8. Faith comes to us through hearing, when we believe that the teachings divinely revealed to us are true and when we trust in God’s promises. Faith is the beginning of human salvation, and the foundation and root of all justification. Without faith, it is impossible to please God and to come into the company of his children. Our justification takes place through faith, hope, and goodwill. Unless hope and goodwill are added to faith, it is dead rather than living and does not unite us to Christ.

We need to cooperate in this process. We have the power to move either closer to or farther away from [Christ]; if we did not, nothing could be granted to us, because we would be like a lifeless body.

Our openness to being justified renews us; this renewal takes place as Christ’s merit is applied to us, as the result of our own cooperation. Therefore we get credit for the works that we do; yet because they are done as a result of grace and through the Holy Spirit, and because Christ alone has earned merit, the rewards God gives us are his own gifts within us. Therefore none of us can attribute anything of merit to ourselves.

78. Brief Analysis

The prophetic Word includes a number of statements about the sun, the moon, and the stars that are similar to this statement in Matthew 24:29. For example, in Isaiah:

Behold, the fierce day of Jehovah is coming. The stars of the heavens and their constellations will not shine their light. The sun will be darkened in its rising, and the moon will not make its light shine. (Isaiah 13:9, 10)

In Ezekiel,

When I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens and darken the stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light. I will bring darkness upon your land. (Ezekiel 32:7, 8)

In Joel,

The day of Jehovah is coming, a day of darkness; the sun and the moon will be darkened and the stars will withhold their light. (Joel 2:1, 2, 10)

The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great day of Jehovah comes. (Joel 2:31)

The day of Jehovah is at hand in the valley of decision; the sun and the moon have been darkened. (Joel 3:14, 15)

In the Book of Revelation,

The fourth angel sounded, and a third of the sun was struck, [a third of the moon,] and a third of the stars; and a third of the day did not shine. (Revelation 8:12)

Also in the Book of Revelation,

The sun became black as sackcloth of goat hair and the moon became like blood. (Revelation 6:12)

The topic of all the Old Testament passages here is the final times of the Jewish church, which occurred when the Lord came into the world. The passages from Matthew and the Book of Revelation are similar, but they deal with the final times of the Christian church, when the Lord is going to come again, but this time in the Word, which contains him and is him. For this reason, immediately after the statement in Matthew 24:29 the following passage occurs: “Then the sign of the Son of Humankind will appear, coming in the clouds of the heavens” (Matthew 24:30).

In these passages “the sun” means love, “the moon” means faith, and “the stars” mean knowledge of what is good and what is true. “The powers of the heavens” mean all three of these things as the sources of strength and stability for the heavens, where angels are, and the churches, where people are.

Gathering all the above together into one meaning, then, they refer to the fact that at the last time of the Christian church, when its end is imminent, it will have no more love, no more faith, and no more knowledge of what is good or what is true.

(For a demonstration that the sun means love, see Revelation Unveiled 53, 54, 413, 796, 831, 961; that the moon means faith, see Revelation Unveiled 53, 332, 413, 533; that the stars mean knowledge of what is good and what is true, see Revelation Unveiled 51, 74, 333, 408, 413, 954.)