The Lord's New Chapel
The Revelation of the Establishment of the New Church
By Rev. Paul Booth
Psalm 78: 69-72; 89: 3, 4, 20
Revelation 1:1- 4, 10-13, 16, 19, 20
Apocalypse Revealed 2, 3, § 1
    The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him, to show to His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and He signified, sending by His angels to His servant John, who bore witness to the Word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, as to whatever he saw. &…;I became in the spirit on the Lord's day; and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,&…;and I turned to see the voice that spoke to me: and, having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the midst &…;One like the Son of man,&…;and having in His right hand seven stars. &…;The mystery of the seven stars &…;are the angles of the seven Churches and the seven lampstands are the seven Churches.                                                                   
                                          (Revelation 1: 1,2, 10, 12, 16, and 20)

Mankind, from the creation on, could know the Lord and His Truth through various revelations - immediate revelation, revelation through correspondences, through a living voice, and revelation through the Word. A study of the Word reveals that the Most Ancient Church, the Adamic Church knew the Lord immediately for He was revealed to man through love to his soul and into his spirit by which he was to live from and form his faith. This state of the Church in man was called the 'celestial' state. The Ancient Church, the Noachian, learned and knew of the Lord and His Truth through correspondences and formed for themselves a doctrine of charity. They could know Him and His truth through natural things representing things in Heaven. This was the spiritual state of the man of the Church. When the Church reached its external or natural state - the Jewish Church - the Lord was revealed through a living voice that came to the prophets, the apostles, and others. The knowledge of correspondence had been lost. By the time the Lord Himself came on earth and established the early Primitive and Christian Church, He could be known through the written Word of the Old and New Testaments.

And in that Word the Lord Himself has predicted the end of that Church just as all prior Churches had ended. One can learn about that end primarily in the book called Revelation written by John, though it is predicted in various other parts of the Word. However, from such revelation through the written Word there arises a problem and that is that such revelation is infested with fallacies and falsities by man because such revelation is necessarily through one's own natural understanding. Anyone can understand, here, that man wanting to understand from his own or from the natural senses was the cause of mankind's fall from grace in the first place when the Church in man was still in the celestial state. So, unless this circle of a man's natural life is broken, unless man is born again spiritually, he will remain as all nature does and without any conjunction or salvation.

It is taught that all Churches begin in love and in charity, but end in vastation and then their consummation comes and their end. Yet, in each of these states of the Church in a man there are revealed truths whereby man can receive the Lord's grace and, thereby, regeneration. There is evidence in the Word that certain people that lived in the various states of the Churches on earth had found favor in God's eyes and 'as it were' inherited salvation. So we see, in the four prior states of a Church in man on earth there is taught regeneration, but also overwhelmingly, in these states a man turns away from the Lord, because in his present natural state he is in hereditary evils of every kind and these reign over him. 

Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ came on earth to save mankind from his hereditary evils. Yet, as we said and, as it is clear in the Word, the Christian Church, established by Him while He was here on earth, also came to an end; the revelation of the Word was no longer effective, for man turned its truths into falsities. This is evidenced by the Word - the Lord's revelation - as we can now read in the book called Revelation. It is also evident that unless the Word is understood in it's spiritual sense the truths written to mankind and in particular the book of Revelation will remain a mystery, its true message unknown. The rational of man could not be changed unless a New Word came revealing such mysteries whereby a man could understand its internal sense and learn genuine truths that go to form his faith and to follow in charity.

However, a man does understand while in this world from the written Word that there is life after death as this has been said by the Lord Himself and that that life is either in Heaven or in hell where it is called death. We understand life then to be spiritual and the natural body to be its container and covering while we are in this world. We should, also, realize that God is Life Itself, for the Lord, while on earth, said He was Life and that from Him all life flows into man through the Holy Spirit. Thus, we are but vessels and are recipients of that life. That life in us, if we have not abused it, is the Lord in us and it forms our spirit into an image and a likeness of the Lord, for the Holy Spirit, as said, is His Proceeding Good and Truth. These qualities are, indeed, spiritual, being the Lord's Divine essence.  It is in a man's spirit that a person can understand, know, and acknowledge the truths and goods coming from the Lord to him.

