“Not ‘God the fathers.’ ‘God, Father.’”
One morning as I was waking up, I heard these words spoken in my mind: “Not ‘God the fathers.’ ‘God, Father.’” I also had a dream of someone waving his hand in a circular motion, above my head.
My impression was that an angel had spoken it to me. Although I didn’t visualize anything other than the hand and the faint image of a man, the voice was clearer than my own thoughts. It was also phrased differently than the way I would normally think or speak, giving me confidence that it didn’t originate from my own consciousness. I’m not sure if it was the Lord himself who spoke to me, or an angel he sent, but he appeared to be floating, wore a robe, and had no wings, similar to the image on the left.
I knew right away what it meant. This was a subject I’d been studying in Swedenborg’s works for several months, particularly from his book, True Christianity. However, at the time I received the message, I wondered why an angel would be telling me this, because I already understood the concept very well from reading Swedenborg’s books.
Nonetheless, I wrote it down and added it to my notes. Around that time I’d received several other messages like this in dreams, and was noting them all down. A few months later, the thought occurred to me that it could have been an answer to a prayer, but I simply forgot what it was that I’d asked for prior, which I think was something along the lines of, “What should I write about in my blog next?” or “What is the most important concept for me to understand or to convey to others?” For that reason, I made the above title of this article equal to the exact words that I heard that morning, and I’m going to do a treatise on the subject now.
Here is my understanding of it. The reason that the angel waved his hand when he was speaking the words, “‘Not ‘God the fathers.’” was because he was conveying the idea that there are not multiple gods in the Trinity as if they were a group of people, and then he said, “‘God, Father.’” — period — to indicate that there is only one God in the Trinity.
Some churches will say that they believe in this concept of one God in the Trinity, but when you peel back the layers of their doctrine, you find that each has bastardized the concept of it in their own way. Most people likely get so confused over this concept that they more or less simply go along with whatever their preachers tell them and assume that the Trinity is a concept beyond their understanding. Swedenborg indicates that the majority of churches do this because the majority of them teach false doctrine. In the spiritual world, he says, people gather based on their true internal beliefs rather than based on traditions. Each church community that is formed in that realm maintains a proximity to God in heaven that corresponds with their understanding and acceptance of what it means that God is One.
After contemplating this again, I understood why the angel emphasized this concept to me, even though I already understood it: because it’s so vitally important.
Before I venture into the weeds and risk confusing you, let me first simply state what I believe to be the truth: There is only one God, the Lord Jesus Christ, but he has the ability to take on many forms or personas. When, in the Bible, Jesus speaks about the Father, he is speaking about his inner self — his soul — and when he speaks about the Holy Ghost, he is speaking about the effect of his actions and energy which radiate out into the universe, all of which are him, but simply different aspects of the same person.
There are two underlying ideas that I want to communicate:
The Lord may appear with many different avatars, but all of them are the same person
When the Lord spoke about The Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, he was speaking metaphorically about three aspects of himself, not three separate people.
In addition to the above truth, he has the ability to appear within multiple different avatars.
About point #1, how do we know that Jesus was speaking metaphorically?
“This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” (Matthew 13: 13)
“All these things Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable.” (Matthew 13: 34)
“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.” (John 16: 25)
“Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14: 9)
“All the fullness of divinity dwells physically in Jesus Christ.” (Colossians 2: 9)
“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9: 6)
About point #2, here’s another way to think about it: if you’ve ever played a video game that allows you to create an avatar, or if you’ve ever created a Memoji on your phone, you know it’s possible to appear in many different forms. One day, you can become a warrior prince or princess, and the next day a wizard. The underlying reality, however, the essence, is that there is only one soul - you - behind each persona. You may be able to recognize a friend online based just on the way they type and speak, even if their avatar picture and username completely changed - it’s the same person behind the image.
