this same Christ. Instead, we should be called, and should be, completely righteous and holy — both we ourselves and the works we do — by the pure grace and mercy that have been poured and spread over us in Christ. Therefore we cannot boast about our merit (pages 74, 92, 93, 336).

(f) Those who trust that they merit grace by works despise the merit and grace of Christ and seek a way to heaven through human powers alone without Christ (pages 16, 17, 18, 19).

(g) If people want to mix good works up with the article on justification and want to merit God’s grace through them, works are not only useless for such people but even harmful (page 708).

(h) The works of the Ten Commandments are listed, and many other things that must be done; God honors these works with rewards (pages 176, 198).

(i) We concede that works are truly meritorious, but not for the forgiveness of sins, for grace, or for justification. Works are meritorious for other bodily and spiritual rewards, which are bestowed both in this life and in the life to come. According to the passage in Paul, “Each will receive wages according to the labor of each”; and Christ says, “Your reward will be great in heaven.” Christ often says that he will repay according to each one’s deeds. We confess, therefore, that eternal life is a reward, because it is owed to the justified on account of the promise, and because God crowns his gifts, but not because of our merit (pages 96, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138).

(j) Good works in believers are an indication of their eternal salvation when these are done for the right reasons and the right purposes (that is, in the way God demands the reborn to do them). God the Father holds these works as well received and pleasing for Christ’s sake and promises a glorious reward for them in this life and in the life to come (page 708).

(k) Although good works deserve rewards, nevertheless neither by merit of fitness nor by merit of agreement do they earn us forgiveness of sins or the glory of eternal life (pages 96, 135, 139 and following; appendix, page 174).

(l) In the Last Judgment, Christ is going to hand down a sentence regarding which works were good or evil depending on whether those works were the genuine result of, and are evidence for, people’s faith (page 134; appendix, page 187).

(m) God does reward good works, but it is because of his grace that he crowns them, since they were actually gifts from him (Belgic Confession [24]).