September 13, 2021

There is No Faith, If There is No Charity

Selection from Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

It is supposed that faith exists, so long as the doctrinals of the church are believed; or that they who believe, have faith; and yet mere believing is not faith, but willing and doing what is believed, is faith.

When the doctrinals of the church are merely believed, they are not in man's life, but only in his memory, and thence in the thought of his external man; nor do they enter into his life, before they enter into his will, and thence into his actions: then for the first time does faith exist in man's spirit; for man's spirit, the life of which is his life itself, is formed from his will, and from so much of his thought as proceeds from his will; the memory of man, and the thought derived from it, being only the outer court by which introduction is effected. Whether you say the will, or the love, it is the same, since everyone wills what he loves, and loves what he wills; and the will is the receptacle of love, and the intellect, the function of which is to think, is the receptacle of faith.

A man may know, think, and understand many things, but those which do not accord with his will or love, he rejects from him when he is left to himself, to meditate from his own will or love, and therefore he also rejects them after the life of the body, when he lives in the spirit — for that alone remains in man's spirit which has entered into his will or love, as was said above. Other things after death are viewed as foreign, which he casts out of doors, and regards with aversion, because they are not of his love.

But it is another thing when man not only believes the doctrinals of the church which are from the Word, but wills them, and does them; then he has faith; for faith is the affection of truth from willing truth because it is truth; for to will truth itself because it is truth is the spiritual man, for it is withdrawn from the natural (which consists in willing truth, not for truth's sake, but for the sake of self-glory, fame and gain). Truth regarded apart from such things is spiritual, because in its essence it is Divine; wherefore, to will truth because it is truth, is also to acknowledge, and to love the Divine. These two are altogether conjoined, and are also regarded as one in heaven, for the Divine which proceeds from the Lord in heaven is Divine truth, as may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell:
The Divine Truth is light to the angels because angels are spiritual and not natural.
Spiritual beings see from their Sun and natural beings from theirs. It is from Divine Truth that angels have understanding, and their understanding is their internal sight which flows into and produces their external sight. Therefore, in heaven whatever is seen from the Lord as the Sun appears in light. This being the source of light in heaven, the light there is varied in accordance with the reception of Divine Truth from the Lord, or what is the same, in accordance with the intelligence and wisdom in which the angels are, thus differently in the celestial kingdom and in the spiritual kingdom and differently in each particular society.
In the celestial kingdom, the light appears flaming because the angels there receive light from the Lord as a Sun; but in the spiritual kingdom, the light is white because the angels there receive light from the Lord as a Moon. So, too, the light is not the same in one society as in another. It differs in each society, those in the middle being in greater light and those around them in less light. In a word, the angels have light in the same degree in which they are receptions of Divine Truth, that is, in intelligence and wisdom from the Lord. This is why the angels of heaven are called angels of light.

As the Lord in the heavens is Divine Truth, and the Divine Truth there is Light, so in the Word the Lord is called the Light, likewise every truth from Him, as in the following passages:
Jesus said, I am the Light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. John 8:52.
As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the world. John 10.
Jesus said, Yet a little while is the Light with you. Walk while ye have the Light, lest darkness overtake you. . . . While ye have the Light, believe in the Light that ye may he sons of Light. . . . I have come a Light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness. John 12: 35, 36, 46.
Light hath come into the world, but men have loved darkness rather than light. John 3: 19.
John says of the Lord,
This is the true Light which lighteneth every man. John 1: 9.
The people that sit in darkness have seen a great light, and to them that were sitting in the shadow of death, light is sprung up. Matt. 4: 16.
I will give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the gentiles. Isa. 42: 6.
I have established thee for a light of the gentiles, that thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth. Isa. 49: 6.
The nations of them that are saved shall walk in His light. Rev. 21: 24.
Send out Thy Light and Thy Truth; let them lead me. Ps. 43: 3.
In these and other passages, the Lord is called the Light from the Divine Truth which is from Him, and the truth itself is called light. As light in the heavens is from the Lord as a Sun, so when He was transfigured before Peter, James and John, His face appeared as the Sun, and His garments as the light shining and white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can whiten. Mark 20: 3; Matt. 17: 2.

The Lord's garments had this appearance because they represented the Divine Truth which is from Him in the heavens. "Garments", in the Word, signify truths,# consequently it is said in David,
Jehovah, Thou coverest Thyself with light as with a garment. Ps. 104: 2.

(Heaven and Hell.128-132)

and they are angels in the heavens, who receive it, and make it of their life. These things are said, in order that it may be known, that faith is not only to believe, but to will and do, therefore there is no faith if there is no charity. Charity or love is to will and to do.

(Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed 36)