New Christian Bible Study

Commentary

 

Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #389

Study this Passage

  
/ 853  
  

389. The fifth experience.

I once saw a document sent down from heaven to a community in the world of spirits, where there were two leading churchmen together with a retinue of canons and presbyters. The document contained an exhortation to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as God of heaven and earth, as He taught (Matthew 28:18), and to abandon as erroneous the doctrine that faith justifies without the deeds prescribed by the law. Many people read and copied out that document, and its contents were considered and talked over judiciously by many of them. But after receiving it, they said to one another: 'Let us hear the opinion of our leaders.'

So they listened to them, but they spoke against it and rejected it. However, the leaders of that community were hard of heart as the result of the falsities they had absorbed in their former world. After a short consultation, therefore, they sent the document back to heaven where it came from. When this was done, after some muttering most of the laymen abandoned their former acceptance, and then the light of their judgment in spiritual matters, which had previously been bright, was suddenly snuffed out. After a second, but vain, warning, I saw that community sinking down, though I could not see how deeply; but it sank out of sight of those who worship the Lord alone, and turn their backs on justification by faith alone.

[2] A few days later I saw perhaps as many as a hundred coming up from the lower earth, to which that small community had sunk; they approached me and one of them said: 'Listen to this extraordinary occurrence. When we sank down, we saw what looked like a lake, and after a while dry land; then later a small town in which many found a home for themselves. Next day we got together to discuss what we should do. Many people said that the two leaders of the church should be approached and gently reproved for sending the document back to the heaven it came from, since it was because of that this had happened to us. They also chose a few people (and the man talking to me said he had been one of them) who went off to the leaders, where one of their number who was especially wise addressed them as follows: "We believed that we excelled others in possessing the church and religion, because we heard it said that we enjoy the strongest light of the Gospel. But some of us have been granted enlightenment from heaven, and this enlightenment has been accompanied by the perception that at the present time there is no longer a church, because there is no religion, in the Christian world."

[3] 'The leaders said: "What is this you are saying? Is not the church where there is the Word, where Christ the Saviour is known, and where there are the sacraments?" Our spokesman replied to this: "They belong to the church, for they make the church; but they make it inside, not outside, a person." He went on to say: "Can there be a church where three Gods are worshipped? Can there be a church where its whole teaching is based upon a misinterpretation of a single saying of Paul, and thus not upon the Word? Can there be a church, when the Saviour of the world, who is the God of the church Himself, is not approached? Can anyone deny that religion is shunning evil and doing good? Is there any religion [where it is taught] that faith alone saves, and not together with charity? Is there any religion where it is taught that the charity which man exercises is only moral and civil charity? Is there anyone who does not see that that sort of charity contains nothing religious? Does faith alone involve any act or deed, though religion consists in action? Is there a nation anywhere in the whole world which attributes no saving power to the good of charity, which is good deeds? Yet the whole of religion consists in good, and the whole of the church consists in the teaching of truths, and by means of truths the teaching of various kinds of good. How glorious our lot would have been, if we had welcomed the teachings at the heart of the document sent down from heaven!"

[4] 'Then the leaders said: "Your remarks aim too high. Surely faith in action, which is the faith which fully justifies and saves, is the church? Surely faith at rest, which is the faith that goes forth and accomplishes, is religion? You must grasp this, my children." But then our wise man said: "Listen, fathers. Surely according to your dogma man resembles a block of wood in conceiving faith in action? Can a block be made alive so as to become a church? Surely faith at rest is according to your notion the continuation and progress of faith in action? And when, as your dogma insists, all saving power resides in faith, and the good of charity on man's part makes no contribution, where is religion then?" Then the prelates said: "Friend, you talk like this because you do not know the secrets of justification by faith alone; and if one is ignorant of these, one cannot know inwardly the way to salvation. Your way is external and fit only for the common people. Go that way if you like. But you should know that all good is from God, and nothing of it from man, so that in spiritual matters man can achieve nothing by himself. How then can a man by himself do good which is spiritual good?"

[5] 'To this our spokesman replied with great indignation: "I know more about your secrets of justification than you do, and I tell you frankly that I have seen nothing inwardly in your secrets but phantoms. Surely religion consists in acknowledging [and loving] God, and shunning and hating the devil? Is not God good itself and the devil evil itself? Is there anyone anywhere in the world, who, if he has a religion, does not know this? Is not acknowledging and loving God doing good, because this is God's and from God; and is not shunning and hating the devil not doing evil, because this is the devil's and from the devil? Or to put it another way, does your faith in action, which you called the faith that fully justifies and saves, or in other words your act of justification by faith alone, teach you to do any good deed which is God's and from God, or to shun any evil because it is the devil's and from the devil? None at all, since you lay down that there is no salvation in either. What is your faith at rest, which you called the faith that goes forth and accomplishes, but the same as faith in action? How can this be perfected, since you exclude all good done by man as if of himself, saying in your secret doctrines: 'How can anyone be saved by any good done by himself, when salvation is a free gift?' Or 'What good can be done by man except with a view to seeking merit, when yet Christ's merit is all-sufficient? Thus doing good to achieve salvation would be attributing to oneself what belongs to Christ alone, and it would also be wishing to justify and save oneself.' Or 'How can anyone do a good deed, when the Holy Spirit performs everything with no help from man? What need then is there for any extra good from man, when all good from man is not in essence good at all?'

