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.)

43. 8 This faith is faith in God the Savior Jesus Christ. In a simple form it is this:

1. There is one God, the divine trinity exists within him, and he is the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. Believing in him is a faith that saves.

3. We must abstain from doing things that are evil — they belong to the Devil and come from the Devil.

4. We must do things that are good — they belong to God and come from God.

5. We must do these things as if we ourselves were doing them, but we must believe that they come from the Lord working with us and through us.