By Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swede

Revelation 21:2, 5: I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And the one sitting on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new”; and said to me, “Write, because these words are true and trustworthy.”

§1 / [Author’s Preface]

§§2–8 / Roman Catholic Teachings Concerning Justification, Taken from the Council of Trent

§§9–15 / Protestant Teachings Concerning Justification, Taken from the Formula of Concord

§16 / Sketch of the Teachings of the New Church

1. §§17–18 / The churches that separated from Roman Catholicism during the Reformation disagree with each other on many points of theology, but there are four points on which they all agree: there is a trinity of persons in the Divine; original sin came from Adam; Christ’s merit is assigned to us; and we are justified by faith alone.

2. §§19–20 / In fact, in regard to the four theological points just listed, Roman Catholics before the Reformation had exactly the same teachings as Protestants did after it. That is, Catholics had the same teachings regarding the trinity of persons in the Divine, the same teachings regarding original sin, the same teachings regarding the assigning of Christ’s merit, and the same teachings regarding our being justified by believing that we are assigned Christ’s merit; the only difference was that Catholics united that faith to goodwill or good works.

3. §§21–23 / The leading reformers—Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin—retained all the dogmas regarding the trinity of persons in the Divine, original sin, the assigning of Christ’s merit to us, and our being justified by faith, in the same past and present form they had had among Roman Catholics. The reformers separated goodwill or good works from that faith, however, and declared that our good works contribute nothing to our salvation, for the purpose of clearly differentiating themselves from Roman Catholics with regard to the essentials of the church, which are faith and goodwill.

4. §§24–29 / 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.

5. §§30–38 / The entire theology in the Christian world today is based on the idea that there are three gods—an idea that has arisen from the teaching that there is a trinity of persons.

6. §§39–40 / Once we reject the idea of a trinity of persons and therefore the idea that there are three gods, and accept in its place that there is one God and that the divine trinity exists within him, we see how wrong the teachings of today’s Christian theology are.

7. §§41–42 / After we make this change, the faith we then acknowledge and accept is a faith that is truly effective for our salvation—a faith in one God, united to good works.

8. §§43–44 / This faith is faith in God the Savior Jesus Christ. In a simple form it is this: (1) There is one God, the divine trinity exists within him, and he is the Lord Jesus Christ. (2) Believing in him is a faith that saves. (3) We must abstain from doing things that are evil—they belong to the Devil and come from the Devil. (4) We must do things that are good—they belong to God and come from God. (5) We must do these things as if we ourselves were doing them, but we must believe that they come from the Lord working with us and through us.

9. §§45–46 / The faith of today has removed living a religious life from the church. A religious life consists in acknowledging one God and worshiping him with a faith that is connected to goodwill.

10. §§47–50 / The faith taught by the modern-day church is incapable of being united to acts of goodwill; it is incapable of producing any fruit in the form of good works.

11. §§51–52 / Th e faith of the modern-day church results in worship that engages our mouths but not our lives. How acceptable the Lord finds the worship of our mouths, though, depends on how worshipful our lives are.

12. §§53–57 / The body of teaching espoused by the modern-day church is woven together out of numerous absurdities that have to be taken on faith. Therefore its teachings become part of our memory alone. They do not become part of our higher understanding; they rest instead on supporting evidence from below the level of the intellect.

13. §§58–59 / The tenets of the church of today are extremely difficult to learn and retain. They cannot be preached or taught without a great deal of restraint and caution to keep them from appearing in their naked state, since true reason would not recognize or accept them.

14. §§60–63 / The teachings of faith of the modern-day church attribute to God qualities that are merely human: they say, for example, that God looked at the human race with anger; that he needed to be reconciled to us; that he was in fact reconciled through his love for his Son and through the Son’s intercession; that he needed to be appeased by seeing his Son’s wretched suffering, and this brought him back into a merciful attitude; that he assigns the Son’s justice to unjust people who beg him for it on the basis of their faith alone, and turns them from enemies into friends and from children of wrath into children of grace.

15. §§64–69 / 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.

16. §§70–73 / The references in Matthew 24:3 to “the close of the age” and “the Coming of the Lord” that follows it mean the final state or the end of the church of today.

17. §§74–76 / The reference in Matthew 24:21 to “a great affliction such as has never existed since the world began and will never exist again” means an attack by falsities and the resulting end—the devastation—of all truth in the Christian denominations of today.

18. §§77–81 / The statement in Matthew 24 “After the affliction of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Matthew 24:29) means that at the last time of the Christian church, when its end is imminent, it will have no love, no faith, and no knowledge of what is good or what is true.

19. §§82–86 / The goats mentioned in Daniel and Matthew mean people who are devoted to the modern-day view that faith is what justifies us.

20. §§87–90 / Adamant devotees of the modern-day view that faith is what justifies us are depicted in the Book of Revelation as the dragon, its two beasts, and the locusts. This belief (when strongly held) is depicted there as the great city that is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where the two witnesses were killed, and as the pit of the abyss from which the locusts came forth.