Swedenborg, Carl Jung, and others, wrote about the idea of the anima, or the essential nature of a person, his underlying soul. The word “persona” in Latin carries a similar idea, but that of the outward mask worn by an actor, which embodies the soul underneath.
Swedenborg wrote down a teaching that an angel from heaven gave to a group of young students there. In the teaching, the angel related this message:
“Therefore, my pupils, think of God from his essence (his anima), and from that of his persona*, and not from his persona, and from this of his essence, for to think of his essence from persona, is to think materially of his essence also; but to think of his persona from essence, is to think spiritually even of his persona.”
*Note that, some English translations of Swedenborg’s original Latin text use the word “person,” but the Latin uses the word, “persona.”
When the two - the first, the essence / anima / Father, and the second, the body / persona / Son are thought of as one, this becomes known as “The Divine Human,” also known as the risen Lord Jesus Christ, once unification with the Father was completed on the cross.
About LDS (Mormon) Doctrine
The LDS idea of the Godhead
As a child growing up in the LDS Church, I often saw this picture (shown to the left) hung on the walls of the church buildings I attended. This image is based on the LDS belief that God the Father has a body of flesh and bone like that of the Son - that they are two separate people.
The idea that there are two separate gods, each with his own body, one for the Father, one for the Son, is incorrect. The reason this is problematic is because the LDS Church’s doctrine isn’t claiming this idea is metaphorical or about avatars. It’s claiming that there are two separate people.
This idea comes from the Doctrine & Covenants and is still taught within the LDS Church today (as of the time of this writing):
“The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.” (D&C 130:22)
Regardless of who has a body and who doesn’t, this doctrine splits God into two and three people, rather than three aspects of the same one person.
The LDS think there is a metaphor when Jesus spoke of being “one” with the Father, but in a different way than I do. They think “one” means “one in intention” aside from “one in person.” My belief is that they are one in intention and one in person.
In other words, the LDS doctrine splits the person of the Lord, his anima, into two essences instead of one, thus, dividing the Word into two: the Bible and the Book of Mormon. This is incorrect because although the Lord may take on many forms, or “masks,” he only has one anima.
Because the LDS Church teaches the idea of multiple gods, they’ve come under criticism by many Evangelicals who say they are not actually Christians. Generally, this is true with regard to their doctrinal positions, but it is true of much of mainstream Christianity as well, and it cannot be said about each individual member. Whether somebody worships as a true Christian or not is something that only the Lord himself knows. Despite the fact that the LDS Church’s official doctrine states that there are two or more gods, it may be the case that many LDS members worship one God in their heart. Not every member’s internal beliefs align with the LDS Church’s official position.
LDS members reading this should think carefully about what they truly believe. Swedenborg wrote that, “If people enter heaven with this as their picture of God, they will definitely be thrown out headfirst…” (True Christianity #15). Elsewhere he explains that people with a good intention who were misinformed are taught what the true nature of God is as their first lesson before they’re allowed to enter heaven. He explains that people who are in the, “good of life,” even if they don’t have a complete or accurate understanding of the inner meaning of the Word, are nonetheless on the path to heaven.
With that said, the fact that the above picture and the idea that it represents is so grossly incorrect is one of the primary reasons I took my name off of the official LDS Church records long ago. I didn’t want to worship with a community whereby I was going to be constantly indoctrinated with ideas that I believed to be false. With regard to how I think about Mormons today, I have little or no resentment towards the people themselves, I merely disagree with the doctrine. I actually live in a community within Utah that is majority populated with LDS and I like living here. The communities around me are clean and well maintained, the people are responsible and successful, and from what I can tell, they treat their families with love and respect, and for the most part, are making an effort to study the Word and follow the Lord’s commandments. All these things embody true worship of the Lord. With that in mind, how things appear often differs from the underlying reality, and we should be careful not to judge people based on their doctrine, one way or another. It’s just as likely that people who appear clean on the outside can be dirty on the inside, and vice versa. Although we can’t judge individuals, we can, however, judge doctrine. This distinction is important because although this article is critical of many belief systems, it’s a criticism of the belief systems themselves, not of the people within each community, each of whom is an individual, who may or may not actually believe what their church teaches on every point, and many may not fully realize that the above problem exists. A person with genuine charity, but a flawed faith, is far better off than a person with so-called perfect faith, but no charity. Genuine charity in a person will lead to an eventual doctrinal correction in faith in due time.
