76. Seven chapters in the Book of Revelation deal specifically with this affliction or attack by falsities against the truth. This attack is meant by the black horse and the pale horse that came forth from the scroll when the Lamb opened its seals (Revelation 6:5– 8). This attack is meant by the beast that rose up from the abyss and made war against the two witnesses and killed them (Revelation 11:7 and following). This attack is meant by the dragon that stood before the woman who was about to give birth, waiting to devour her child, and persecuted her in the desert; there it sent forth water like a river from its mouth to swallow her up (Revelation 12). This attack is also meant by the beast from the sea, who had a body like a leopard, feet like a bear, and a mouth like a lion (Revelation 13:2). This attack is also meant by the three spirits that were like frogs, which came out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet (Revelation 16:13). Finally, this attack is what is meant by the fact that after the seven angels poured out their bowls full of the wrath of God, which were the seven last plagues, onto the ground, into the sea, into the rivers and springs, into the sun, onto the throne of the beast, into the Euphrates, and finally into the air, there was a great earthquake unlike any that had occurred since the creation of humankind on the earth (Revelation 16). The “earthquake” means that the church is turned upside down; this is brought about by people teaching what is false and falsifying the truth.

Similar things are meant by the following passage as well:

The angel put forth his sickle and harvested the vineyard of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trampled, and blood came out, up to the horses’ bridles, for one thousand six hundred stadia. (Revelation 14:19, 20)

“Blood” here means truth that has been falsified.

There are many other examples in those seven chapters; see, if you wish, the explanations of those chapters and the accounts of memorable occurrences that come after them.

16. Sketch of the Teachings of the New Church

WHAT follows here is a survey of the teachings of the new church meant by the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 and 22. In the work itself, these teachings, which concern not only what to believe but also how to live, will be broken into three parts.

Part 1 will present teachings on the following topics:

1. The Lord God the Savior, and the Divine Trinity within Him

2. Sacred Scripture; Its Two Meanings, Earthly and Spiritual; and Its Resulting Holiness

3. Love for God, Love for Our Neighbor, and the Harmony between Them

4. Faith, and Its Partnership with Those Two Types of Love

5. Teachings about Life Drawn from the Ten Commandments

6. Reformation and Regeneration

7. Free Choice, and Our Cooperation with the Lord by Means of It

8. Baptism

9. The Holy Supper

10. Heaven and Hell

11. Our Partnership with Heaven or Hell, and How Our State of Life after Death Depends on That Partnership

12. Eternal Life

Part 2 will discuss the following topics:

1. The Close of the Age, the End of the Church in Existence Today

2. The Coming of the Lord

3. The Last Judgment

4. The New Church, Which Is the New Jerusalem

Part 3 will demonstrate the discordance between the tenets of the church in existence today and those of the new church.

In the present volume, too, we will spend a little time on these points of discordance, because both clergy and lay people in the church of today believe that their church is walking in the very light of the gospel and in truths that cannot be weakened, uprooted, or assailed, even by an angel, if one should come down from heaven. The church today cannot see otherwise, because it has withdrawn the intellect from matters of faith, and has supported its tenets through a kind of sight that exists beneath the intellect. That level [of the mind] is able to provide argumentation to support falsities so effectively that they appear to be truths. Once falsities have been reinforced on that level, they gain a deceptive kind of light. Where light of that kind exists, the light of truths looks like thick darkness.

For this reason we will spend a little time presenting points of discordance, and noting a few things about them by way of illustration, so that people whose intellects have not been closed off by blind faith will be able to see the differences, first as in twilight, then as in morning light, and eventually (when the work itself appears) as in the full light of day.

In general, the points of discordance are the following.