Those who come into the New Church
by Rev. Paul Booth
Isaiah 26:8,13; Malachi 1: 11-13, Revelation 1:4,5,11; 2:1-17
Apocalypse Revealed 68: 1, 69-72
by Rev. Paul Booth
Isaiah 26:8,13; Malachi 1: 11-13, Revelation 1:4,5,11; 2:1-17
Apocalypse Revealed 68: 1, 69-72
John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you, and peace &…;from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first born from the dead&…;.write in a book, and send it to the churches in Asia. (Revelation 1: 4,5,11)
Since the Lord alone is acknowledged as the God of Heaven and earth by those who of His new Church in the Heavens and by those who are to be of His new Church on earth, the first chapter of the Apocalypse treats only of Him; and in the two following chapters, it is He alone who speaks to the churches, and He alone who will give the blessings of eternal life. All this is evident from his messages to the seven churches which are found in this (the) second chapter, and in the following one, where the Lord alone is the theme of everything written. (Apocalypse Revealed 70)
One of the first things evidenced in the book of Revelation is the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to those who were and are in the Christian world. He is speaking in particular to all those who were in that first Christian Church or to those who reach that state in their life and who have any religion at all. However, there is a problem: The book of Revelation is written in representatives, in significatives, even, if you will, in symbolic language. And, although it is written about a future time of, the then Christian Church, unless these representatives of spiritual things are revealed, its contents will remain always a mystery to the Christian world to which it is addressed.
Now the Lord is one Lord and there is but one true Church, for the Church is from Him. So, we can understand that even though it looks as if there were seven churches to which He speaks, reason tells us that these are all of that one Church, just different qualities and degrees of qualities of the one Church. To that first Christian Church the Lord speaks and anyone who has any religion and who lives a life according to doctrine from the Word and hears what is said and, if he truly hears and takes heart to what is said, he will follow the Lord. This person comes, as it were, into the true Church - the Lord's New Church, for the qualities are of those who are truly Christian.
Question: If they are Christians whom the Lord is addressing in Revelation, then were not they already following the Lord? Apparently not, for to each of the seven churches there may have been some things that they were doing according to God's commandments, but there was also some things that they were doing against the commandments. We can see in His message a warning and a falling away, if you will, even, a promise - a promise of regeneration or salvation if they overcome their evils. Of course, here we are necessarily are speaking of one's repentance.
Let us look at this historically. What is the scene or the pictured that the book of Revelation reveals to us? It is one of the end, of the, then, Christian Church and of a new Heaven and earth. The Lord having come to earth had established a new Church - the Christian Church - replacing the Jewish Church. He taught the disciples. Certain persons wrote down what He taught - the New Testament. In the Acts of the Apostles we can see the enthusiasm - their love for the Lord and wanting to change the world for good, their love for truth and their obedience to His truths. All this shows us the Lord working through them, making their faith alive and active. You could say, they had more than just the truth; they had charity. All new Churches start in love and charity.
It was evident that they had love for the Lord. Yet, in the Word one can, also, read of warnings, of that Church falling away from their first love. In the book of Revelation one reads of an end coming to that first Christian Church and of those who overcome coming into a new earth or Church where the Lord reigns. It's just that the descriptive picture put forth in Revelation when understood only in its literal sense leads one astray and into fallacies and eventually falsities of doctrine. Nonetheless, what we see there has happened to that first Christian Church and, in fact, it has ended. Today the Christian world may possess the Word, but not the truths of doctrine. They may know the Lord, but they do not apply to Him.
So the messages to the seven churches in Asia are today to those in the Christian world. It is a message meant to the good and the truth of that Church - to the remnant of that Church. It is to those who could an who can be raise up and formed into a new Church, just as out of the Jewish Church there were some who were formed into the first Christian Church. These were the disciples and a few followers of Christ. The remnant of this Church has formed a New Church in Heaven from which a New Church now descends on earth - the New Jerusalem - and is now being established.
So, the picture or the scene seen is one of an end to that first Christian Church and of a beginning of a New Church that is now being established. The old one ends in vastation and is consummated, but there is good news, for out of that Church there was raised up a new Church, one that becomes, as it were, the crown of all prior Churches. It is a Church that has no end as is seen in the book of Daniel.