If the Holy Spirit is not a separate person, then what is it?
Swedenborg explains in his writings that the Holy Spirit is the power of God, and because God is infinite and is the Lord, this power is him.
“After death, everyone who turns to God is first taught by angels that the Holy Spirit is none other than the Lord and that “going forth” and “emanating” is nothing but enlightening and teaching by means of presence, a presence that depends on our acceptance of the Lord. So after death, many people leave behind the concept of the Holy Spirit that they had formed in the world and accept the idea that it is the Lord’s presence with us through angels and spirits, a presence from and by means of which people are enlightened and taught.”
With this understanding, we know that the Holy Spirit is not a separate “personage of spirit” as Doctrine & Covenants claims, but rather, the Holy Spirit is the Lord himself, acting through many angels and spirits.
About Catholic Doctrine
Throughout the history of the Catholic Church, there have been three primary creeds that have been created over time and that have undergone a slow degradation.
The three creeds are:
(Click each link to read the full text of each of the creeds on Wikipedia)
The Apostles Creed - the original creed which represents true Christianity as it was understood by the early church founders.
The Nicene Creed - this creed began to sway from the truth by introducing the idea of three separate gods that existed from eternity.
The Athanasian Creed - this creed swayed even further, by declaring that it’s okay to think that there are three gods so long as you only say there is one.
Let’s start with the Apostles Creed:
I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived from the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, descended into hell, rose again from the dead on the third day, ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty, who will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
Notice that although this creed mentions the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t infer that they are three people. Compared to the other creeds, it’s very short and simple, and it need not be any more complicated than it is. True Christianity can be found within this creed so long as when you think of these words, you think of one God, who manifests himself in many ways.
Now let’s move onto the Nicene Creed:
From Swedenborg’s True Christianity, #632:
“…The Council of Nicaea was hosted by the emperor Constantine the Great in his palace in Nicaea, a city in Bithynia. He had been persuaded to call the council by Alexander, bishop of Alexandria. All the bishops of Asia, Africa, and Europe were invited. Their charge was to challenge and condemn, using Sacred Scripture, the heresy of Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria who was denying that Jesus Christ was divine. The council occurred in the year of our Lord 325.
The participants in the council came to the conclusion that three divine persons had existed from eternity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is particularly easy to see from the two statements called the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed.
In the Nicene Creed we read the following:
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, born before all the ages, God from God, who has the same substance as the Father, and who came down from the heavens and was incarnated by the Holy Spirit through the Virgin Mary. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and who along with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.”
Notice the part that says, “born before all the ages.” Swedenborg says that this idea is problematic because it infers the concept that there are three gods in the Trinity who existed from all eternity, rather than one God who existed from all eternity, who simply took on a different form in time.
The Valley of Tears
Swedenborg continues to explore the creeds, now moving onto the Athanasian Creed:
“The catholic faith is this, that we venerate one God in a trinity, and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance. Just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as God and Lord, so the catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or three lords.”
“That is, it is allowable to confess three gods and lords but not to say three gods and lords. We do not say three gods and lords because religion forbids it, but we confess three gods and lords because that is what the [so-called] truth dictates.
The Athanasian Creed was composed immediately after the Council of Nicaea by one or more of the people who had attended that council. It was accepted as an ecumenical or catholic creed.
Clearly, then, that was when it was decreed that the church should acknowledge three divine persons from eternity, each of whom is individually God, although there should be no mention of three gods or lords but only of one.”
