Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
SAVING FAITH IS FAITH IN THE LORD GOD THE SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST
Jesus said, This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that everyone who beholdeth the Son and believeth in Him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day (John 6:40).
He that believeth in the Son hath eternal life but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him (John 3:36)
That whosoever believeth in the Son should not perish, but have eternal life for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:15, 16).
Jesus said, I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me shall never die (John 11:25, 26)
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth in Me hath eternal life. I am the bread of life (John 6:47, 48)
I am the bread of life; he that cometh to Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth in Me shall never thirst (John 6:35).
Jesus cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink; he that believeth in Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:37, 38).
They said to Jesus, What must we do, that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered, This is the work of God, that ye believe in Him whom He hath sent (that is, the Father) (John 6:28, 29).
While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be sons of light (John 12:36).
He that believeth in the Son of God is not judged; but he that believeth not hath been judged already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God (John 3:18).
These things are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life in His name (John 20:31).
Unless ye believe that I am, ye shall die in your sins (John 8:24)
Jesus said, When the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will convict the world respecting sin, and righteousness, and judgment; respecting sin, because they believe not in Me (John 16:8, 9).That the faith of the apostles was no other than a faith 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).
In Jesus Christ is faith working through love (Gal. 5:6).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,
But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?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.
We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles (2:14, 15)
Men ought to believe, that is, have faith, in God the Savior Jesus Christ, because that is a faith in a visible God within whom is the invisible; and faith in a visible God, who is at once Man and God, enters into a man; for faith in its essence is spiritual but in its form is natural; consequently with man such a faith becomes spiritual-natural. For anything spiritual, in order to be anything with man, must have a recipient in the natural. The naked spiritual does indeed enter into man, but it is not received; it is like the ether, which flows in and out producing no effect, for to produce an effect there must be perception and consequent reception, both of these in his mind; and no such reception is possible with man except in his natural. But on the other hand merely natural faith, or faith destitute of a spiritual essence, is not faith, but only persuasion or knowledge. In externals persuasion emulates faith; but since there is in its internals no spirituality, neither is there anything saving in it. Such is the faith of all who deny the Divinity of the Lord's Human; such was the Arian faith, and such also is the Socinian faith, because both reject the Lord's Divinity. What is faith without an object toward which it is determined? Is it not like gazing into the universe, where the sight falls, as it were, into vacuity and is lost? It is like a bird flying beyond the atmosphere into the ether, where, as in a vacuum, it ceases to breathe. The abiding of this faith in man's mind may be compared to that of the winds in the wings [halls?] of Aeolus, or of light in a falling star. It rises like a comet with a long tail, and like it passes over and disappears. sRef
In a word, faith in an invisible God is actually blind, since the human mind fails to see its God; and the light of that faith, not being a spiritual-natural faith, is a fatuous light; which light is like that of the glow-worm, or like that seen above marshes or sulphurous glebes at night, or like the phosphorescence of rotten wood. From that light nothing comes except what pertains to fantasy, which creates a belief that the apparent is the real, when yet it is not. Faith in an invisible God shines with no other light than this, especially when God is thought to be a Spirit, and spirit is thought to be like ether. What follows but that man regards God as he does the ether? Consequently he seeks God in the universe; and when he does not find Him there, he believes the nature of the universe to be God. This is the origin of the prevailing naturalism of the day. Did not the Lord say,
That no one ever heard the Father's voice or saw His shape? (John 5:37);and also,
That no man hath seen God at any time, but that the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father hath revealed Him (John 1:18).
No man hath seen the Father, save He who is with the Father, He hath seen the Father (John 6:46).
Also that no one cometh unto the Father, but through Him (John 14:8).Furthermore,
That He who sees and knows Him sees and knows the Father (John 14:7-12).But faith in the Lord God the Savior is different; He, being God and Man, can be approached and be seen in thought. Faith in Him is not indeterminate, but has an object from which and to which it proceeds and when once received is permanent, as when anyone has seen an emperor or king, as often as the fact is recalled the image returns. That faith's sight is like one's seeing a bright cloud, and in the midst of it an angel who invites the man to him, so that he may be raised up into heaven. Thus does the Lord appear to those who have faith in Him; He draws near to every man so far as man recognizes and acknowledges Him, which he does, so far as he knows and keeps the Lord's commandments, which are, to shun evils and do good; and at length the Lord comes into man's house, and together with the Father who is in Him, makes His abode with man, according to these words in John:
Jesus said, He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him (14:21, 23).The foregoing was written in the presence of the Lord's twelve apostles, who were sent to me by the Lord while I was writing it.
(True Christian Religion 337-339)