[6] There are many other questions; are not these your secrets? But in my eyes they are simply quibbles and tricks invented in order to get rid of good deeds, which are the good deeds of charity, so as to establish firmly your doctrine of faith alone. And because you do so, you consider man as regards faith, and in general as regards all spiritual matters relating to the church and religion as a block of wood, or like a lifeless effigy, not as a human being created in the image of God, who has been given and is continually given the ability to understand and to will, to believe and to love, and to speak and act, exactly as if of himself, especially in spiritual matters, since they are what make a human being human. If a human being were not to think and act in spiritual matters as if of himself, what then would become of the Word? What would then become of the church and religion? And what of worship? You know that doing good to the neighbour as the result of love is charity; but you do not know what charity is. Yet it is the soul and essence of faith. And since charity is both these things, how can faith divorced from charity be anything but dead? Dead faith is nothing but a phantom. I call it a phantom, because James 2:17 calls faith without good deeds not only dead, but even diabolical."

[7] Then one of the leaders, on hearing his faith called dead, diabolical and a phantom, became so furious that he snatched the mitre off his head and threw it on the table saying: 'I will not put it on again until I have taken vengeance on the enemies of the faith of our church.' So he shook his head murmuring 'That man James! That man James!' On the front of the mitre was a plate, with the words 'Faith alone justifies' engraved on it. Then there suddenly appeared a monster rising out of the ground; it had seven heads, feet like a bear's, a body like a leopard's, a mouth like a lion's, exactly like the beast described in Revelation (Revelation 13:1-2), and of which an image was made and honoured (Revelation 13:14-15). This phantom took the mitre from the table, pulled its lower edge apart and put it on its seven heads. At this the ground gaped open beneath its feet and it sank down. On seeing this the leader cried: 'Assault, assault.' Then we left them, and found steps before our eyes which we went up; so we came back upon the earth and into sight of heaven, where we had been before.'

This was the story told me by the spirit who with a hundred companions had come up from the lower earth.

  
/ 853  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #505

Study this Passage

  
/ 853  
  

505. The third experience. 1

I once heard a noise as of two mill-stones grinding together. I approached the sound, and it ceased. I saw a narrow doorway leading downwards and at an angle towards a building with a vaulted roof; it had a number of rooms each divided into small cells. In each of the cells sat two people collecting passages from the Word in support of justification by faith alone; one collected the passages and the other wrote them out, and they took turns to do this.

I went up to one cell which was near the entrance and asked: 'What are you collecting and writing out?'

'Passages,' they said, 'about the act of justification or faith in action, the faith which is the real one, and justifies, quickens and saves. It is the leading doctrine of the church in our part of Christendom.'

'Tell me,' I said to him then, 'some sign of that act, when that faith is introduced into a person's heart and soul.'

'The sign of that act,' he answered, 'is at the moment when a person smitten with grief at the thought of being damned, and being in a state of contrition, thinks about Christ taking away the damnation imposed by the law, confidently grasps this merit of His, and keeping this in his thoughts approaches God the Father and prays.'

[2] 'The act does so take place,' I said, 'and there is this moment. But how am I to understand,' I asked, 'what is said about this act, that nothing on man's part assents to it, any more than he would assent if he were a block of wood or a stone? Man, as it is said, with regard to that act can begin nothing, will or understand or think nothing, perform no act or contribute to any joint act, or fit or adjust himself. Tell me how this squares with your assertion that the act arises at the time when a person thinks about the enforcement of the law, about the taking away of his damnation by Christ, about the confidence with which he seizes Christ's merit, and with these thoughts in mind approaches God the Father and prays. Surely all of these are acts done by the person?'

'Yes,' he said, 'but they are not done by him actively, but passively.'

[3] 'How,' I answered, 'can anyone think, have confidence and pray passively? If you take away his activity and co-operation, do you not also take away his capacity to receive, and so everything is lost together with the act itself? What then does your act become but something purely imaginary, what is called a point of argument? I hope that you do not follow certain people in believing that such an act only takes place with those who are predestined, and know nothing of the faith being poured into them. They could just as well play at dice to determine whether faith was poured into them or not. Therefore, my friend, you should believe that man as regards faith and charity acts of himself under the Lord's guidance, and without this act on his part this act of faith of yours, which you called the leading doctrine of the church in Christendom, is no more than Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, which rings as pure salt when struck with a scribe's quill or with his fingernail (Luke 17:32). I have said this because you are making yourselves with regard to this act like such statues.'

When I said this, he took hold of the lamp-stand to hurl it with all the force in his hand in my face. But the lamp suddenly went out and he threw it in his companion's face, while I went away amused.

Footnotes:

1. This passage is repeated with slight modifications from Apocalypse Revealed 484-486.

  
/ 853  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

©2024 New Christian Bible Study Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed from newchristianbiblestudy.org