In my experience, this dyslexia exists within many Christian sects even beyond Catholicism (like Mormonism, as mentioned above), whereby they are allowed to say one but think of three, or say three but think of one.
Wouldn’t it be great is we could all say and think of one God and end the confusion?
But then what was the reason for this confusion in the first place?
Didn’t Jesus himself speak of three gods, and if so, why did he speak that way?
Swedenborg explains in other passages that Jesus did so as a means of protecting heaven, or rather, protecting people from having heaven lost within them, as Jesus said, “So that hearing they may not hear.” (Matthew 13: 13) Because of this, the closer a person approaches the Lord, and the more he acknowledges the internal truth that the Lord is one person, the more he truly hears the word. If he were to understand the truth and then profane it, heaven would be lost within him. Jesus would often begin or end his teachings with, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Mark 4: 9, Revelation 2: 7) Only those who are spiritually prepared are allowed to hear the Lord’s words so that it enters deeply into their life. The bottom line is that Jesus had a plan for how to save as many people as possible. He knew that not everybody was ready to hear (that is, obey) what he had to say, and also how everything he spoke would be manipulated by preachers into the future, and so he spoke with parables in order to confound, and thus protect, anyone who had not yet developed genuine intent.
“The reason this has not been seen in the Word before is that if it had been seen too early it would not have been accepted. That is, the Last Judgment had not been carried out yet, and before that happened the power of hell was stronger than the power of heaven. We are in between heaven and hell, so if this had been seen too early, the Devil (that is, hell) would have snatched it out of our hearts and then proceeded to profane it. This state of hell’s power was decisively broken by the Last Judgment that has now been carried out.”
A painting of Saint Athanasian
“After that time a belief in three divine persons was accepted, ratified, and proclaimed by all the bishops, prelates, church leaders, and elders in the Christian world right up to the present day, as we all know.
Because this belief led directly to a mental image of three gods, it could not help but result in a faith that is applied to these three persons in sequence. That is, we are to turn to God the Father and beg that he either assign us the justice of his Son or else have mercy on us because of the Son's suffering on the cross, and send us the Holy Spirit to produce the intermediate and final effects of our salvation.
This belief is the offspring that was born from these two creeds (The Nicene and Athanasian). When the swaddling cloths are unraveled, however, what comes into view is not one child but three. At first the three are joined in a kind of embrace, but soon they are separated. People have decided that the three are joined by one essence but distinguished by various properties or activities: creating, redeeming, and working; or the assigning of justice, the justice assigned, and the carrying into effect, respectively. Although people made one God out of these three, they did not make one Person out of these three persons; if they had, the idea of three gods would have been obliterated. As long as each person is individually recognized as a God, as the creed indicates, this trinitarian view remains in place. The danger was that if three persons were to have become one, the whole house built upon these three as its pillars would have collapsed into a heap.
The Council of Nicaea introduced the idea of three divine persons from eternity for the reason that it had not properly examined the Word and had therefore found no other protection against the Arians. The reason why they then collated those three persons, each of whom is God all by himself, into one was out of fear. They were afraid that every rational, religious person on all three continents would have accused them of believing in three gods and would have vilified them.
The reason why they handed down a belief that applied to those three in sequence was that no other belief would have been consistent with that starting point.
One might add to this that if one of the three were omitted, the third would not be sent out, and so all the workings of divine grace (as they wanted us to understand it) would be ineffectual.”
Swedenborg also explained:
“…it is acknowledgment and thought that unite us to the Lord and to heaven, not speech alone. Further, no one understands how a divine nature that is one can be divided into three persons, each of which is God. That is, the divine nature is not divisible, and making the three one because of their essence or substance does not get rid of the idea of three gods. All it does is give the impression that they agree with each other.”
—The Shorter Works, The Lord, #57
In other words, if you think of there being three essences or substances that agree, rather than simply one essence or substance with multiple masks, as was explained above, then you’ve missed the mark.
