The Opening of a True Christian Religion
By Rev. Paul Booth
Ezekiel 34: 11-17
Revelations 1: 19,20; 2: 1,2,8,9,12,13,18,19; 3: 1,7,8
Invitation to the New Church 38
By Rev. Paul Booth
Ezekiel 34: 11-17
Revelations 1: 19,20; 2: 1,2,8,9,12,13,18,19; 3: 1,7,8
Invitation to the New Church 38
Wherefore, in order that the true Christian religion might be open up, it was absolutely necessary that some one should be introduced into the spiritual world, and derive from the Lord's mouth genuine truths out of the Word. Invitation to the New Church 38
We are aware that there are many religions and that each person believes that his own religion is the true religion. And, we believe that if we live according to our religion that God will save us. From this, of course, you can see that religion has relation to life and, naturally the life or religion is to do well or good. Nevertheless, in each religion there are those who do not follow their religion's doctrine and, so, are not lead to a good life and are not saved. Today, our text speaks of the true Christian religion that was to be opened up to mankind by some one who was introduced into the spiritual world. It should to be known, then, that the religion the Lord Jesus Christ had established on earth with man needs to be understood in its internal sense in order for it be a true religion and not a false religion.
We know that the Lord established the true Christian religion when He was here on earth, teaching His disciples that He was God in Human form made Divine. So, what He established was truly the life and the way to salvation. But, like all prior Churches before it, it fell into fallacies and falsifies and in the end became evil and, so, was vastated and its consummation came just like all the prior Churches' had. Here, we need to understand what is meant by a 'Church', for it is not synonymous with religion. First, a true Church is within man; it is in him in truths and goods and is the means of communication and of conjunction of the Lord with man. Such a man's will and understanding receive these truths and goods from the Lord through the Heavens, thus a man is in communication and conjunction with the Lord and Heaven, though he is mostly unaware of it. You can see that through the Church the Lord is present with mankind and is active in him as he obeys, that is, as he lives according to and acknowledges his life as coming from the Lord. Now, religion, as we said, teaches that a man is to live a good life and that, if he does well, he will be saved. Religion, as it were, points to God and subsequently to ones neighbor. A religion points to the Divine, although that Divine is seen in a different light in different religions. A Christian person, unless he or she is a true Christian, does not acknowledge the God of Heaven and Earth, for he does not know Him, his doctrine being false.
Now, from our lesson read in the Invitation number 38, we learn that the Churches on earth after the times of the Apostles fell away into heresies. This, of course, is a literal understanding of the Word, that is, that the Church that our Lord had established through the Apostles became no longer the true Christian religion. There are today many that will not and do not believe this. And, you might wonder how this has happened? What has caused the man in those Churches to fall and be dispersed into heresy making it a false Christianity? After all, the Lord had taught them truths; He taught them how to live their life, that it was to be a life according to the Commandments. Well, we know that a man has both a will and an understanding, however, if his will is not to follow the Commandments, then his understanding is according to his will and it is a false understanding. Wasn't that what had happened to the people of the Celestial Church? And, of course, the result of this is that the doctrine that was taught to them gradually became false. You see, when one's intent is upon a particular article of faith and that article is only understood literally, which a man does by pride of his natural knowledge, then the internal or spiritual sense, which comes from the Lord, is rejected in the end. In fact, mankind, because of sin, believes life is one's own. In this, you can see that a man's proprium rules him. Then, it is that heresies come into the person's mind.
Now, there are different states that the Church in man goes through. You can learn this from the book of Revelation where it speaks of the seven angels sent to the seven Churches both to the the Churches in Heaven and to those descending to earth from Heaven. This, of course, is speaking about the New Church, which was to come. We need to point out, here, that those, in today's so called Christian Church and religion see these seven Churches as actual Churches that no longer exist. We learn that John was told to write down what the angels of the seven Churches spoke about. These are the different states that the Church with man goes through and were not literal Churches in Asia. Yet, here, in the Invitation to the New Church, we see that the Christian Churches had come into falsities and had fallen away. It became a false church. The seven Churches signifies all the different states of the true Christian Church. What happened then with them? As with any man, when he rejects the Lord, his understanding and will are then closed, the truths and goods from the Lord remain stored 'as it was' within. So, too, the true Church remained in Heaven waiting for the time that it could descend again to mankind. In other words, instead of conjunction of the Lord with man, instead of having communication with the Lord, there was a separation and truths with man become falsified. It was not the true Christian religion that had being taught when the Apostles had lived. In other words, the Divine truths that the Lord taught His disciples had been made false and the state of life of man in general became evil. The man's evil will formed his thoughts; they were false and not the truth and instead of good evil reigned in man. One could surely say, they had developed a false doctrine of life.
