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.

93. In the spiritual world I have talked a number of times with people who say faith alone makes us just. I said that their teaching is wrong and also absurd; it brings on spiritual complacency, blindness, sleep, and night; and it is eventually lethal to the soul. I urged them to give it up.

I received the response, “Why stop? This is the sole area in which the clergy can claim to be better educated than lay people.”

I replied that in that case they must be viewing a superior reputation as their goal, not the saving of souls. Since they have applied the truths in the Word to their own false principles, which means they have contaminated them, they are the angels of the abyss called Abaddons and Apollyons (Revelation 9:11; those names mean people who have destroyed the church by completely falsifying the Word; see Revelation Unveiled 440, and the memorable occurrence in §566 there).

They replied, “What? Since we know the mysteries of that teaching, we are oracles. We give answers from that faith as if it were a sacred shrine. We are not Apollyons; we are Apollos!”

Irritated at that, I said, “If you are Apollos you are also leviathans. The leaders among you are coiled leviathans, and the followers among you are uncoiled leviathans. God will punish you with his sword, great and strong (Isaiah 27:1).”

They just laughed at that.

(For the meaning of being punished with and perishing by a sword, see Revelation Unveiled 52.)

81. Astoundingly, the teaching that faith is the only thing that justifies us occupies every square inch throughout the entire Protestant world; that is, within the clergy it rules as virtually the only theology. This position is what all candidates for the ministry eagerly learn, consume, and absorb in college. Then, as if they were people inspired with heavenly wisdom, they teach that position in their churches and publish it in their books. Through it they pursue and achieve the name, reputation, and glory of having superior erudition. Because of it they are given diplomas, fellowships, and awards. And all this goes on, despite the fact that as a result of that teaching alone the sun today is darkened, the moon is deprived of its light, and the stars of the heavens have fallen, that is, have been destroyed.

I have been given absolute proof that the teaching that faith assigns us justice has so blinded human minds today that they do not want, and are therefore virtually unable, to see any divine truth in the light of the sun or in the light of the moon. They can see it only in the light of a fireplace by night. I can therefore make this assertion: If divine truths about the true partnership between goodwill and faith, about heaven, about the Lord, and about the eternal happiness that comes from him were to be written in silver letters and sent down from heaven, people who believe that we are justified by faith alone would not even consider them worth reading. The complete opposite would happen, though, if a paper asserting that faith alone makes us just were to be sent up from below.

We also read in the Formula of Concord that the article concerning justification by faith alone, or concerning the justice that we acquire through faith, is the most important of all Christian teachings, and that works of the law must be completely excluded from this article (pages 17, 61, 62, 72, 89, 683; appendix, page 164).