The Athanasian Creed can be considered correct if you read it only with the idea of God as one person in your mind.
Swedenborg wrote that the Athanasian Creed can be thought of as correct, so long as it’s understood that the three aspects of the Trinity exist within the risen Lord Jesus Christ himself, rather than outside of him. This idea can be read within the Athanasian Creed, but they intentionally made the wordage of that creed confusing and contradictory because of the reason mentioned above. So long as the creed is understood such that “persons” mean aspects of his character within him, rather than outside of him, then it can be considered correct — the difference is in how you personally interpret it.
Specifically, within the Athanasian Creed it states:
“Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and a human being. Although he is God and a human being, yet he is not two, but one Christ. He is one because the divine nature took the human nature to itself. Indeed, he is one altogether, because he is one person. Therefore as the soul and the body make one human being, so God and a human being is one Christ.”
What about the Protestants?
During the Protestant Reformation, the Protestants were correct that the Catholic Church wasn’t living up to its potential. However, in an attempt to separate themselves from the Catholic Church, their founder, Martin Luther, put an undue emphasis on the doctrine of faith without enough emphasis on the doctrine of charity. From this vantage point, they formulated another view of the Trinity, but one which still missed the mark.
A common Protestant concept of the Trinity
This image is often used by Protestants and Evangelicals to explain their understanding of the Godhead. Unlike Mormon doctrine, Protestant doctrine has a closer idea of one God as one person who has three different aspects connected to his character.
However, this image still has a major flaw. The flaw exists with the “Is Not” bars connecting each corner of the triangle. Ultimately, this image is an inaccurate representation of the Lord, and is actually not any different than the Athanasian Creed as mentioned above, whereby it says the church can say “one” but think “three.” The Lord is a person, and a person is a dynamic life which cannot fully be portrayed with the image of a triangle. The separate corners in this image should only be thought of as symbolic reflections of the center. Since the Lord’s resurrection, there is no longer the same semblance of separation between the three aspects of the Lord because all was unified in Him. Therefore, the “Is Not” bars are based on a false understanding of the Trinity. Remove those, and this image would be closer to the truth, but in order to reach the truth you would need to remove the three outer circles all-together and simply combine them all into one circle.
“If people believe this in a simple way, because this is what they were taught, and do not convince themselves of three gods but make the three into one, after death they are taught by the Lord through angels that he is that very One and that Trinity, a belief accepted by everyone who comes into heaven. This is because no one can be allowed into heaven who thinks in terms of three gods, no matter how much she or he verbally professes one God. The life of all heaven and the wisdom of all angels is based on the acknowledgment and consequent confession of one God, on a faith that this one God is also human, and on a belief that he is himself the Lord, who is at once God and a human being.”
During his life on earth, Jesus was progressively glorified
Have you ever noticed how in the Gospels, Jesus would sometimes refer to himself as the “Son of God” and other times as the “Son of Man.” Why did he do this?
Swedenborg explained the reason for it in his books and the Swedenborg Foundation did a detailed video on it titled, “Why Jesus Was Born.” Understanding this concept will help you understand how the Oneness of God works.
In the Old Testament, God the Father (named Jehovah) wasn’t able to be seen with physical eyes. He told Moses that nobody could look upon his face and live. (Exodus 33: 20) When Jesus was born, however, this changed. Jehovah entered a body — the body of Jesus — and was him. In this way, now Jehovah could be seen and mankind could interface with him directly. Because Jehovah is an infinite being who was never created but exists outside of time, for him to take on a body, and thus interface with humanity, he needed to be, “born in time.” This is what John meant when he wrote that, “the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1: 1) The same, One God, who went through a transformation whereby he took on a physical body.