What we need to see is that this was "owing to their not having approached the Lord" (Inv. 38). They, indeed, thought they approached the Lord. Nonetheless, did they? Who did they pray to? Was it to the Lord's Divine Human? No, they asked the Father for sake of the Son to intervene on their behalf. Their approach was directed towards the Father, who was seen by them as one separate from the Son, thus, God is understood, in this case, as being two. However, wasn't the Lord Himself made manifest in the Human even as Truth is the manifest of Love or of being good? Doesn't truth take the form of good? Yet, they did not consult rational truth and, as such, they rejected the Lord's influx of good and truth and, so, any communication from the Lord is at best falsified with them. The Word was made false to them.
Every Christian should know that "the Lord is the Word, and the light itself which enlightens the whole world" (Inv. 38). Jesus Christ said "I am the Word&…;I am the light&…;" John in his gospel says the Lord is the "light come into the world". Doesn't the Word teach the Truth and, so, teach what is essentially good? And, it teaches and treats of the Lord alone as the God of Heaven and earth. We have already said that the Church exists because of Him, having established the True Church. When light is mentioned in the Word it refers to the Divine Truth and also to the Truth of faith. Isn't this the understanding that becomes illuminated within a man? In other words, it is then that a person knows the truth that a thing is so or is true and he is in illustration of the truth and knows the truth. This then, even the wicked, when enlightened, may know. Although his desire is not to do them for the sake of truth, but for the sake of gain. If this were not so, then, no one could be brought to the truth and a man is without any hope.
However, with man the truth is 'as it were' disturbed and those who are in the evil of life have religion accordingly. They adulterate and falsify the Divine good and truth of the Word. This, of course, is done by the man's will', for it forms his thought as we have indicated. It is then impossible for such a man to have any true affection and understanding by which he can receive a conscience. Thus, we have learned that without an internal understanding of truth applied to one's life that a man is lacking both charity and true faith, which comes from his spiritual from the Lord. Instead, there are attached to his natural understanding falsities, for his will is evil and he desires for himself worldly wealth and power. It is true, that for such a man, it is "impossible to see one genuine truth from the Word, which is not crowed about and defiled with falsities" (Inv. 38).
Our lesson uses an illustration to bring home this truth about a person whose religion is false and in whom the true Church has been consummated. "It is impossible to sail to the Pleiades or to dig out the gold which is in the center of the earth" (Inv. 38). We can all understand this in its literal sense, but what is it to know this and how does it help? What truth is taught other than that a person, because he has made the truth false, is unable to learn and know the way to Heaven. Better yet, what does it matter to him if he thinks he already has the truth? He rejects the internal sense. In this case, when he reads these words, he thinks he knows what is meant because he believes his doctrine in true. Now, let us examine these words in the light of their spiritual sense. After all, it is because the internal sense is separated from the external sense that falsities are made manifest. This is because of a man's will, which is to love what is his own or his proprium and, so, he rejects the Lord's will for his will. A man who has falsities where truths should be in his understanding is lead astray into the evils of life. He cannot expand, his understanding or sail, 'as it was' to see spiritual truths about Christ. He cannot 'as it were' sail to the stars, that is, to Heaven where spiritual truths are taught. Now, the Word of the Third Testament reveals to us that stars are correspondents of spiritual truths. The seven stars of the constellation Pleiades have reference to the New Church in Heaven, even as we are taught that the seven angels to the seven Churches are the seven stars seen in the book of Revelation in the hand of the Lord. So, here, is meant the New Church in Heaven, seven signifying what is Holy. Neither can such a man open and investigate or search the Word thoroughly enough with his natural understanding to learn what is the Lord's Good, that is, what celestial things the Lord has for man which lie hidden within him in his soul. Thus, neither can a man "dig out the gold which is in the center of the earth". Yet, all these inferior things correspond to internal and superior things which lie in one's rational when it is conjoined to his spiritual and celestial, for such things come from and are the Lord's.
