പുതിയ ക്രിസ്ത്യൻ ബൈബിൾ പഠനം

വ്യാഖ്യാനം

 

Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

സ്വീഡൻബർഗിന്റെ കൃതികളിൽ നിന്ന്

 

Survey of Teachings of the New Church #112

ഈ ഭാഗം പഠിക്കുക

  
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112. 3. Given that this is impossible, it is an imaginary faith to believe that Christ’s righteousness or merit is assigned to or transferred into us. In §110 above, the point was made that we are all assigned blame for the evil or else credit for the goodness to which we have devoted ourselves. This makes it clear that if this concept of “assigning” is taken to mean the transfer and incorporation of one person’s goodness into another person, it is imaginary thinking.

In our world rewards are in one sense transferable by people. A benefit that is owed to parents can be reassigned to their children; a favor that is owed to a client can be redirected to the client’s friends. The good qualities and actions that earned the reward, though, cannot be transferred into these other people’s souls; the reward can only outwardly be attached to people.

No such reassignment of benefit is possible in regard to people’s spiritual lives. Spiritual life has to be planted in us. As mentioned just above [§111], if it is not planted in us as a result of our living by the Lord’s commandments, we stay involved in the evil we were born with. Before spiritual life is planted in us, nothing good can affect us. As soon as any goodness touches us it immediately either rebounds and bounces off us like a rubber ball hitting a rock or else is swallowed up like a diamond thrown in a swamp.

People who have not been reformed are like a panther or a horned owl in spirit; they can be compared to brambles and stinging nettles. People who have been regenerated, though, are like a sheep or a dove; they can be compared to olive trees and grapevines. Please consider, if you will, how panther-people could possibly be converted into sheep-people, or horned owls into doves, or brambles into olive trees, or stinging nettles into grapevines, through any assignment of divine righteousness, if “assignment” here means any kind of transfer. Is it not true that in order for that conversion to take place, the predatory nature of the panther and the horned owl and the damaging nature of the brambles and the stinging nettles would first have to be removed and something truly human and harmless implanted in their place? The Lord in fact teaches in John 15:1– 7 how this transformation occurs.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.

സ്വീഡൻബർഗിന്റെ കൃതികളിൽ നിന്ന്

 

Survey of Teachings of the New Church #15

ഈ ഭാഗം പഠിക്കുക

  
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15. Teachings from the Formula of Concord on free choice:

(a) Human beings are completely powerless in spiritual matters (pages 15, 18, 219, 318, 579, 656 and following; appendix, page 141).

(b) We human beings have been so deeply corrupted through the fall of our first parents that in spiritual matters concerning our conversion and salvation we are by nature blind. We regard the Word of God as foolishness. We are an enemy of God, and remain so until from pure grace without any cooperation on our part we are converted, given faith, regenerated, and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word as it is preached and heard (pages 656, 657).

(c) We are utterly corrupt and dead to what is good, so that in our nature after the Fall but before our regeneration not the least spark of spiritual power remains that would enable us to prepare ourselves for the grace of God, or accept it once it was offered, or make room for it by ourselves or on our own. In spiritual matters, we are entirely unable to understand, believe, comprehend, think, will, start, finish, enact, work, or cooperate through our own natural powers, or adapt or accommodate ourselves to grace or contribute anything to our own conversion in whole or by half or to the least extent by acting on our own (pages 656, 658).

(d) In spiritual and divine matters, which concern the soul’s salvation, the human being is like a pillar of salt, like Lot’s wife, and indeed like a lifeless block of wood or a stone, which has no eyes or mouth or senses (pages 661, 662).

(e) Although people have the power to move their bodies and control their limbs and can attend public worship and hear the Word and the gospel, they nevertheless regard those things as foolishness in their silent thoughts. In this sense they are worse than a block of wood, if the Holy Spirit does not become active in them (pages 662, 671, 672, 673).

(f) As we undergo conversion, it happens not as a statue is formed in stone or a seal is pressed in wax; these things do not know or feel or will anything (pages 662, 681).

(g) In our conversion we are “purely passive” and not active at all (pages 662, 681).

(h) In our conversion, we do not cooperate with the Holy Spirit at all (pages 219, 579, 583, 672, 676; appendix, pages 143, 144).

(i) Since the Fall, human beings have retained and still possess earthly powers of knowledge, as well as free choice (to some extent at least) in choosing what is good on an earthly and civic level (pages 14, 218, 641, 664; appendix, page 142).

(j) Some ancient and modern teachers of the church have used expressions such as “God draws, but he draws the willing”; we hold that these expressions do not correspond to the form of sound teaching (pages 582, 583).

(k) Using power from the Holy Spirit, the reborn cooperate with him, though still in great weakness. This occurs on the basis of the new powers and gifts that the Holy Spirit initiated in us in conversion. This leading of the Holy Spirit is not a compulsion; rather, the converted person does good things spontaneously (pages 582 and following, 673, 674, 675; appendix, page 144).

(l) It is not just the gifts of God that reside in the reborn, but because of their faith, Christ too dwells in them as in his temple (pages 695, 697, 698; appendix, page 130).

(m) There is a great difference between baptized and unbaptized people. According to Paul’s teaching, “All those who have been baptized have put on Christ,” and are therefore truly reborn. They now have a “freed choice”; that is, as Christ says, “They have been made free again.” For this reason they not only hear the Word of God but are also able to assent to it and embrace it with faith — although in great weakness (page 675).

It is important to note that the preceding quotations were taken from the book called the Formula of Concord, which was written by people who endorsed the Augsburg Confession. Nevertheless, the same things regarding justification by faith alone are said and taught by Protestants in Britain and the Netherlands as well. Therefore the statements that follow are intended for all. See also §§17, 18 just below.

 

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.

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