21. §§91–94 / Unless the Lord establishes a new church, no one can be saved. This is the meaning of the statement in Matthew 24:22 “Unless those days were cut short no flesh would be saved.”

22. §§95–98 / “The one who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’; and said to me, ‘Write, because these words are true and faithful’” (Revelation 21:5). This statement in the Book of Revelation means our examining and rejecting the tenets of faith of the modern-day church and God’s revealing and our accepting the tenets of faith of the new church.

23. §§99–101 / The New Jerusalem, which is the topic of Revelation 21 and 22, and is there called the bride and wife of the Lamb, is the new church that is going to be established by the Lord.

24. §§102–104 / There is no way in which we can simultaneously hold the views of the new church and the views of the former church on faith; if we did hold both these views at once, they would collide and cause so much conflict that everything related to the church would be destroyed in us.

25. §§105–108 / Roman Catholics today are not at all aware that their church once embraced concepts of the assigning of Christ’s merit to us and of our justification by faith in that. These concepts lie completely buried beneath their external rituals of worship, which are many. Therefore if Catholics give up some of their external rituals, turn directly to God the Savior Jesus Christ, and take both elements in the Holy Eucharist, they are better equipped than Protestants to become part of the New Jerusalem, that is, the Lord’s new church.

§§109–115 / [The Assignment of Christ’s Merit]

§§116–117 / Concluding Appendix

§§118–120 / Three Memorable Occurrences Taken from Revelation Unveiled

15. Teachings from the Formula of Concord on free choice:

(a) Human beings are completely powerless in spiritual matters (pages 15, 18, 219, 318, 579, 656 and following; appendix, page 141).

(b) We human beings have been so deeply corrupted through the fall of our first parents that in spiritual matters concerning our conversion and salvation we are by nature blind. We regard the Word of God as foolishness. We are an enemy of God, and remain so until from pure grace without any cooperation on our part we are converted, given faith, regenerated, and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word as it is preached and heard (pages 656, 657).

(c) We are utterly corrupt and dead to what is good, so that in our nature after the Fall but before our regeneration not the least spark of spiritual power remains that would enable us to prepare ourselves for the grace of God, or accept it once it was offered, or make room for it by ourselves or on our own. In spiritual matters, we are entirely unable to understand, believe, comprehend, think, will, start, finish, enact, work, or cooperate through our own natural powers, or adapt or accommodate ourselves to grace or contribute anything to our own conversion in whole or by half or to the least extent by acting on our own (pages 656, 658).

(d) In spiritual and divine matters, which concern the soul’s salvation, the human being is like a pillar of salt, like Lot’s wife, and indeed like a lifeless block of wood or a stone, which has no eyes or mouth or senses (pages 661, 662).

(e) Although people have the power to move their bodies and control their limbs and can attend public worship and hear the Word and the gospel, they nevertheless regard those things as foolishness in their silent thoughts. In this sense they are worse than a block of wood, if the Holy Spirit does not become active in them (pages 662, 671, 672, 673).

(f) As we undergo conversion, it happens not as a statue is formed in stone or a seal is pressed in wax; these things do not know or feel or will anything (pages 662, 681).

(g) In our conversion we are “purely passive” and not active at all (pages 662, 681).

(h) In our conversion, we do not cooperate with the Holy Spirit at all (pages 219, 579, 583, 672, 676; appendix, pages 143, 144).

(i) Since the Fall, human beings have retained and still possess earthly powers of knowledge, as well as free choice (to some extent at least) in choosing what is good on an earthly and civic level (pages 14, 218, 641, 664; appendix, page 142).

(j) Some ancient and modern teachers of the church have used expressions such as “God draws, but he draws the willing”; we hold that these expressions do not correspond to the form of sound teaching (pages 582, 583).

(k) Using power from the Holy Spirit, the reborn cooperate with him, though still in great weakness. This occurs on the basis of the new powers and gifts that the Holy Spirit initiated in us in conversion. This leading of the Holy Spirit is not a compulsion; rather, the converted person does good things spontaneously (pages 582 and following, 673, 674, 675; appendix, page 144).

(l) It is not just the gifts of God that reside in the reborn, but because of their faith, Christ too dwells in them as in his temple (pages 695, 697, 698; appendix, page 130).

(m) There is a great difference between baptized and unbaptized people. According to Paul’s teaching, “All those who have been baptized have put on Christ,” and are therefore truly reborn. They now have a “freed choice”; that is, as Christ says, “They have been made free again.” For this reason they not only hear the Word of God but are also able to assent to it and embrace it with faith—although in great weakness (page 675).

It is important to note that the preceding quotations were taken from the book called the Formula of Concord, which was written by people who endorsed the Augsburg Confession. Nevertheless, the same things regarding justification by faith alone are said and taught by Protestants in Britain and the Netherlands as well. Therefore the statements that follow are intended for all. See also §§17, 18 just below.