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.

57. I foresee that many people who are now steeped in the absurdities of this faith are going to say, “How can the intellect grasp theological teachings at all? Isn’t something spiritual a thing that is by definition transcendent? Go ahead, though, and see if you can open up the mysteries of redemption and justification so that human reason may see them and finally satisfy its curiosity!”

Anticipating this challenge, I will indeed open up these mysteries, as follows.

As everyone surely knows, there is one God; there is no God other than him. God is love itself and wisdom itself, or goodness itself and truth itself. God himself came down in the form of divine truth, which is the Word, and took on a human manifestation for the purpose of removing the hells, and therefore damnation, from the human race. He accomplished this through battles with and victories over the Devil, that is, over all the hells that were then attacking and trying to spiritually kill every person who came into the world. Afterward he glorified his human manifestation; he did this by uniting divine truth to divine goodness within himself. In this way he returned to the Father from whom he had come forth.

Once we realize this, we understand the following statement in John: “The Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh” (John 1:1, 14). And in the same Gospel, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father” (John 16:28). From the points just made it should also be clear that if the Lord had not come into the world, no one could have been saved, and that the people who are saved are the people who believe in him and live good lives.

This is the face of faith. It appears before our [inner] sight when we have allowed the Word to bring us into the light of day. It is the face of the faith of the new church. (See the faith of the new heaven and the new church in universal form and in a specific form below, §§116, 117.)

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)