Before Jesus was resurrected, there was a part of him that was finite, the part from his mother. This was the “Son of Man.” (Also translated as the “Son of Humanity”) And of course there was the part that was infinite, the part from his Father, this was the “Son of God.” Throughout his life, he progressively conquered all temptations of the body — consistently winning against hell — such that by the time he was resurrected, he’d conquered everything and at the end said, “It is done.” (John 19: 30) Prior to that end, there was some sense of separateness between his inner and outer self, although only in appearance. Once his death on the cross was accomplished, however, that sense of separateness was done because the work was completed.
Why is it so important to understand this?
Swedenborg wrote that the idea of three separate gods is problematic because a belief in one God is the center on which all other true doctrine stems. Without that true idea, many falsities ensue.
An example of a false idea that comes from the belief in three gods is the idea that the Father — if mistakenly understood as a separate person — required the death of the Son as payment for mankind’s sins. Swedenborg said this is a grotesque thought, for a father to sentence his innocent son to death for somebody else’s sins. This would be unjust and unloving. When you understand that the Father and the Son are the same person, you understand that Jesus chose to die on his own, and that the pleading between his will and the Father’s will was between his body and his soul: the exterior man and the inward love within him.
“Therefore My Father (my inward self) loves Me (my outward self), because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father (my inward self).”
I imagine that this fear was something like the fear of public speaking right before you step onto the stage, only times infinity. At that moment, your inward self knows what the right thing to do is and what you really want and should do, but your outward self wants to run in the other direction. When you step onto the stage, the intent between those two aspects of yourself then proves that they were united.
Many people in Christendom believe that because Jesus died on the cross for their sins, that they’re washed clean simply by speaking to a priest or thinking that they’re absolved of them. However, the Lord said this is a false idea. It’s an idea that is derived from the belief in three separate Gods, when, in reality, we are only washed clean when we genuinely repent, which requires turning away from our sinful behaviors and no longer repeating them. Believing in the Lord requires action, not merely lip service.
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matthew 7: 21 - 23)
The truth is that the Lord’s redemption can never be granted to us if we don’t genuinely will a change from within. What he did on the cross was a battle against hell in the spiritual realm, paving a way for us to walk so that we had that option, otherwise, hell would have flooded the earth again like it did in the time of Noah and taken over everyone. His suffering on the cross made it possible for us to be redeemed. This is the difference between paving a trail for others to walk across and actually walking it for them. The Lord made the way available, but we must walk it. With his example he inspires us, and that makes it possible for us to change. Unless we change, however, there is no way to heaven. With this understanding, membership to any particular church doesn’t save us, nor does any ritual we perform, only an internal change within us can do that.
Baptism, without genuine intention, doesn’t lead to salvation.
The need for us to purify ourselves from evils, and not to wait for the Lord to do it without our participation, is like a servant coming in with his face and clothes covered in soot or dung, approaching his master and saying, “Lord, wash me.” Surely his master would tell him, “You foolish servant! What are you saying? Look, there is the water, the soap, and a towel. Don’t you have hands? Don’t they work? Wash yourself!”
The Lord God is going to say, “The means of being purified come from me. Your willingness and power come from me. Therefore use these gifts and endowments of mine as your own and you will be purified.”
When, in the Bible, it says that the Lord “carried our sins,” (1 Peter 2: 24) what it means is that he became a symbol of them. In the Old Testament, prophets often were asked to became symbols of the sins of the people during their time, such as the prophet Ezekiel. Many of the things they were asked to do seem strange to us because they were meant to be symbols that covered deeper meanings and thus protected heaven from harm intended by malicious people. In the same way, Jesus, the ultimate prophet, symbolized the sins of the world with his death on the cross.
What about 1 John 2: 2?
“And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”
Confusion over the word “propitiate” is perhaps one of translation from Hebrew to Greek to English. Swedenborg wrote that,
“The expiation or propitiation of the Lord is protection from the inundation of evil.”