Thus, unless the spiritual sense of the Word, today, can be known, those who are in the state of the first Christian Churches, will end as did all prior Churches - in judgment according to their faith, which is according to the truths known. However, there is good news, even though the Word tells us of a Last Judgment, the Lord comes again to man, for this is also meant when there is a judgment upon man. Since the Lord comes again, the question is how will that change man: How does God's life, His good and truth, or love and understanding enter us and join us with the angels in Heaven and with the Lord? If it's, as we said, through one's understanding of the Word, then, that understanding needs to change from merely its apparent truths to understanding genuine truth; truth needs to enter directly or immediately from the Lord when we read Word. Then we should act in obedience to it. How is this possible unless the truths learned are genuine and spiritual and, unless they affect us, that is, that there is an affection for the Word and the Lord, so that we may truly follow the Lord? If truths come to us from our self, they will only lead us astray, because it is then the self that rules not the Lord. Truth must come from good for good is of the Lord, even, as He is Love itself.

From this, then, we know that a man's understanding and willing must be made anew - man must be born again spiritually. For the Lord, then, comes again to a man's spirit and from his spirit a man has a new natural and rational, thus, there comes 'as it were' a New Church to man within to the man in the world.

Now, let us clearly explain this process. John was given a vision of things to come. He was taken into his spirit, that is, he saw and heard representative things such as, a voice as of a trumpet, seven golden candle sticks, the Son of man standing in the midst, and among the many things seen relating to the Son of man, seven stars in His right hand. These, he was commanded to write down for those who will be in that Church that would come on earth. So, it was for those of a future Church and not for the, then, present Church - the Primitive and first Christian Churches; after all they were prophesies. They came to an end. The Word is understood in Heaven by angels in its spiritual sense, but on earth, unless understood through the revelation of correspondences from a New Word, from where it is seen that natural things signify spiritual things, it will be understood literally and its truths are but apparent truths to those who do not learn what these correspondences are. 

In other words, a time would come when the things that John wrote would be made clear to man and would not remain a mystery as it did to those in whom such a natural - sensual state of the Church is.  There would come a time with man or a state with man when he could know what hidden truths lie in the written Word and he would be in immediate revelation. A man would be able to understand spiritually. What this actually means is that he will be able to learn what those things that John wrote about represented.

In that way, genuine truths can be learned and known. And, if they are known and acknowledged, that is, acted upon, because such revelation is believed and loved, then the Lord's love flows into those acts as water when poured into a vessel. You can understand here that those genuine or spiritual truths are vessels themselves in which good comes into from the Lord and from which man lives, both here in his natural state and in his spiritual state. This, then, is the New Church that has come on earth. It is obvious that from the first Chapter in the book Revelation that that revelation was meant for those who come to understand it, that is, to those who receive and acknowledge the Lord God the Divine Human as God of Heaven and earth. For, why is there a Word come to man, which no one truly can understand? Has not the Lord taught that His Father will give good gifts and not evil gifts, even as neither will a earthly father give a stone for bread to his child.