How is this all known? Is it true? It was not and is not seen in any literal understanding of the Old and New Testaments. In other words, unless the symbolism, the representatives, and the significatives mentioned in Revelations, and for that matter all throughout those two Testaments, a new Church is not heard of or even known. Mankind learns and gains religious knowledge through his natural senses, which is through what he sees and hears - what he reads and listens to and is taught. All his ideas and thoughts concerning religion - God, Divine things, worship, and spiritual life - enter him externally, through his senses. I ask, can we see - understand - truth? Can we know good and experience the delights of heavenly life - true happiness - as we believe the Word of God teaches? We think we can know what truth is and we form doctrine from that religious knowledge we learn and if we live accordingly, we can know good and experience God's Heavenly delights. Than is not our life from it either true or false, good or evil, depending on the doctrine we believe and life lived according to? Our life is, however, good or evil, true or false, depending on the doctrine we believe and our life according to it, and many other factors, like the measure of sincerity, innocence and true love that is within us.
Are not these spiritual things - truths and goods and our affections of them - and, in fact, the very attributes that are God and that come from Him and that give life? Now, if these Divine things come from the Lord God and, as it were, flow into or are insinuated into each of us; they of necessity come through an external way - into our mind - into our will and understanding. We do not, today, perceive the truth and the good entering from within, from our soul, which God has made and where He abides with us that has been closed since mankind's fall. We must learn this knowledge by reading and studying the Word of God and it is not gained through perception. This knowledge comes through an external way - through our senses. Though, in this way, we can only understand apparent truths, while genuine and spiritual truths remain hidden or a mystery just to us as does the knowledge of the end of the Christian Church. The establishment of a new Church remains hidden to the person who does not come into this new Church. In the Word - in the Old and New Testaments - one sees only according to the literal sense and correspondences are not known or are they accepted; the spiritual sense is not seen and is rejected.
If the Word was written such that the many things in it, the mysteries, were revealed, would not we then be able to know these Divine things, such as spiritual truth and good, even the truths which are from good? Those who, today, have accepted such a Word and followed it can be of this new Church. This new Word is the Third Testament that has come on earth. There are many though who do not, in fact, most of the Christian world - those who consider themselves, at least, in some degree Christian and say they follow Christ. Ask yourself, why do so many of these people reject this new revelation, which is the Latin Word, the Word of the Divine Human? And to what extent do we ourselves truly accept it, are we living according to it? Well, why do the Jews reject the New Testament as the Divine Truth? If we think about it, we can see it is because they believe a lie, they believe fallacies and falsities that men have come to rationalize about. Don't we read that the Lord said that they make the commandment of no effect? And did they not reject the Lord? It is the same today, leaders in the so-called Christian churches have turned the truths into falsities; they have rationalized from their own understanding according to their wills and have rejected the Lord's Human as being Divine.
In other words, their love of self and of worldly things has led them astray. They have built up in their minds - in their thoughts and ideas of religion and the Church - certain 'images' of themselves and have formed a faith accordingly and teach others that this is the truth. Yet, within their minds there are truths implanted from birth through infancy to childhood that when followed, the Lord's love can flow into them and effect them with not just these primary truths, but with charity, when they recall them and live from them.
The Third Testament is also a natural means by which one receives truths and learns of God and, so, may receive charity from the Lord when followed. The acceptance of it is just as the acceptance of the Old and New Testaments are as the Word of the Lord. It, too, tells of His Kingdom, of man's salvation, but in it one can also learn of correspondences, of what things on earth signify in Heaven and, so, of the internal or spiritual sense. In this way, a person can come to see internal or spiritual things, thus the genuine truth and good becomes revealed, the very things that make the Church with and in man to be true. So, the Church within them becomes spiritual and one's external becomes one with it, being subjected to the spiritual of man from the Lord.
So, let us discover these things that are written in this new Word - the Latin Word, the Third Testament. Those who accept it as the Word of the Lord, the Divine Human know what this New Church that is now coming on earth to man and who sees and learns the hidden truths within it, even the truths the book of Revelation. For it was written to those who, now, are come into the New Church. There, we learn that the things that remain - the remnant truths and goods that are in a man - go to establish this new spiritual Church here on earth and in Heaven.
We read first, "to those and concerning those who regard truth of doctrine as primary, rather than the goods of life, the Lord from whom through the Word come all truths and from whom comes enlightenment to those who are of His Church. He sees all the interiors and the exteriors, (the various states of those) at once. He knows of (your) study and endurance and that (you) cannot bear that evil should be called good and the reverse, that you scrutinize those things which are called goods and truths, but are not but evils and falsities. (You) have had to endure with them, but (you) have studied and endeavored to procure whatever belongs to religion and its doctrine, but this is against (you): (you) do not hold the goods of life in the first place. Remember your error and revert to the first state of your life, otherwise enlightenment will surely not be given to see the truth any longer. You know this from your truths (or doctrine), you are not willing that works should be meritorious. Anyone who understands ought to obey what the divine truth of the Word teaches (to) those who will be of this new Church, which is the New Jerusalem. For those who fight against evils and falsities (then) are reformed and appropriate the good of love and charity from the Lord interiorly and receive the truths of wisdom and faith.
