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Read About the Concept - an introduction to this month's spiritual concept
THE NEW CHURCH
By Rev. Walter Orthwein
"And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new" (Revelation 21:5).
During his exile on the isle of Patmos, the Apostle John received strange and wonderful visions of things to come. He saw cataclysmic upheavals, and then a new reign of peace, a new golden age, symbolized by a beautiful city descending from God out of heaven: a New Jerusalem, adorned as a bride for her husband.
This prophetic book, the Book of Revelation or Apocalypse, has never been understood in the Christian Church. No prophecy is every really understood until its fulfillment. We can see this in regard to the Lord's first coming. He was unrecognized because the ancient prophecies concerning the Messiah had been misunderstood as meaning an earthly king, who would deliver the nation Israel from her enemies. But in truth the Lord came as a spiritual king, who would conquer the hells and redeem all mankind from spiritual slavery.
It is our belief that the prophecies contained in the Book of Revelation have been and are being fulfilled today, and that they refer, not to the end of the world, but to the end of the first Christian era, and the establishment of a new Christian age on earth-a new church.
Jerusalem, where the temple was, the center of worship and instruction in the Scriptures, stands for the Lord's church on earth; and the New Jerusalem, symbolically portrayed in John's vision, stands for a new church-not a new church organization, primarily, but a new dispensation of Divine truth from heaven, which, when received, creates a new state of spiritual love and wisdom within the hearts and minds of people on earth. This is where the church essentially exists within people who know and love the Lord.
"And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new." He that sat upon the throne is no other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His throne is heaven, where He is acknowledged as king; and more than king, the source of life itself. And from His kingdom of heaven the Lord is continually recreating or making new the life of religion in the person who believes in Him as the only God of heaven and earth. This is what the Lord makes new-all things of religion.
Religion should always be new, perpetually fresh and alive, stimulating the imagination, filling the affections with delight. The Lord is called "the bright and morning star" (Revelation 22:16) and "the dayspring from on high" (Luke 1:78). His doctrine is said to descend from heaven like the dew which vivifies the grass at the beginning of each new day (Deuteronomy 32:2). Every coming of the Lord to man is like the dawn of a new day, spiritually, a day in which there is the greatest potential for new states of love and understanding.
Religion should be always new, not bound by dead traditions or creeds which are merely recited without understanding or meaning. It should never be compartmentalized as something separate from the rest of life, but should enter into every aspect of life, as the heart sends blood to all parts of the body.
In order to come into the kingdom of heaven, the Lord said, "you must be born again," that is, made entirely new: seeing God where you never: saw Him before, aware of His presence in new ways, looking upon spiritual things with the freshness and wonder of a child, rediscovering the spiritual dimension of life-this is the newness the Lord makes.
And how does He bring a person into this state of life? How does He bring into existence a new church, in which He appears with new clarity and Power to save? He does it by means of a new revelation of Divine truth, coming down from heaven to make all things new, to raise up a new and perfect Christianity.
The Lord has always revealed Himself to men, as far as He possibly could according to their state of understanding. He spoke through the prophets of the Old Testament. Then He was born on earth Himself as the Word made flesh, or Divine truth in human form. After His resurrection, He appeared to His disciples, and later to John on the isle of Patmos, foretelling wondrous things to come.
But revelation did not end there. The Bible looks forward to, and specifically refers to, future revelation. For instance, when He was on earth the Lord told His disciples, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when He the Spirit of truth is come, He will lead you into all truth" (John 16:13).
This promise of a new revelation, we believe, has been fulfilled in the teachings given through Emanuel Swedenborg, who, like the prophets of old, served as the human instrument whereby the Lord could reveal new truths for all people. The solemn testimony of this well-known and respected scientist, philosopher, and statesman, was that the Lord appeared to him, opened his spiritual eyes, and revealed to him all the teachings contained in the theological writings which he then published; and furthermore, that not one word of those teachings came from himself or any other merely human source, but from the Lord alone.
The New Church, founded upon this new revelation, does not look to Swedenborg as the source of truth-not in the least; but to the Lord Jesus Christ, who has come again, as the Spirit of truth (that is, spiritual truth, or truth about spiritual things) in the teachings revealed through Swedenborg.