It is often said, the Lord Himself is Order and from and in that Order celestial things are above spiritual things and they above natural and corporeal things so that, indeed, a man is made into a form of the Divine Order. Therefore, what the Lord says is of certainty, that is, is the truth. He is the foundation of and the builder of all what is truly Christian. For, He renews and regenerates a man. It is He who is the supreme seat within our minds and hearts. Thus, to know Him is surely to know good and true internal things. And, since this is true, then, all representatives as were in the prior Churches are done away with and the Lord's New Church now worships the Lord in human form, which is the one Divine Human and does not worship God in three persons each equally as God. The new Church of the Lord truly has communicated His Love and Wisdom to man and it is, therefore, that such a man is conjoined with the Lord when he is obedient through love.
However, this state was not possible with man without there first being some one who was able to 'open up' the Word - the internal truth - to a man's understanding and thereby bringing again a communication between the Lord and he. We can all agree that unless the internal sense of the Word is known man would always falsify the true meaning because of his evil will. Therefore, there was a requirement that the internal sense be revealed to mankind again, even as the people of the Celestial and Spiritual Churches had understood. Angles in Heaven understand the Word spiritually and celestially depending on which Heaven an angle is in. If we believe that the Lord sends His Holy Spirit to all in order for all to have life, then His love and wisdom flows equally into all - celestial, spiritual, natural angels, as well as good and evil spirits even into the ultimate into hell. The problem comes with man in that he has rejected the Lord's immediate influx and, now, what he receives only comes mediate through the spiritual world to him, therefore, even from evil spirits in hell. The Lord having been shut out 'as it were' from man, because of the man's sin, which has defiled his will.
Let us ask how does the Lord communicate His truths to us? Wasn't it by inspiring some one to write down what He spoke? Isn't it in this way that we now have the Old and New Testaments? In fact, the Lord did choose certain men and they were 'enlightened' to see in dreams and visions what they were to write down and to report for us to read and know from these Testaments. This is why we come to worship services - to hear the Word taught and expounded - and why we should read the Word on our own; to receive communication from God. And, is why some others do not who reject such as folly. Therefore, once again the Lord chose some one to write down what was revealed by Him and, so today, we have the Latin Word - the Word of the Divine Human, sometimes called the Third Testament. That some one we know was Emmanuel Swedenborg, for he was introduced into the spiritual world where influx from the Lord is understood spiritually not naturally. The result was that he wrote down these truths and goods and revealed to us the correspondences of Heavenly things with natural things. Thus, a man could again understand internal things, and in this way, he has communication with the spiritual world through his spirit and the truths of the Word are opened up or understood by him through enlightenment and he is then in illustration of Divine truths. This is what is signified by the words, "Wherefore, in order that the true Christian religion might be opened up, it was absolutely necessary that some one should be introduced into the spiritual world."
If the Lord could do that with one man, then He can with others. For, a person can read the Third Testament and can learn what are these correspondences, and when believed with affection, the true Christian religion is learned and known, and he receives a more abundant life. We can see that it is through thought, preaching, discourse, speech, and doctrine from the Word, when it is applied in one's life that the Lord speaks to us. Thus, his servant Emmanuel Swedenborg was instructed to write down the Word from the Lord's mouth so that genuine truth out of the Word can now be derived.
The essential good and truth, the Word alone, who is the Lord, the Divine Human, cannot come into illustration with anyone. For, the Divine truth and the truth of faith, unless they come through influx and are communicated from the one God who is the Lord and are directly insinuated as the good of charity and is loved by man and obeyed, then the understanding of man cannot be opened up. What we need is our new will to give consent, so that our interior mind is opened. Such consent is possible only when man receives a conscience from the Lord. And, a sign of this is seen when we, from an affection, worship the Lord through the Commandments. In this way, a man sees the Divine Who is in the Heavens; he receives the Divine Truth immediately from the Lord Who is and Who was always present with him within his soul and is now with him.