The Lord further says, "to those who are in goods of life, but only in falsities as to (the) doctrine that He alone is God, that He has been neglected in the Church, and that His Human is not acknowledged to be Divine, when yet as to that, He alone is eternal life. (The Lord) sees all your interiors and exteriors at once, and that (you) are in falsities, and, so, not in goods. It is false to assert that you are in the goods of love, when yet you are not and are in the falsities as to doctrine. Despair not when infested by evils and assaulted by falsities. Your good life will be infested by evils from hell by falsities fighting against them, and (it) will endure its full time. Receive the truth until falsities are removed and you will have eternal life - the reward of victory. He who understands ought to obey what the divine truth to teaches those who will be in the new Church, which is the New Jerusalem.
Again, "to those who place all of the Church in good works, and nothing in truths of doctrine the Lord is the truths of doctrine from the Word by which evils and falsities are dispersed. He sees all your interiors and exteriors and knows your life is in darkness, when yet you have religion and worship according to it, even in a time when all truth was extinguished by falsities in the Church. Yet, I (the Lord) have some things against you who do follow these falsities, for there are those of you who do hypocritical works, by which the worship of God in the Church is defiled and adulterated. There are among you those who make merit seeking. Beware of such works. If not, the Lord will contend with such from the Word. He who understand ought to obey what the divine truth teaches those who will be in the new Church, which is the New Jerusalem. Appropriate the Lord's love, and thus conjunction with the Lord comes to those who do work or charity and truths favoring that good are united. Then you will have good of such a quality, as (you) had not previously enjoyed, which is not apparent to any one because it is inscribed on one's life".
All these things can be seen written in Apocalypse Revealed 68: 1-11 and, as you can see, can be understood clearly by those who accept it even though it is only understood in its literal sense. These are, but, three of the seven states of those who can and do come into the New Church when they, not only, become doctrine for them, but when they are acted upon and become of charity with them. The Lord is calling such as these to Him. May we each examine ourselves and if we see these words as revealing something in ourselves, let us take heed to what is said, for the Lord is there standing in our midst, within our inner most being, with Divine truths and love wanting to enlighten our way to Heaven.
Amen.
Since the Lord alone is acknowledged as the God of Heaven and earth by those who of His new Church in the Heavens and by those who are to be of His new Church on earth, the first chapter of the Apocalypse treats only of Him; and in the two following chapters, it is He alone who speaks to the churches, and He alone who will give the blessings of eternal life. All this is evident from his messages to the seven churches which are found in this (the) second chapter, and in the following one, where the Lord alone is the theme of everything written. (Apocalypse Revealed 70)
One of the first things evidenced in the book of Revelation is the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to those who were and are in the Christian world. He is speaking in particular to all those who were in that first Christian Church or to those who reach that state in their life and who have any religion at all. However, there is a problem: The book of Revelation is written in representatives, in significatives, even, if you will, in symbolic language. And, although it is written about a future time of, the then Christian Church, unless these representatives of spiritual things are revealed, its contents will remain always a mystery to the Christian world to which it is addressed.
Now the Lord is one Lord and there is but one true Church, for the Church is from Him. So, we can understand that even though it looks as if there were seven churches to which He speaks, reason tells us that these are all of that one Church, just different qualities and degrees of qualities of the one Church. To that first Christian Church the Lord speaks and anyone who has any religion and who lives a life according to doctrine from the Word and hears what is said and, if he truly hears and takes heart to what is said, he will follow the Lord. This person comes, as it were, into the true Church - the Lord's New Church, for the qualities are of those who are truly Christian.
Question: If they are Christians whom the Lord is addressing in Revelation, then were not they already following the Lord? Apparently not, for to each of the seven churches there may have been some things that they were doing according to God's commandments, but there was also some things that they were doing against the commandments. We can see in His message a warning and a falling away, if you will, even, a promise - a promise of regeneration or salvation if they overcome their evils. Of course, here we are necessarily are speaking of one's repentance.