None of this is possible without the Lord’s mercy
Although good works and deeds are needed for salvation, not faith alone, even after we repent, we have to acknowledge that we weren’t always the people today that we were in the past, and that we could fall again at any moment. We have to acknowledge that we have never arrived at perfection on our own and that regeneration is a process that will go on for eternity. This is where the Lord’s mercy comes in. The Lord’s mercy doesn’t magically change us into good people, but it does overlook our past self in favor of our new self. This is why no matter how much we achieve in life, we must always remain humble, recognizing who we once were and who we have yet to become.
“Some people had lived a life of civic and moral good but had convinced themselves they would earn heaven by their deeds, believing it sufficient to acknowledge the one God as the creator of the universe. In the other life, their false assumptions turn into hallucinations… I felt their chill. They are constantly hopeful of being taken up into heaven. Sometimes they seek advice on how to make it there under their own power. Since they did do good deeds, they are among those who undergo devastation, and when their term is completed, they are finally accepted into good communities, where they receive instruction.”
Swedenborg often wrote that we need to do good deeds “as if” on our own, while acknowledging that doing so is only possible from the Lord. The Lord said, “I am the vine and you are the branches,” (John 15: 5). We choose to grow from the vine, acknowledging that He is the source of all life. Something in our good choices is truly ours, otherwise, we wouldn’t be human; however, we acknowledge that all of the power to act upon those choices, even in the smallest degree, comes from God. This differs from the faith-alone doctrine, which says that all that is required is an acknowledgment or confession of faith in the Lord, or lip service, without good deeds, which isn’t true faith at all.
We need both humility and good works, not only good works.
Preparation for the New Church
“The reason these facts about the Lord are now being made known for the first time is that in Revelation 21 and 22 it was foretold that a new church would be established by the Lord at the close of the former one, a church in which this teaching would be first and foremost. This church is what is meant in Revelation by the New Jerusalem into which only those who recognize the Lord alone as God of heaven and earth can enter. This I can proclaim: that the whole heaven acknowledges the Lord alone, and anyone who does not share in this acknowledgment is not allowed into heaven. The fact of the matter is that heaven is heaven because of the Lord. That very acknowledgment, made in the spirit of love and faith, causes the people there to be in the Lord and the Lord to be in them. This is what the Lord himself is telling us in John: ‘On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.’ (John 14:20) And again, ‘Abide in me, and I will abide in you. I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who abide in me and in whom I abide bear much fruit, because without me you cannot do anything. If any do not abide in me, they are cast out (John 15:4, 5, 6; and 17:22, 23).’”
Elsewhere, such as in his book, Heaven and Hell, Swedenborg explains that your acknowledgment that the Lord is One is accomplished via your inner thoughts and the way you live your life, not by what religion you claim to be a member. This is because, in the spiritual sense, a “church” is not a building, but a lifestyle. With that in mind, there are many people who call themselves Christians who may not be allowed into heaven, and many who call themselves by some other religion, who are true Christians at heart nonetheless, and who will be let in, because they’ll gladly accept the truth once they see and hear the Word within its true context. Many people who have had near death experiences report that they were amazed with how loving the Lord is, that he is doing everything he can to get everyone into heaven, and doesn’t have the intention to condemn anyone. When people are condemned it is because they condemn themselves, that is, they hear the Word and then reject it and turn away from it.
When we pray to the Father, we should think of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Heavenly Father
In Swedenborg’s work, Apocalypse Revealed, he wrote about a moment when he spoke to angels about the topic of God as One and about the Lord’s Prayer. Here is what the angels said:
"We come from a society in heaven called Michael, and we have been sent to look and see whether those of you gathered in this place have any religion or not. This we could not discover except by asking you about God. For the idea of God enters into every aspect of religion and makes possible a conjunction, and through conjunction salvation. In heaven we recite the Lord’s Prayer daily, as people do on earth, and we think then not of God the Father (as a separate person), because He is invisible, but of God in His Divine humanity, because in this He can be seen. Moreover, you call Him in that humanity Christ, but we call Him the Lord, and thus for us the Lord is our Father in heaven. The Lord also taught us that He and the Father are one; that the Father is in Him, and He in the Father; that whoever sees Him, sees the Father; and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. Moreover, He also said that it is the will of the Father that people believe in the Son, and that whoever does not believe in the Son does not see life, indeed that the wrath of God abides on him. It is apparent from this that one goes to the Father through the Son and in Him. And because this is the case, He also taught that He had been given all authority in heaven and on earth. It says in the Prayer, "Hallowed be Your name," and "Your kingdom come." And we showed from the Word that the Lord's Divine humanity is the name of the Father, and that the Father's kingdom exists when people go directly to the Lord, and not at all when they go directly to God the Father. Therefore the Lord also told His disciples to preach the kingdom of God. This, then, is the kingdom of God.
