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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 #18

ഈ ഭാഗം പഠിക്കുക

  
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18. Brief Analysis

The churches that separated from Roman Catholicism during the Reformation consist of those who call themselves Evangelicals and those who call themselves the Reformed and also Protestants, and who are named Lutherans or Calvinists after the founders of their churches. The Anglican Church holds middle ground between them. (I am not referring here to the Orthodox churches, which separated from Roman Catholicism a long time ago.)

Many people are aware that the Protestant churches have theological disagreements with each other in a number of areas — especially concerning the Holy Supper, baptism, the person of Christ, and the process whereby people become “the chosen.”

It is not widely recognized, however, that there are four points on which all these churches agree: there is a trinity of persons in the Divine; there is such a thing as original sin; Christ’s merit is assigned to us; and we are justified by faith alone. The reason this is not widely recognized is that few people conduct research on the dogmatic differences between the churches, and therefore few realize the points the churches have in common. Members of the clergy limit themselves to an investigation of the tenets of their own church; and lay people rarely examine those tenets deeply enough to see the differences and similarities.

Nevertheless, on these four points, Protestants do agree, both generally and in most of the details, as you will find if you consult their books and listen to their sermons. (This point is established first for the sake of the points that are about to follow.)

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

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