Let us look at this historically. What is the scene or the pictured that the book of Revelation reveals to us? It is one of the end, of the, then, Christian Church and of a new Heaven and earth. The Lord having come to earth had established a new Church - the Christian Church - replacing the Jewish Church. He taught the disciples. Certain persons wrote down what He taught - the New Testament. In the Acts of the Apostles we can see the enthusiasm - their love for the Lord and wanting to change the world for good, their love for truth and their obedience to His truths. All this shows us the Lord working through them, making their faith alive and active. You could say, they had more than just the truth; they had charity. All new Churches start in love and charity.
It was evident that they had love for the Lord. Yet, in the Word one can, also, read of warnings, of that Church falling away from their first love. In the book of Revelation one reads of an end coming to that first Christian Church and of those who overcome coming into a new earth or Church where the Lord reigns. It's just that the descriptive picture put forth in Revelation when understood only in its literal sense leads one astray and into fallacies and eventually falsities of doctrine. Nonetheless, what we see there has happened to that first Christian Church and, in fact, it has ended. Today the Christian world may possess the Word, but not the truths of doctrine. They may know the Lord, but they do not apply to Him.
So the messages to the seven churches in Asia are today to those in the Christian world. It is a message meant to the good and the truth of that Church - to the remnant of that Church. It is to those who could an who can be raise up and formed into a new Church, just as out of the Jewish Church there were some who were formed into the first Christian Church. These were the disciples and a few followers of Christ. The remnant of this Church has formed a New Church in Heaven from which a New Church now descends on earth - the New Jerusalem - and is now being established.
So, the picture or the scene seen is one of an end to that first Christian Church and of a beginning of a New Church that is now being established. The old one ends in vastation and is consummated, but there is good news, for out of that Church there was raised up a new Church, one that becomes, as it were, the crown of all prior Churches. It is a Church that has no end as is seen in the book of Daniel.
How is this all known? Is it true? It was not and is not seen in any literal understanding of the Old and New Testaments. In other words, unless the symbolism, the representatives, and the significatives mentioned in Revelations, and for that matter all throughout those two Testaments, a new Church is not heard of or even known. Mankind learns and gains religious knowledge through his natural senses, which is through what he sees and hears - what he reads and listens to and is taught. All his ideas and thoughts concerning religion - God, Divine things, worship, and spiritual life - enter him externally, through his senses. I ask, can we see - understand - truth? Can we know good and experience the delights of heavenly life - true happiness - as we believe the Word of God teaches? We think we can know what truth is and we form doctrine from that religious knowledge we learn and if we live accordingly, we can know good and experience God's Heavenly delights. Than is not our life from it either true or false, good or evil, depending on the doctrine we believe and life lived according to? Our life is, however, good or evil, true or false, depending on the doctrine we believe and our life according to it, and many other factors, like the measure of sincerity, innocence and true love that is within us.
Are not these spiritual things - truths and goods and our affections of them - and, in fact, the very attributes that are God and that come from Him and that give life? Now, if these Divine things come from the Lord God and, as it were, flow into or are insinuated into each of us; they of necessity come through an external way - into our mind - into our will and understanding. We do not, today, perceive the truth and the good entering from within, from our soul, which God has made and where He abides with us that has been closed since mankind's fall. We must learn this knowledge by reading and studying the Word of God and it is not gained through perception. This knowledge comes through an external way - through our senses. Though, in this way, we can only understand apparent truths, while genuine and spiritual truths remain hidden or a mystery just to us as does the knowledge of the end of the Christian Church. The establishment of a new Church remains hidden to the person who does not come into this new Church. In the Word - in the Old and New Testaments - one sees only according to the literal sense and correspondences are not known or are they accepted; the spiritual sense is not seen and is rejected.
If the Word was written such that the many things in it, the mysteries, were revealed, would not we then be able to know these Divine things, such as spiritual truth and good, even the truths which are from good? Those who, today, have accepted such a Word and followed it can be of this new Church. This new Word is the Third Testament that has come on earth. There are many though who do not, in fact, most of the Christian world - those who consider themselves, at least, in some degree Christian and say they follow Christ. Ask yourself, why do so many of these people reject this new revelation, which is the Latin Word, the Word of the Divine Human? And to what extent do we ourselves truly accept it, are we living according to it? Well, why do the Jews reject the New Testament as the Divine Truth? If we think about it, we can see it is because they believe a lie, they believe fallacies and falsities that men have come to rationalize about. Don't we read that the Lord said that they make the commandment of no effect? And did they not reject the Lord? It is the same today, leaders in the so-called Christian churches have turned the truths into falsities; they have rationalized from their own understanding according to their wills and have rejected the Lord's Human as being Divine.