Amen.
We are aware that there are many religions and that each person believes that his own religion is the true religion. And, we believe that if we live according to our religion that God will save us. From this, of course, you can see that religion has relation to life and, naturally the life or religion is to do well or good. Nevertheless, in each religion there are those who do not follow their religion's doctrine and, so, are not lead to a good life and are not saved. Today, our text speaks of the true Christian religion that was to be opened up to mankind by some one who was introduced into the spiritual world. It should to be known, then, that the religion the Lord Jesus Christ had established on earth with man needs to be understood in its internal sense in order for it be a true religion and not a false religion.
We know that the Lord established the true Christian religion when He was here on earth, teaching His disciples that He was God in Human form made Divine. So, what He established was truly the life and the way to salvation. But, like all prior Churches before it, it fell into fallacies and falsifies and in the end became evil and, so, was vastated and its consummation came just like all the prior Churches' had. Here, we need to understand what is meant by a 'Church', for it is not synonymous with religion. First, a true Church is within man; it is in him in truths and goods and is the means of communication and of conjunction of the Lord with man. Such a man's will and understanding receive these truths and goods from the Lord through the Heavens, thus a man is in communication and conjunction with the Lord and Heaven, though he is mostly unaware of it. You can see that through the Church the Lord is present with mankind and is active in him as he obeys, that is, as he lives according to and acknowledges his life as coming from the Lord. Now, religion, as we said, teaches that a man is to live a good life and that, if he does well, he will be saved. Religion, as it were, points to God and subsequently to ones neighbor. A religion points to the Divine, although that Divine is seen in a different light in different religions. A Christian person, unless he or she is a true Christian, does not acknowledge the God of Heaven and Earth, for he does not know Him, his doctrine being false.
Now, from our lesson read in the Invitation number 38, we learn that the Churches on earth after the times of the Apostles fell away into heresies. This, of course, is a literal understanding of the Word, that is, that the Church that our Lord had established through the Apostles became no longer the true Christian religion. There are today many that will not and do not believe this. And, you might wonder how this has happened? What has caused the man in those Churches to fall and be dispersed into heresy making it a false Christianity? After all, the Lord had taught them truths; He taught them how to live their life, that it was to be a life according to the Commandments. Well, we know that a man has both a will and an understanding, however, if his will is not to follow the Commandments, then his understanding is according to his will and it is a false understanding. Wasn't that what had happened to the people of the Celestial Church? And, of course, the result of this is that the doctrine that was taught to them gradually became false. You see, when one's intent is upon a particular article of faith and that article is only understood literally, which a man does by pride of his natural knowledge, then the internal or spiritual sense, which comes from the Lord, is rejected in the end. In fact, mankind, because of sin, believes life is one's own. In this, you can see that a man's proprium rules him. Then, it is that heresies come into the person's mind.
Now, there are different states that the Church in man goes through. You can learn this from the book of Revelation where it speaks of the seven angels sent to the seven Churches both to the the Churches in Heaven and to those descending to earth from Heaven. This, of course, is speaking about the New Church, which was to come. We need to point out, here, that those, in today's so called Christian Church and religion see these seven Churches as actual Churches that no longer exist. We learn that John was told to write down what the angels of the seven Churches spoke about. These are the different states that the Church with man goes through and were not literal Churches in Asia. Yet, here, in the Invitation to the New Church, we see that the Christian Churches had come into falsities and had fallen away. It became a false church. The seven Churches signifies all the different states of the true Christian Church. What happened then with them? As with any man, when he rejects the Lord, his understanding and will are then closed, the truths and goods from the Lord remain stored 'as it was' within. So, too, the true Church remained in Heaven waiting for the time that it could descend again to mankind. In other words, instead of conjunction of the Lord with man, instead of having communication with the Lord, there was a separation and truths with man become falsified. It was not the true Christian religion that had being taught when the Apostles had lived. In other words, the Divine truths that the Lord taught His disciples had been made false and the state of life of man in general became evil. The man's evil will formed his thoughts; they were false and not the truth and instead of good evil reigned in man. One could surely say, they had developed a false doctrine of life.
