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.

76. Seven chapters in the Book of Revelation deal specifically with this affliction or attack by falsities against the truth. This attack is meant by the black horse and the pale horse that came forth from the scroll when the Lamb opened its seals (Revelation 6:5– 8). This attack is meant by the beast that rose up from the abyss and made war against the two witnesses and killed them (Revelation 11:7 and following). This attack is meant by the dragon that stood before the woman who was about to give birth, waiting to devour her child, and persecuted her in the desert; there it sent forth water like a river from its mouth to swallow her up (Revelation 12). This attack is also meant by the beast from the sea, who had a body like a leopard, feet like a bear, and a mouth like a lion (Revelation 13:2). This attack is also meant by the three spirits that were like frogs, which came out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet (Revelation 16:13). Finally, this attack is what is meant by the fact that after the seven angels poured out their bowls full of the wrath of God, which were the seven last plagues, onto the ground, into the sea, into the rivers and springs, into the sun, onto the throne of the beast, into the Euphrates, and finally into the air, there was a great earthquake unlike any that had occurred since the creation of humankind on the earth (Revelation 16). The “earthquake” means that the church is turned upside down; this is brought about by people teaching what is false and falsifying the truth.

Similar things are meant by the following passage as well:

The angel put forth his sickle and harvested the vineyard of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trampled, and blood came out, up to the horses’ bridles, for one thousand six hundred stadia. (Revelation 14:19, 20)

“Blood” here means truth that has been falsified.

There are many other examples in those seven chapters; see, if you wish, the explanations of those chapters and the accounts of memorable occurrences that come after them.

57. I foresee that many people who are now steeped in the absurdities of this faith are going to say, “How can the intellect grasp theological teachings at all? Isn’t something spiritual a thing that is by definition transcendent? Go ahead, though, and see if you can open up the mysteries of redemption and justification so that human reason may see them and finally satisfy its curiosity!”

Anticipating this challenge, I will indeed open up these mysteries, as follows.

As everyone surely knows, there is one God; there is no God other than him. God is love itself and wisdom itself, or goodness itself and truth itself. God himself came down in the form of divine truth, which is the Word, and took on a human manifestation for the purpose of removing the hells, and therefore damnation, from the human race. He accomplished this through battles with and victories over the Devil, that is, over all the hells that were then attacking and trying to spiritually kill every person who came into the world. Afterward he glorified his human manifestation; he did this by uniting divine truth to divine goodness within himself. In this way he returned to the Father from whom he had come forth.

Once we realize this, we understand the following statement in John: “The Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh” (John 1:1, 14). And in the same Gospel, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father” (John 16:28). From the points just made it should also be clear that if the Lord had not come into the world, no one could have been saved, and that the people who are saved are the people who believe in him and live good lives.

This is the face of faith. It appears before our [inner] sight when we have allowed the Word to bring us into the light of day. It is the face of the faith of the new church. (See the faith of the new heaven and the new church in universal form and in a specific form below, §§116, 117.)