In other words, their love of self and of worldly things has led them astray. They have built up in their minds - in their thoughts and ideas of religion and the Church - certain 'images' of themselves and have formed a faith accordingly and teach others that this is the truth. Yet, within their minds there are truths implanted from birth through infancy to childhood that when followed, the Lord's love can flow into them and effect them with not just these primary truths, but with charity, when they recall them and live from them.
The Third Testament is also a natural means by which one receives truths and learns of God and, so, may receive charity from the Lord when followed. The acceptance of it is just as the acceptance of the Old and New Testaments are as the Word of the Lord. It, too, tells of His Kingdom, of man's salvation, but in it one can also learn of correspondences, of what things on earth signify in Heaven and, so, of the internal or spiritual sense. In this way, a person can come to see internal or spiritual things, thus the genuine truth and good becomes revealed, the very things that make the Church with and in man to be true. So, the Church within them becomes spiritual and one's external becomes one with it, being subjected to the spiritual of man from the Lord.
So, let us discover these things that are written in this new Word - the Latin Word, the Third Testament. Those who accept it as the Word of the Lord, the Divine Human know what this New Church that is now coming on earth to man and who sees and learns the hidden truths within it, even the truths the book of Revelation. For it was written to those who, now, are come into the New Church. There, we learn that the things that remain - the remnant truths and goods that are in a man - go to establish this new spiritual Church here on earth and in Heaven.
We read first, "to those and concerning those who regard truth of doctrine as primary, rather than the goods of life, the Lord from whom through the Word come all truths and from whom comes enlightenment to those who are of His Church. He sees all the interiors and the exteriors, (the various states of those) at once. He knows of (your) study and endurance and that (you) cannot bear that evil should be called good and the reverse, that you scrutinize those things which are called goods and truths, but are not but evils and falsities. (You) have had to endure with them, but (you) have studied and endeavored to procure whatever belongs to religion and its doctrine, but this is against (you): (you) do not hold the goods of life in the first place. Remember your error and revert to the first state of your life, otherwise enlightenment will surely not be given to see the truth any longer. You know this from your truths (or doctrine), you are not willing that works should be meritorious. Anyone who understands ought to obey what the divine truth of the Word teaches (to) those who will be of this new Church, which is the New Jerusalem. For those who fight against evils and falsities (then) are reformed and appropriate the good of love and charity from the Lord interiorly and receive the truths of wisdom and faith.
The Lord further says, "to those who are in goods of life, but only in falsities as to (the) doctrine that He alone is God, that He has been neglected in the Church, and that His Human is not acknowledged to be Divine, when yet as to that, He alone is eternal life. (The Lord) sees all your interiors and exteriors at once, and that (you) are in falsities, and, so, not in goods. It is false to assert that you are in the goods of love, when yet you are not and are in the falsities as to doctrine. Despair not when infested by evils and assaulted by falsities. Your good life will be infested by evils from hell by falsities fighting against them, and (it) will endure its full time. Receive the truth until falsities are removed and you will have eternal life - the reward of victory. He who understands ought to obey what the divine truth to teaches those who will be in the new Church, which is the New Jerusalem.
Again, "to those who place all of the Church in good works, and nothing in truths of doctrine the Lord is the truths of doctrine from the Word by which evils and falsities are dispersed. He sees all your interiors and exteriors and knows your life is in darkness, when yet you have religion and worship according to it, even in a time when all truth was extinguished by falsities in the Church. Yet, I (the Lord) have some things against you who do follow these falsities, for there are those of you who do hypocritical works, by which the worship of God in the Church is defiled and adulterated. There are among you those who make merit seeking. Beware of such works. If not, the Lord will contend with such from the Word. He who understand ought to obey what the divine truth teaches those who will be in the new Church, which is the New Jerusalem. Appropriate the Lord's love, and thus conjunction with the Lord comes to those who do work or charity and truths favoring that good are united. Then you will have good of such a quality, as (you) had not previously enjoyed, which is not apparent to any one because it is inscribed on one's life".
All these things can be seen written in Apocalypse Revealed 68: 1-11 and, as you can see, can be understood clearly by those who accept it even though it is only understood in its literal sense. These are, but, three of the seven states of those who can and do come into the New Church when they, not only, become doctrine for them, but when they are acted upon and become of charity with them. The Lord is calling such as these to Him. May we each examine ourselves and if we see these words as revealing something in ourselves, let us take heed to what is said, for the Lord is there standing in our midst, within our inner most being, with Divine truths and love wanting to enlighten our way to Heaven.
Amen.
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