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.)

48. Brief Analysis

Before I demonstrate this proposition, I will first lay before the intellect what goodwill is and where it comes from, what faith is and where it comes from, and therefore what the good works called “fruits” are and where they come from.

Faith is truth. Therefore teachings of faith are the same as teachings of truth. Teachings of truth affect our intellect, and therefore how we think, and what we say as a result. They teach us what we should will and what we should do. They teach that some things are evil and we should abstain from them; they teach that some things are good and we should do them. When we follow these teachings and actually do what is good, our good actions enter into a partnership with the truths we understand, because in these actions our will works together with our intellect. (Good actions have to do with our will and truth has to do with our intellect.) This partnership leads us to a love for what is good, which is the essence of goodwill, and a love for what is true, which is the essence of faith. When combined, these two form a marriage. Good works are the offspring born of this marriage, just as pieces of fruit are the offspring produced by a tree. As a result, there are fruits that are born of goodness and fruits that are born of truth. In the Word, the latter are represented as grapes and the former as olives.