These Writings do not supplant or replace the Bible, any more than the New Testament supplanted the Old, but rather, they infill the Sacred Scriptures by disclosing the hidden meaning contained within them. This internal sense, or spiritual sense, is as the soul or spirit within the letter of the Word. Without it, our understanding of the Scriptures is as limited as that of Nicodemus, who, when the Lord said to him, "ye must be born again," asked: How can I, a grown man, return to my mother's womb? (see John 3). He look the Lord's words at their literal face value and so missed the whole meaning, which was spiritual. Or, to take another example, remember the woman of Samaria whom the Lord met at Jacob's well. When the Lord spoke to her of the "living water" which He had to give, she asked Him where He would get it, since He had no pail to draw it with. He was speaking of Divine truth, of course, but she understood Him only literally (see John 4).
In reading the Bible, we must understand that the words applied to the Lord in the New Testament, "without a parable spake He not unto them" (Mark 4:34), I apply to the whole of the Scriptures. The creation story, the story of the flood, the histories of the patriarchs, the wars and tribal laws of Israel, the mysterious visions and actions of the prophets-all of these have a spiritual meaning, which for the most part is hidden within the literal sense.
This is not just a general "moral" which the stories illustrate, but a very specific and continuous spiritual meaning, contained in every detail of every verse, and running throughout the whole of the Lord's Word. This inner meaning concerns the history of the church on earth, or its stages of spiritual growth; individual human regeneration; and in the highest sense, the Lord Himself, His temptation-combats with the hells while on earth, His victories over them, and His glorification. It is because of this spiritual sense that the Word is holy.
The Lord Himself referred to this inner meaning, and disclosed its existence to two of His disciples on the road to Emmaus after His resurrection. We read in the Gospel of Luke: "He opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures" (Luke 24:45). "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:27). So moved were they by this revelation that they said, "our hearts burned within us."
It is this revelation of the internal sense of the Word which makes all things of religion new. It gives a new vision of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one God of heaven and earth. It fulfills the Lord's promise that the time would come when He would teach no more in parables but would show us plainly of the Father (that is, of the Divine itself). This new vision of the Lord is seen in the Word, in its internal sense. This new vision is what is meant by the second coming of the Lord. It is not a second physical coming, or a coming in person, but is a spiritual coming. The Lord said that He would come again as the Spirit of truth, or as new truth about spiritual things. New truth about Himself. The essence or soul of all truth. This is what the revelation of the spiritual sense of the Word discloses.
It is also said that the Lord would come with clouds, which our teachings interpret as meaning that He would appear anew in the Word or Sacred Scriptures. "Clouds" represent the letter of the Word, the literal sense, which is a "cloud" when it is only obscurely understood. It is also said that He would come as a thief in the night, that is, unrecognized for the most part, as, indeed, He was at His first coming (see Revelation 3:3; Matthew 24:43).
No one is asked to accept any of this on faith. It is a cardinal principle of the new revelation that religious truths must be freely accepted, not supported by emotional persuasion, external human authority, or "blind faith." What a person does not see for himself to be true and freely choose to follow is not really his own.
But do investigate these doctrines for yourself, and see if they do not provide deep and satisfying answers to the important questions of life, in full agreement with the Scriptures, and also with what common perception tells you must be reasonable and true. You will find, contrary to what is widely believed, that spiritual things can be understood. They can be and should be. The Lord wants us to understand His ends in our creation and thus be able freely to cooperate with them.
In these books, which we call simply "the Writings," or the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, you will find new ideas about the nature of God and His creation, about how Jesus Christ is one with His Father, as He said, and is to be worshiped in His Divine Human as the only God; about the government of the Lord's Divine Providence; about life after death and the nature of the spiritual world; about true charity or love of the neighbor, and the life of use which is its essence. You will find a new, spiritual and heavenly concept of marriage, which shows marriage to be eternal. And you will find many other things, all new and all contributing to a renewal of spiritual life and Christianity in the world.
The New Jerusalem is not limited to any organization, although there are New Church bodies in the world; but it exists in the minds of those whose lives have been made new by the new revelation. It is not Catholic, not Protestant, but a new dispensation, a New Church. It is eminently Christian, for it worships the Lord Jesus Christ as God, and seeks to bring the teachings of His Word into life.
The New Church is open to all. The city seen by John in his vision was foursquare, with twelve gates, three on each side. These gates are never shut, but are open to all people of whatever religious background. Each gate is a great pearl, the pearl of great price, worth acquiring above all else-the acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one God of heaven and earth.
Amen.
LESSONS: Isaiah 65:17-25; Revelation 21; True Christian Religion 784
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