About the Lord’s name, elsewhere in Swedenborg’s books, he shows from passages from the Word that the spiritual meaning of a name entails more than letters on a page. In the Word, “name” means character and reputation. When you think of someone’s name, you think of more than the letters. You think of your memories about that person, what they look like, how they make you feel, and what your thoughts and beliefs about them are; their reputation. With this understanding, the Father’s name is Jesus Christ. The angels call him the Lord because when they think of him, they think of him in his resurrected, glorified state.
Should you change your church community over this issue?
The New Century Translation of The Lord, by Emanuel Swedenborg, explores this topic further.
In Howard Storm’s near death experience, he said that Jesus told him to choose the church which would help him get closest to God. This was because he wasn’t quite ready for the full revelations of the New Church yet, and if it was given to him all at once, he likely wouldn’t have accepted it. Sometimes the Lord gives generalized answers to newcomers of the faith because he wants each of us to internally process what we believe as if on our own and come to our own conclusions. This is because there is love in the process. If he simply gave us all the answers all at once, then there would be no work to do, no uniqueness among us, and none of the love in the process of discovering him.
This means it’s less important what religion you’re currently a part of, but rather, where you’re headed. For some people, it doesn’t even matter if they aren’t called Christian, because their belief in one God is what makes them a “Christian” at heart. For example, there are Islamic, Taoist, Hindu, Bahai, and other religions which point their doctrine in the direction of one God in a way similar to the way that the New Church does.
In my case, I left the LDS Church and joined the New Church, because what they teach outwardly corresponds with what I believe inwardly, which brings me much greater internal peace of mind. Otherwise, I would have constantly been hearing things in sermons that I didn’t agree with, which, over time, is grating on the spirit and may have made it difficult for me to steer clear of false ideas. Perhaps I could have stayed a member if I was deriving spiritual value from my experience there, but I had learned everything I needed to learn there, and there was more to be learned elsewhere.
Swedenborg wrote:
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.
Every person needs to make this decision for themselves, but as you go deeper into the truths of the New Church, there is, indeed, the need to separate from your old patterns of life and ideas, and embrace the Lord’s new methods:
A faith of the night and a faith of the light cannot live together any more than an owl and a dove can live together in one nest. The owl would lay its eggs there, and the dove would lay its eggs. After incubation, both sets of chicks would hatch, and then the owl would tear apart the dove’s chicks and feed them to its chicks. (Owls are voracious.)
The faith of the former church cannot live with the faith of the new church because the two are completely incompatible. The faith of the former church is descended from the idea that there are three gods; the faith of the new church, though, is descended from the idea that there is one God. And because the two are completely incompatible as a result, it is inevitable that if they lived together in us they would collide and cause so much conflict that everything related to the church would be destroyed in us. We would fall into such a state of spiritual madness or else spiritual unconsciousness that we would hardly know what the church was or whether such a thing even existed.
Consequently, people who are deeply committed to the faith of the old church are incapable of embracing the faith of the new church without endangering their own spiritual lives, unless they have first rejected the teachings of the former faith one by one and have uprooted that former faith along with all its live offspring and unhatched eggs (meaning tenets). What these tenets are like has been shown earlier in this work, especially in #64–69.