What we need to see is that this was "owing to their not having approached the Lord" (Inv. 38). They, indeed, thought they approached the Lord. Nonetheless, did they? Who did they pray to? Was it to the Lord's Divine Human? No, they asked the Father for sake of the Son to intervene on their behalf. Their approach was directed towards the Father, who was seen by them as one separate from the Son, thus, God is understood, in this case, as being two. However, wasn't the Lord Himself made manifest in the Human even as Truth is the manifest of Love or of being good? Doesn't truth take the form of good? Yet, they did not consult rational truth and, as such, they rejected the Lord's influx of good and truth and, so, any communication from the Lord is at best falsified with them. The Word was made false to them.
Every Christian should know that "the Lord is the Word, and the light itself which enlightens the whole world" (Inv. 38). Jesus Christ said "I am the Word&…;I am the light&…;" John in his gospel says the Lord is the "light come into the world". Doesn't the Word teach the Truth and, so, teach what is essentially good? And, it teaches and treats of the Lord alone as the God of Heaven and earth. We have already said that the Church exists because of Him, having established the True Church. When light is mentioned in the Word it refers to the Divine Truth and also to the Truth of faith. Isn't this the understanding that becomes illuminated within a man? In other words, it is then that a person knows the truth that a thing is so or is true and he is in illustration of the truth and knows the truth. This then, even the wicked, when enlightened, may know. Although his desire is not to do them for the sake of truth, but for the sake of gain. If this were not so, then, no one could be brought to the truth and a man is without any hope.
However, with man the truth is 'as it were' disturbed and those who are in the evil of life have religion accordingly. They adulterate and falsify the Divine good and truth of the Word. This, of course, is done by the man's will', for it forms his thought as we have indicated. It is then impossible for such a man to have any true affection and understanding by which he can receive a conscience. Thus, we have learned that without an internal understanding of truth applied to one's life that a man is lacking both charity and true faith, which comes from his spiritual from the Lord. Instead, there are attached to his natural understanding falsities, for his will is evil and he desires for himself worldly wealth and power. It is true, that for such a man, it is "impossible to see one genuine truth from the Word, which is not crowed about and defiled with falsities" (Inv. 38).
Our lesson uses an illustration to bring home this truth about a person whose religion is false and in whom the true Church has been consummated. "It is impossible to sail to the Pleiades or to dig out the gold which is in the center of the earth" (Inv. 38). We can all understand this in its literal sense, but what is it to know this and how does it help? What truth is taught other than that a person, because he has made the truth false, is unable to learn and know the way to Heaven. Better yet, what does it matter to him if he thinks he already has the truth? He rejects the internal sense. In this case, when he reads these words, he thinks he knows what is meant because he believes his doctrine in true. Now, let us examine these words in the light of their spiritual sense. After all, it is because the internal sense is separated from the external sense that falsities are made manifest. This is because of a man's will, which is to love what is his own or his proprium and, so, he rejects the Lord's will for his will. A man who has falsities where truths should be in his understanding is lead astray into the evils of life. He cannot expand, his understanding or sail, 'as it was' to see spiritual truths about Christ. He cannot 'as it were' sail to the stars, that is, to Heaven where spiritual truths are taught. Now, the Word of the Third Testament reveals to us that stars are correspondents of spiritual truths. The seven stars of the constellation Pleiades have reference to the New Church in Heaven, even as we are taught that the seven angels to the seven Churches are the seven stars seen in the book of Revelation in the hand of the Lord. So, here, is meant the New Church in Heaven, seven signifying what is Holy. Neither can such a man open and investigate or search the Word thoroughly enough with his natural understanding to learn what is the Lord's Good, that is, what celestial things the Lord has for man which lie hidden within him in his soul. Thus, neither can a man "dig out the gold which is in the center of the earth". Yet, all these inferior things correspond to internal and superior things which lie in one's rational when it is conjoined to his spiritual and celestial, for such things come from and are the Lord's.
