1. Survey of Teachings of the New Church Meant by the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation

[Author’s Preface]

AFTER publishing, within the span of a few years, several larger and smaller works on the New Jerusalem (which means the new church that the Lord is going to establish), and after unveiling the Book of Revelation, I resolved to publish and bring to light the teachings of the [new] church in their fullness, and thus to present a body of teaching that was whole. But because this work was going to take several years, I developed a plan to publish an outline of it, to give people an initial, general picture of this church and its teachings. When a general overview precedes, all the details that follow, of however wide a range, stand forth in a clear light, because they each have their own place within the overall structure alongside things of the same type.

This briefing does not include detailed argumentation; it is shared as advance notice, because the points it contains will be fully demonstrated in the work itself.

First, however, I must present the teachings concerning justification as they exist today, in order to highlight the differences between the tenets of today’s church and those of the new church.

46. Brief Analysis

Surely every group of religious and reasonable people on the face of the earth knows and believes that there is one God; that doing good things is being with God; that doing evil things goes against God; that we must apply our own soul, heart, and powers to doing what is good and not doing what is evil, even though these faculties and abilities actually flow into us from God; and that the religious life consists in doing all the above. Surely everyone can see, then, that to confess three persons within the Divine and to declare that salvation has nothing to do with good works is to remove religious life from the church.

The Protestant assertion that salvation has nothing to do with good works is made in the following passages. Faith makes us just apart from good works; see §12 a, b. Good works are not necessary either for our salvation or for our faith, because salvation and faith are not preserved or maintained by our good works; see §12 g, h, l, m. Therefore there is no bond that unites faith and good works.

If we go back to the assertion that good works nevertheless spontaneously follow faith like fruit issuing forth from a tree — see §13 k, m — then we must ask this: Who does these good works? In fact, who would bother thinking about them or feel spontaneously moved to do them when they know and believe that these works contribute nothing to their salvation, and that none of us on our own can do any good for our own salvation, and so on?

If someone asserts that Protestants do nonetheless unite good works to their faith, I reply that if you deeply examine that union, you find that it is not actually a uniting but rather an appending of good works to faith. Good works are an appendage that is tacked on; they are not an integral part or even securely attached. They are like the shadows that are added to a painting to make it look more realistic. Religious practice, though, has to do with our lives; it consists in good works that we do in accordance with the truths taught by our faith. Clearly, then, religious practice is not in actuality an appendage; it is the thing itself.

To many people, though, living a religious life is like a horse’s tail; you can remove it if you want, because it serves no purpose. Who could come to any other reasonable conclusion from statements such as the following when taken at face value?

It is foolish to dream that the works enjoined by the second tablet of the Ten Commandments make us just before God; see §12 d.

Any who believe they will gain salvation because they do acts of goodwill are insulting Christ; see §12 e.

Good works must be completely excluded from any discussion of our justification and eternal life; see §12f.

There are many other such statements there as well.

When we go on to read that good works necessarily follow faith, and that if they do not follow faith, our faith is false and not true (see §13 o, p, v, and many other passages), who among us pays any attention to this? Or if we do pay attention to it, do we do good works consciously? Because good works that somehow flow out of us when we are unaware of them are surely as lifeless as if they had been done by a statue.

If we look more deeply into the cause of this teaching, we find that the leading reformers first assumed faith alone as their standard dogma in order to be differentiated from Roman Catholics, as I mentioned above (§§21, 22, 23). Later on they attached acts of goodwill so as not to go against Sacred Scripture and so that their denomination would be viewed as a religion and something wholesome.

13. Particular teachings from the Formula of Concord concerning the fruits of faith:

(a) The difference between the works of the law and the works of the Spirit must be most diligently noted. The works that the reborn do with a free and joyful spirit are not works of the law but works of the Spirit; they are the fruits of faith. Such people are no longer under the law but under grace (pages 589, 590, 721, 722).

(b) Good works are the fruits of repentance (page 12).

(c) Through faith, the reborn receive a new life, new desires, and new works; these come from the faith that exists in repentance (page 134).

(d) After this conversion and justification, our minds and eventually even our intellects begin to be renewed. Then our will is not idle in the daily exercise of repentance (pages 582, 673, 700).

(e) We need to practice repentance both from original sin and from our own actual sins (page 321; appendix, page 159).

(f) This repentance endures among Christians until death because it struggles with the sin that remains in the flesh throughout life (page 327).

(g) The law of the Ten Commandments must take hold in us and then increase more and more (pages 85, 86).

(h) Although the reborn are indeed liberated from the curse of the law, they should daily practice the law of the Lord (page 718).

(i) The reborn are never without the law, and at the same time they are not under the law; they live according to the law of the Lord (page 722).

(j) For those who are reborn, the law must be the norm of their religious practice (pages 596, 717; appendix, page 156).

(k) The reborn do good works not by coercion but spontaneously and freely, as if they knew of no commandment, had heard no threat, and were expecting no reward (pages 596, 701).

(l) The faith the reborn have is constantly engaged in doing good works. Whoever does not do such works is an unbeliever. Where faith exists, there good works are being done (page 701).

(m) Goodwill and worthy fruits follow faith and regeneration (pages 121, 122, 171, 188, 692).

(n) Faith and good works fit beautifully together and are inseparably connected. But it is faith alone that lays hold of the blessing, apart from works, and yet it is never, ever alone. As a result, faith without works is dead (pages 692, 693).

(o) After a person has been justified by faith, there then exists a true, living faith that works through love. Good works always follow justifying faith and are certainly found with it. Faith is never alone but is always accompanied by love and hope (page 586).

(p) We say that if good works do not follow, then faith is false and not true (page 336).

(q) It is impossible to separate good works from faith, quite as impossible as to separate heat and light from fire (page 701).

(r) Because the old Adam still continues to hang on in their nature, the reborn need not only the law’s daily instruction and admonition, its warning and threatening; often they also need its punishments. They are reproved and restrained by the Holy Spirit through the law (pages 719, 720, 721).

(s) The reborn still have to struggle with the old Adam. The flesh, which is still a part of them, needs to be forced into obedience through admonitions, threats, and blows, since the renewal of life through faith merely begins in this lifetime (pages 595, 596, 724).

(t) The battle of the flesh against the Spirit continues even in the elect and truly reborn (pages 675, 679).

(u) Christ announces that our sins will be forgiven because of our good works. He says this for three reasons: because our good works follow our being reconciled to God; because good fruits ought of necessity to follow [our repentance]; and because our good works are signs of his promise to us (pages 116, 117).

(v) There is no saving faith in those who lack goodwill. Love is a fruit that certainly and necessarily results from true faith (page 688).

(w) Good works are necessary for a host of reasons, but we are not to count on meriting [grace] through them (pages 11, 17, 64, 95, 133, 589, 590, 702; appendix, page 172).

(x) With the new powers and gifts the reborn have received, they should cooperate with the Holy Spirit, but in a particular way (pages 582, 583, 674, 675; appendix, page 144).

(y) In the Belgic Confession, which was officially adopted at the Synod of Dort, we read the following:

It is impossible for this holy faith to be unfruitful in us — faith works through love. These works, as they proceed from the good root of faith, are good and acceptable in the sight of God, like the fruit of a good tree. We are indebted to God for the good works we do, but he is not indebted to us on their account, since it is he who produces them in us. (Belgic Confession [24])