16. Sketch of the Teachings of the New Church

WHAT follows here is a survey of the teachings of the new church meant by the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 and 22. In the work itself, these teachings, which concern not only what to believe but also how to live, will be broken into three parts.

Part 1 will present teachings on the following topics:

1. The Lord God the Savior, and the Divine Trinity within Him

2. Sacred Scripture; Its Two Meanings, Earthly and Spiritual; and Its Resulting Holiness

3. Love for God, Love for Our Neighbor, and the Harmony between Them

4. Faith, and Its Partnership with Those Two Types of Love

5. Teachings about Life Drawn from the Ten Commandments

6. Reformation and Regeneration

7. Free Choice, and Our Cooperation with the Lord by Means of It

8. Baptism

9. The Holy Supper

10. Heaven and Hell

11. Our Partnership with Heaven or Hell, and How Our State of Life after Death Depends on That Partnership

12. Eternal Life

Part 2 will discuss the following topics:

1. The Close of the Age, the End of the Church in Existence Today

2. The Coming of the Lord

3. The Last Judgment

4. The New Church, Which Is the New Jerusalem

Part 3 will demonstrate the discordance between the tenets of the church in existence today and those of the new church.

In the present volume, too, we will spend a little time on these points of discordance, because both clergy and lay people in the church of today believe that their church is walking in the very light of the gospel and in truths that cannot be weakened, uprooted, or assailed, even by an angel, if one should come down from heaven. The church today cannot see otherwise, because it has withdrawn the intellect from matters of faith, and has supported its tenets through a kind of sight that exists beneath the intellect. That level [of the mind] is able to provide argumentation to support falsities so effectively that they appear to be truths. Once falsities have been reinforced on that level, they gain a deceptive kind of light. Where light of that kind exists, the light of truths looks like thick darkness.

For this reason we will spend a little time presenting points of discordance, and noting a few things about them by way of illustration, so that people whose intellects have not been closed off by blind faith will be able to see the differences, first as in twilight, then as in morning light, and eventually (when the work itself appears) as in the full light of day.

In general, the points of discordance are the following.

71. Brief Analysis

In Matthew we read,

The disciples came to Jesus and showed him the buildings of the Temple. Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, not one stone will be left here on another that will not be thrown down.” The disciples said to him, “Tell us, when will these things be? Especially, what will be the sign of your Coming and of the close of the age?” (Matthew 24:1, 2, 3)

Today, learned clergy and well-educated lay people think that “the destruction of the Temple” refers to the Temple’s destruction by Vespasian. They take “the Coming of the Lord” and “the close of the age” to mean the end or the death of this world. “The destruction of the Temple,” however, refers not only to the Temple’s destruction by Romans but also to the destruction of the church of today. “The close of the age” and the ensuing “Coming of the Lord” mean the end of the existing church and the establishment of a new church by the Lord. That whole chapter from beginning to end makes it clear that these terms have such a meaning; the sole topic is the successive states of decline and corruption within the Christian church leading up to its death, when it meets its end.

In a narrow sense, “the Temple” means the Temple in Jerusalem. In a broad sense, it means the Lord’s church. In a broader sense, it means the angelic heaven. In the broadest sense, it means the Lord’s human manifestation (see Revelation Unveiled 529). “The close of the age” means the end of the church; the end comes when the teaching from the Word has no truth left in it that has not been falsified and used up (see Revelation Unveiled 658, 676, 750). “The Coming of the Lord” means his Coming in the Word and his establishing a new church in place of the former church that has come to an end; this is clear from the Lord’s words in the same chapter (Matthew 24:30– 34) and in the two final chapters in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 21 and 22). In the last chapter there we read the following:

I, Jesus, am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright and morning star. The spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And those who hear, say, “Come!” And those who are thirsty, come. “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:17, 20)