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.

106. Brief Analysis

When the leaders and priests of the Roman church are ordained into the ministry, they swear to uphold the decrees of the Council of Trent. This is clear from the papal bull issued by the Roman pope Pius IV, on November 13, 1564, which presents the formula to be followed when declaring a sworn profession of faith:

I with a firm faith believe and profess all and every one of the things contained in that creed which the holy Roman Church makes use of. I likewise undoubtingly receive all other things delivered and declared by the sacred Canons and ecumenical Councils, and particularly by the holy Council of Trent — so help me God.

In that same oath they constrain themselves to believe and profess the specific teachings sanctioned by the Council of Trent regarding the assigning of Christ’s merit to us and our justification by faith in that, as is clear from the following words in that same papal bull:

I embrace and receive all and every one of the things which have been defined and declared in the holy Council of Trent concerning original sin and justification.

The contents of those teachings can be reviewed in the material collected from the Council of Trent in §§3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 above.

These principles established in the Council of Trent lead to the following conclusions.

Roman Catholics before the Reformation had exactly the same teachings as Protestants did after it regarding the assigning of Christ’s merit to us and our being justified by faith in that; the only difference was that Catholics united this faith to goodwill or good works (see §§19, 20 above).

The leading reformers — Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin — retained the Roman Catholic dogmas regarding the assigning of Christ’s merit to us and our being justified by faith. They kept those views as they had been, and still were at the time, among Roman Catholics. The reformers separated goodwill or good works from that faith, however, and declared that faith alone saves, for the purpose of clearly differentiating themselves from Roman Catholics with regard to the essentials of the church, which are faith and goodwill (see §§21, 22, 23 above).

The leaders of the Protestant Reformation do indeed describe good works as an appendage to faith and even an integral part of faith, but they say we are passive in the doing of them, whereas Roman Catholics say we are active in the doing of them. There is actually strong agreement between Protestants and Catholics on the subjects of faith, works, and our rewards (see §§24– 29 above). Clearly, then, these beliefs used to be as important to Roman Catholics as they are now to Protestants.

7. The teachings of the Roman Catholics on justification, as gathered from the decrees of the Council of Trent, can be linked together and summed up as follows:

The sin of Adam was transfused into the entire human race. As a result, the state of the human race and of every individual within it was ruined and alienated from God. People became enemies [of God] and children of wrath. Therefore God the Father as an act of grace sent his Son to reconcile, ritually purge, appease, make satisfaction, and thereby redeem; and to do so by becoming justice.

Christ carried out and fulfilled this task by offering himself to God the Father as a sacrifice on the wood of the cross, that is, through his own suffering and his own blood. Christ alone earned merit. God the Father through the agency of the Holy Spirit assigns, attributes, applies, and transfers this merit of Christ’s to receptive individuals as an act of grace. In this way the sin of Adam is removed from them, although cravings do nonetheless remain and entice them to sin.

Justification is the forgiving of sins, which leads to a renewal of the inner self, by which we turn from an enemy [of God] into a friend and from a child of wrath into a child of grace. This brings us into a union with Christ. We are reborn as a living part of his body.