1. Every Religion Is a Way of Life, and Its Life Is the Doing of Good

Everyone with any religion knows and acknowledges that someone who lives right is saved, and that someone who does not live right is damned. For he knows and acknowledges that someone who lives right, thinks right, not only about God, but also about the neighbor; but not so someone who does not live right.

A person’s life is his love, and what a person loves he not only freely does, but also freely thinks. We say therefore that his life is the doing of good, because doing right accompanies his thinking right. If these two do not go together, they do not constitute a person’s life.

But this we will show in the following pages.

66. We read in Mark that a certain rich man came to Jesus and asked Him what he should do to inherit eternal life.

Jesus said to him, “You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and your mother.”

The rich man answered and said to Him, “All these things I have kept from my youth.”

Jesus, looked at him and loved him. Nevertheless He said, “One thing you lack: Go, sell whatever you have and give it to the poor. By doing so you will have treasure in heaven. But come, take up the cross and follow Me.” (Mark 10:17-22)

[2] We are told that Jesus loved him because he said that he had kept those commandments from his youth. But he lacked three things, namely, that he had not withdrawn his heart from his riches, that he had not fought against his urges, and that he had not yet acknowledged the Lord as God. For that reason the Lord told him to sell whatever he had, meaning that he should withdraw his heart from his riches; to take up the cross, meaning to fight against his lusts; and to follow Him, meaning to acknowledge the Lord as God.

The Lord said all this, as He did everything else, using terms that correspond, as may be seen in The Doctrine Regarding the Sacred Scripture 17.

For no one can refrain from evils as being sins unless he acknowledges the Lord and turns to Him, and unless he fights against evils and so puts away his urges to do them.

But more on this subject in the section dealing with battles against evils.