Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
(Continued pt. 4)
(Continued pt. 4)
SAVING FAITH IS:
FAITH IN THE LORD GOD THE SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST
That the faith of the apostles was no other than a faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, is evident from many passages in their Epistles, from which I will present only the following:I live; yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me but what I now live in the flesh, I live in faith which is in the Son of God (Gal. 2:20).
Paul testified,
Both to Jews and to Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21).
He who brought Paul out said, What must I do to be saved? And he said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, thus shalt thou be saved, and thy house (Acts 16:30, 31).
He that hath the Son hath the life and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not the life. These things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe in the name of the Son of God (1 John 5:12, 13)
We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, yet knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ (Gal. 2:15, 16).
Because theirs was a faith in Jesus Christ, and also because faith is also from Him, they called it the faith of Jesus Christ, as in the passage just quoted (Gal. 2:16), and in the following:
The righteousness of God, through the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe that He may justify him who is of the faith of Jesus (Rom. 3:22, 26).
Having the righteousness which is from the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith (Phil. 3:9).
He that keepeth the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus (Apoc. 14:12).
Through the faith which is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 3:15).
From all this it can be seen what kind of faith is meant by Paul in the saying now so often quoted in the church:
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law (Rom. 3:28)
namely, that it is not a faith in God the Father, but in His Son, still less a faith in three Gods in order, in one from whom, in another for the sake of whom, and in a third through whom [comes salvation].It is believed in the church, that its tripersonal faith is meant by Paul in that saying, for the reason that the church, during fourteen centuries, or ever since the Nicene Council, has acknowledged no other faith, and consequently has known no other, and has therefore believed this to be the one only faith, and that no other is possible. So wherever the word faith occurs in the New Testament that faith is supposed to be meant, and to it everything there has been applied; therefore the only saving faith, which is a faith in God the Savior, has perished; and in consequence so many fallacies and so many paradoxes adverse to sound reason have crept into the doctrines of the church.
For every doctrine of the church that will teach and point out the way to heaven or to salvation depends on faith; and so many fallacies and paradoxes having crept into that faith, as before said, it became necessary to proclaim the dogma, that the understanding must be kept in subjection to faith.But since in that saying of Paul (Rom. 3:28) the term faith does not mean faith in God the Father but faith in His Son; and works of the law do not there mean the works of the law of the Decalogue, but the works of the Mosaic law for the Jews (as is plain from subsequent verses there, and also from like passages in the Epistle to the Galatians, 2:14, 15), that foundation stone of the present faith is gone, and with it falls the temple built upon it, like a house sinking into the earth and leaving only the top of its roof above ground.
(True Christian Religion 338)
To be continued...