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.

18. Brief Analysis

The churches that separated from Roman Catholicism during the Reformation consist of those who call themselves Evangelicals and those who call themselves the Reformed and also Protestants, and who are named Lutherans or Calvinists after the founders of their churches. The Anglican Church holds middle ground between them. (I am not referring here to the Orthodox churches, which separated from Roman Catholicism a long time ago.)

Many people are aware that the Protestant churches have theological disagreements with each other in a number of areas — especially concerning the Holy Supper, baptism, the person of Christ, and the process whereby people become “the chosen.”

It is not widely recognized, however, that there are four points on which all these churches agree: there is a trinity of persons in the Divine; there is such a thing as original sin; Christ’s merit is assigned to us; and we are justified by faith alone. The reason this is not widely recognized is that few people conduct research on the dogmatic differences between the churches, and therefore few realize the points the churches have in common. Members of the clergy limit themselves to an investigation of the tenets of their own church; and lay people rarely examine those tenets deeply enough to see the differences and similarities.

Nevertheless, on these four points, Protestants do agree, both generally and in most of the details, as you will find if you consult their books and listen to their sermons. (This point is established first for the sake of the points that are about to follow.)

64. 15 The faith of the modern-day church has given birth to horrifying offspring in the past, and is producing more such offspring now: for example, the notion that there is instantaneous salvation as a result of the direct intervention of mercy; that there is predestination; that God cares only for our faith and pays no attention to our actions; that there is no bond that unites goodwill and faith; that as we undergo conversion we are like a log of wood; and many more teachings of the kind. Another problem has been the adoption of [false] principles of reason that are based on the teaching that we are justified by our faith alone and the teaching concerning the person of Christ, and the use of these principles to judge the uses and benefits of the sacraments (baptism and the Holy Supper). From the earliest centuries of Christianity until now, heresies have been leaping forth from a single source: the body of teaching based on the idea that there are three gods.