A New Understanding

Old Testament

I will hear what God the Lord will speak,
For He will speak peace....
Mercy and truth have met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
And righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Yes, the Lord will give what is good....

Isaiah 40:8

The Word of our God stands forever.  

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create;
For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing....

Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,
And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.

Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law;
Indeed, I shall observe it iwth my whole heart.

Your hands have made me and fashioned me;
Give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.

"I will give you the treasures of darkness
And hidden riches of secret places,
That you may know that I, the Lord,
Who call you by your name,
Am the God of Israel." 

"Call to Me, and I will answer you,
and show you great and mighty things,
which you do not know."

Let us know,
Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord.

The New Testament

"And He will send His angels with a great sound of trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." 

And He said to them [His disciples], "To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables..."

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 

"The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life."

"You will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning." 

"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth..."

"The time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father."

"See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it."

"Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him..."

After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, "Come up here, and I will show you things."

"We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty,
The One who is and who was and who is to come,
Because You have taken Your great power and reigned."

After these things I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful."

Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter into the city.

And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. And whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.

The Heavenly Doctrines

The Birth of the New Church

The New Christian Church is not being established through miracles such as the Lord's birth on earth, but through revelation of the spiritual sense of the Word and teachings about life after death, and these surpass all miracles.

The Lord's second coming, is not in person, but in the Word, which is from Him and which He is.

After the completion of the book [True Christian Religion], the Lord called together His twelve disciples, who had followed Him in the world; and a day later He sent them all forth throughout the spiritual world to preach the Gospel, that the Lord God Jesus Christ is king, and His kingdom shall be for ever and ever... This happened on the nineteenth of June in the year 1770.

In the [book of] Revelation occur the words, "a new heaven and a new earth" and afterwards, "Behold I make all things new", which mean nothing else than that in the church now to be set up anew by the Lord the doctrine will be new."

The Nunc Licet Temple 

One day there appeared to me a magnificent temple, square in form, the roof of which was crown-shaped, arched above and raised round about; its walls were continuous windows of crystal; its door was of a pearly substance. Within, on the south side, towards the west was a pulpit, on the right-hand side of which lay the open Word enveloped in a sphere of light, the splendor of which surrounded and illuminated the whole pulpit. In the center of the temple was a sanctuary, before which there was a veil, at that time raised, and there a golden cherub stood with a sword turning hither and thither in his hand.

While I looked at these things, the significance of each one of them flowed into my meditation: The temple signified the New Church; the door of pearly substance, entrance into it; the windows of crystal, the truths that enlighten it; the pulpit, the priesthood and preaching; the Word lying open upon the pulpit and illuminating the upper part of it, signified the revelation of the internal sense of the Word, which is spiritual; the sanctuary in the center of the temple signified the conjunction of that church with the angelic heaven; the golden cherub therein, the Word in the sense of the letter; the sword waving in his hand signified that this sense can be turned in any direction, provided it is done in adaptation to some truth; the veil before the cherub being raised, signified that the Word is now laid open.

Afterward, when I drew nearer, I saw this inscription above the door, Nunc Licet - It is now permitted [allowed] - which meant that it is now permitted to enter understandingly into the mysteries of faith. Seeing this inscription it came into my thought that it is exceedingly dangerous to enter with the understanding into dogmas of faith that are concocted out of self-intelligence and the falsities it produces, and still more so to confirm them from the Word. This means the understanding is closed above, and gradually below as well, to such a degree that theology is not only despised but also obliterated from the mind, as writing on paper is by worms, or the wool of a garment by moths. Then the understanding concerns itself only with political matters which affect his life - and in the civil matters pertaining to his employment, and with the domestic affairs of his own house.  

In the New Church, it is permitted to enter with the understanding and penetrate into all her secrets, and to confirm them by the Word, because her doctrines are continuous truths laid open by the Lord by means of the Word, and confirmations of these truths by rational means cause the understanding to be opened above more and more, and thus to be raised into the light in which the angels of heaven are. That light in its essence is truth, and in that light acknowledgment of the Lord as the God of heaven and earth shines in its glory. This is what is meant by the inscription Nunc Licet over the door of the temple, and also by the veil of the sanctuary before the cherub being raised. For it is a canon of the New Church, that falsities close the understanding, and that truths open it.

"Enter hereafter into the mysteries of the Word, which has been heretofore shut up; for the particular truths therein are so many mirrors of the Lord."

Enter with Understanding

[I]t is not the Word that constitutes the church, but the understanding of it.

The Word is like a mine containing in its depths gold and silver in great abundance, and like a mine which at greater and greater depths conceals stones more and more precious. These mines are opened in the measure of a person's understanding of the Word.

The Word with those who search in it for truths of faith and goods of life, is like the treasuries of the king of Persia or of the emperor of China, and people of the church are like officers placed over them who are permitted to take for their use as much as they please.

Those who merely have possession of the Word and read it, but do not try to get from it genuine truths for their faith or genuine goods for their life, are like those who know by hearsay that there are such great treasures there, but do not receive a penny from them. Those who have the Word, but do not gain from it any understanding of genuine truth or any will for genuine good, are like those who think themselves rich for having money borrowed from others, or like those who hold estates, houses, and merchandise belonging to others. This is mere hallucination. They are also like those who go about magnificently clothed and are driven about in gilded carriages, with attendants behind and beside them, and couriers ahead, and yet none of this is their own property.

Things of the church and of heaven, which are called spiritual things, do not enter into a person's understanding, except by means of the light of heaven, and the light of heaven enlightens the understanding. For this reason the Word, in which are contained the things of the church and of heaven, cannot be understood except by one who is enlightened, and those only are enlightened who are in the affection of truth from good, thus who are in love to the Lord and in charity towards the neighbor. This good is spiritual good, with which and from which is the light of heaven, which enlightens.

[T]he Church exists only where the Word is rightly understood; and the nature of the Church is according to the understanding of the Word with those who are in the Church.

Secrets Now Revealed on Earth

The Lord is God of heaven and earth, one both in person and in essence in whom is the Divine trinity, and He is the Lord.

The New Church "is to worship one visible God in whom is the invisible like the soul in the body."

[I]n the Word and in each and every particular of it, there is a spiritual meaning corresponding to the natural meaning. Through that spiritual meaning, people of the church are conjoined with the Lord and affiliated with angels. And in it lies the holiness of the Word.

"Behold I stand at the door and knock" symbolizes the perpetual presence of the Lord. This is evident from the meaning of "door or entrance," as being in the highest sense the Lord in respect to admission into heaven or into the church.

The Lord has now disclosed the nature of the world in which angels and spirits live, thus the nature of heaven and the nature of hell.

I afterwards spoke again with the angels, saying that something else had been revealed in the world by the Lord. When they asked what it was, I said, "Respecting truly conjugial love [true marriage love] and its heavenly delights."

This New Church, truly Christian, which at this day is being established by the Lord, will endure to eternity.... In this New Church there will be spiritual peace, glory, and internal blessedness of life.