Let's read the Lord's Word. "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him, to show His servants things which must shortly come to pass" (Rev. 1: 1). Servants are those who receive divine truths. (The master of the house gives instruction to the servants.) And, truths being divine, man cannot appropriate them as his own. (They are not the servants' own instructions or truths, but are the master's.) Thus, it is that the Lord's Divine Truth, though cannot be man's own, it is through them that a man receives life. We can understand, then, why a new Word - new Truths - had to come to man, a Word that would reveal those correspondences between Heaven and earth, between a man's natural understanding and his spiritual understanding. (The servant, unless he can understand his master does not receive the instructions or the truths nor any benefit.) It is in this way that there could be, not only correspondence and communication between angles and men, and between the Lord and men, but there could be a conjunction established again between them, something like was in the garden of Eden between The Lord God and Adam and Eve. Thus is man regenerated. In truth, the Lord could dwell, that is, He could live within a man's soul and spirit and, so, could remove the evils from him regenerating him, saving him. Thus, one can understand that those who come into the internal of the New Church have immediate revelation from the Lord, while those who come into its external have revelation through correspondences.   
Let us read again. "And He signified, sending by His angel to His servant John" (Rev. 1: 1).  Those in that early Christian Church established when the Lord Jesus Christ lived among men on earth, believed that the Lord inspired certain men to write the Old and the New Testaments and, here, we learn that John was one who did. The Lord revealed revelation to him. In other words, things were revealed to John through Heaven, and, thus from the Lord to man. The Lord speaks with man through Heaven just as a man speaks through his body with others.

The words of the Revelation of John are meant for "those who are in the good of life from charity and its faith" (cf. Apocalypse Revealed 3). These qualities in man are receptive of the Lord's presence in a man's spirit, for there is where the Lord, His truths and goods, dwell. John was one of the disciples and apostles chosen by the Lord and in them was the beginning of the first Christian Church established by the Lord. In these are all the things of the Church seen; they are all the truths and the goods, which in man, make or form the Church within him. Thus, it is that "those who see, acknowledge, receive from the heart in light, and confess the truths of the Word, especially, the truth that the Lord's Divine is Human" bear witness to the Word (cf. Rev. 1:2 and Apocalypse Revealed 6). To 'receive from the heart in light' means to willingly do or act according to Divine truth.

Now, those who do not receive the truth of this book called Revelation are those who do not accept that the Lord has come again in a new Word by which man learns what is represented by what John wrote, or what the other prophets wrote. What John wrote we have shown was to those of a New Church. This is seen in the words, "for the time is near" (Rev. 1:3) where it can be seen that the Church, then established would end. This, of necessity, means that a New Church was about to come on earth. In that New Church is where the Lord could dwell within man, and where there is conjunction of man with the Lord. Essentially, to acknowledge God and to repent of evils a person is conjoined to the Lord and is thus saved. These are the two essential of the New Church.

So, the prior Christian Churches have now ended and a new one is now being established on earth. Why was the first Christian Church to end? It ended because it no longer taught the truth concerning God. Man could no longer truly know God and, so, could not acknowledge Him. He had received and followed fallacies and falsities for truths and from them formed his doctrine, thus, a Church is according to the understanding of the Word. That first Christian Church accepted only what came through their love. In fact, because of their love of such fallacies and falsities (their doctrine), they place faith first and charity to them became as nothing. However, the New Church that, then, came on earth replacing the old is the crown of all Churches; it is no longer to be a representative Church, for the Lord, is Himself, in man in His truth and good and is the life of this New Church.

Man, today, like the man who was born in the era of the first Christian Churches and, even before, must come to the truth through his natural senses. He must learn, know and acknowledge the Lord; he must repent of his sins. In this, one sees that through the various revelations from the Lord, man could learn of Him and of how he was to live. Yet, if he refuses to accept the Lord's new revelation that has came upon earth - the Word of the Divine Human - he will remain outside the true Church and at best be only a representative of a Church. Though, if he has not hardened his heart and confirmed falsities to be true, he can be taught divine truths in the spiritual world, and thereby, will find the path leading to Heaven. However, to those who accept this new revelation while here on earth they can learn and acknowledge the Lord within themselves. The Lord establishes His New Church within him - a Church that is spiritual from the Lord even while he is still on earth. The Revelation that John wrote from the Lord was to those who would be in this New Church. It was so, that they might know and acknowledge the truths and from an affection act in love to one another. In this way, a true Church is formed today with and within such persons when the Lord's love is implanted within, for that is where the Lord truly lives with man and is present with him on earth.

Amen.
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