It is often said, the Lord Himself is Order and from and in that Order celestial things are above spiritual things and they above natural and corporeal things so that, indeed, a man is made into a form of the Divine Order. Therefore, what the Lord says is of certainty, that is, is the truth. He is the foundation of and the builder of all what is truly Christian. For, He renews and regenerates a man. It is He who is the supreme seat within our minds and hearts. Thus, to know Him is surely to know good and true internal things. And, since this is true, then, all representatives as were in the prior Churches are done away with and the Lord's New Church now worships the Lord in human form, which is the one Divine Human and does not worship God in three persons each equally as God. The new Church of the Lord truly has communicated His Love and Wisdom to man and it is, therefore, that such a man is conjoined with the Lord when he is obedient through love.
However, this state was not possible with man without there first being some one who was able to 'open up' the Word - the internal truth - to a man's understanding and thereby bringing again a communication between the Lord and he. We can all agree that unless the internal sense of the Word is known man would always falsify the true meaning because of his evil will. Therefore, there was a requirement that the internal sense be revealed to mankind again, even as the people of the Celestial and Spiritual Churches had understood. Angles in Heaven understand the Word spiritually and celestially depending on which Heaven an angle is in. If we believe that the Lord sends His Holy Spirit to all in order for all to have life, then His love and wisdom flows equally into all - celestial, spiritual, natural angels, as well as good and evil spirits even into the ultimate into hell. The problem comes with man in that he has rejected the Lord's immediate influx and, now, what he receives only comes mediate through the spiritual world to him, therefore, even from evil spirits in hell. The Lord having been shut out 'as it were' from man, because of the man's sin, which has defiled his will.
Let us ask how does the Lord communicate His truths to us? Wasn't it by inspiring some one to write down what He spoke? Isn't it in this way that we now have the Old and New Testaments? In fact, the Lord did choose certain men and they were 'enlightened' to see in dreams and visions what they were to write down and to report for us to read and know from these Testaments. This is why we come to worship services - to hear the Word taught and expounded - and why we should read the Word on our own; to receive communication from God. And, is why some others do not who reject such as folly. Therefore, once again the Lord chose some one to write down what was revealed by Him and, so today, we have the Latin Word - the Word of the Divine Human, sometimes called the Third Testament. That some one we know was Emmanuel Swedenborg, for he was introduced into the spiritual world where influx from the Lord is understood spiritually not naturally. The result was that he wrote down these truths and goods and revealed to us the correspondences of Heavenly things with natural things. Thus, a man could again understand internal things, and in this way, he has communication with the spiritual world through his spirit and the truths of the Word are opened up or understood by him through enlightenment and he is then in illustration of Divine truths. This is what is signified by the words, "Wherefore, in order that the true Christian religion might be opened up, it was absolutely necessary that some one should be introduced into the spiritual world."
If the Lord could do that with one man, then He can with others. For, a person can read the Third Testament and can learn what are these correspondences, and when believed with affection, the true Christian religion is learned and known, and he receives a more abundant life. We can see that it is through thought, preaching, discourse, speech, and doctrine from the Word, when it is applied in one's life that the Lord speaks to us. Thus, his servant Emmanuel Swedenborg was instructed to write down the Word from the Lord's mouth so that genuine truth out of the Word can now be derived.
The essential good and truth, the Word alone, who is the Lord, the Divine Human, cannot come into illustration with anyone. For, the Divine truth and the truth of faith, unless they come through influx and are communicated from the one God who is the Lord and are directly insinuated as the good of charity and is loved by man and obeyed, then the understanding of man cannot be opened up. What we need is our new will to give consent, so that our interior mind is opened. Such consent is possible only when man receives a conscience from the Lord. And, a sign of this is seen when we, from an affection, worship the Lord through the Commandments. In this way, a man sees the Divine Who is in the Heavens; he receives the Divine Truth immediately from the Lord Who is and Who was always present with him within his soul and is now with him.
Amen.
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