The Lord Himself as Righteousness

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Those who bear rule in the church in our time describe the Lord's righteousness — they also make their faith a saving faith by the inscription of His righteousness upon man, when the truth is that the Lord's righteousness, being such in its nature and origin, and being in itself purely Divine, cannot be conjoined to any man, and thus cannot effect salvation any otherwise than as the Divine life can, which is Divine love and Divine wisdom. With these the Lord enters into every man, but unless man is living in accordance with order, that life, although it is in him, contributes nothing whatever to his salvation; it imparts merely an ability to understand truth and do good.

To live according to order is to live according to God's commandments; and when man so lives and so does, he acquires for himself righteousness - not the righteousness of the Lord's redemption, but the Lord Himself as righteousness.

Such are described in these words:

Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter into the kingdom of the heavens (Matt. 5:19-20).

Blessed are they who endure persecution for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens (Matt. 5:10).

At the end of the age the angels shall go forth and separate the wicked from the midst of the righteous (Matt. 13:49)

and elsewhere.

In the Word by "the righteous" those are meant who have lived in accordance with Divine order, since the Divine order is righteousness. The righteousness itself which the Lord became through the acts of redemption can be ascribed to man, inscribed upon man, adapted and conjoined to man, only as can light to the eye, sound to the ear, will to the muscles in action, thought to the lips in speaking, air to the lungs in breathing, heat to the blood, and so on; and everyone perceives of himself that these flow in and adjoin and conjoin themselves. Righteousness is acquired only so far as man practices righteousness; and this he does so far as he acts towards the neighbor from a love of what is righteous and true; and righteousness has its abode in the good itself or use itself which he performs. For the Lord says that every tree is known by its fruit. Does not everyone know another from his works, if he attends to them with reference to the end and purpose of his will, and the intention and reason from which they are done? To these things all angels direct their attention, as well as all in our own world who are wise. In general, every product and growth from the earth is known by its flower and seed and by its use; every metal by its excellence; every stone by its character; every field, every kind of food, every beast of the earth, and every bird of the air, each by its quality - and why not man?

(from True Christian Religion 96)

The Universal Principle of Faith

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

— THE FAITH OF THE NEW HEAVEN AND OF THE NEW CHURCH IN ITS UNIVERSAL FORM —

The Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, came into the world to subjugate the hells and to glorify His Human; and without this no mortal could have been saved; and those are saved who believe in Him.

This is called the faith in its universal form, because this is the universal principle of faith; and the universal principle of faith must be in each thing and in all things of it.

• It is a universal principle of faith that God is one in essence and in person, in whom is a Divine trinity, and that He is the Lord God the Savior Jesus Christ.
  
  
• It is a universal principle of faith that no mortal could have been saved unless the Lord had come into the world.
  
  
• It is a universal principle of faith that He came into the world to remove hell from man, and that He did remove it by means of contests with it and victories over it, and thereby He subdued it and reduced it to order and made it obedient to Himself.
  
  
• It is a universal principle of faith that He came into the world to glorify His Human which He took on in the world, that is, to unite it with the Divine from which [are all things], and thereby He eternally holds hell in order and under obedience to Himself. As this could be accomplished only by means of temptations admitted into His Human, even to the last of them, which was the passion of the cross, He endured even that.

These are the universal principles of faith relating to the Lord.

The universal principle of faith on man's part is that he should believe in the Lord; for by believing in Him there is conjunction with Him and thereby salvation. To believe in the Lord is to have confidence that He saves; and as only those who live rightly can have this confidence, this, too, is meant by believing in Him. And this the Lord teaches in John:

This is the Father's will, that everyone that believeth in the Son may have eternal life (John 6:40)

and again:

He that believeth in the Son hath eternal life; but he that believeth not in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him (John 3:36).

— THE FAITH OF THE NEW HEAVEN AND OF THE NEW CHURCH IN A PARTICULAR FORM —

Jehovah God is love itself and wisdom itself, or is good itself and truth itself; and in respect to Divine truth, which is the Word, and which was God with God, He came down and took on the Human for the purpose of reducing to order all things that were in heaven, and all things in hell, and all things in the church; because at that time the power of hell prevailed over the power of heaven, and upon the earth the power of evil over the power of good, and in consequence a total damnation stood threatening at the door. This impending damnation Jehovah God removed by means of His Human, which was Divine truth, and thus He redeemed angels and men, and thereupon He united, in His Human, Divine truth with Divine good or Divine wisdom with Divine love; and so, with and in His glorified Human, He returned into His Divine in which He was from eternity. All this is meant by these words in John:

The Word was with God, and God was the Word. And the Word became flesh (1:1, 14)

and in the same:

I came out from the Father and am come into the world; again I leave the world and go unto the Father (16:28)

and also by these words:

We know that the Son of God is come, and has given us understanding that we may know the True; and we are in the True, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and life eternal (1 John 5:20).

From these words it is clear that without the Lord's coming into the world no one could have been saved. It is the same today; and therefore without the Lord's coming again into the world in Divine truth, which is the Word, no one can be saved.

— THE PARTICULARS OF FAITH ON MAN'S PART —

(1) God is one, in whom is a Divine trinity, and the Lord God the Savior Jesus Christ is that one.

(2) Saving faith is to believe in Him.

(3) Evils should not be done, because they are of the devil and from the devil.

(4) Goods should be done, because they are of God and from God.

(5) These should be done by man as if by himself; but it should be believed that they are done by the Lord in man and through man.

The first two are matters of faith, the next two of charity, and the fifth of the conjunction of charity and faith, thus of the conjunction of the Lord and man.

(True Christian Religion 2-3)

Lip-confession is Not Repentance

Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Among the many reasons why the mere lip-confession of being a sinner is not repentance, is this, that everyone, an impious man or even a devil, may make that declaration, and this with external devotion, when he thinks of the torments of hell, either those present or impending. But who does not see that this is not from any internal devotion, consequently that it is imaginary and therefore a matter of the lungs, and not a matter of the will from within, and thus of the heart? For an impious man and a devil still burn inwardly with the lusts of the love of doing evil, by which they are moved like windmills given by strong winds; therefore such a declaration is nothing but a contrivance to cheat God for the sake of deliverance or to deceive the simple. For what is easier than to compel the lips to cry out, and the breath of the mouth to adapt itself thereto, to turn up the eyes and raise the hands? This is the same as what the Lord says in Mark:

Well hath Isaiah prophesied of you, hypocrites, This people honoreth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me (7:6)

and in Matthew:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees! for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and the platter, but within they are full with extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter that the outside may be clean also (23:25, 26; and more in the same chapter).

In a like hypocritical worship are those who have confirmed in themselves the faith of the present church, that the Lord by the passion of the cross took away all the sins of the world, meaning thereby the sins of every man, if only they pray according to the formularies about propitiation and mediation. Some of them can pour forth from the pulpit, with loud voices and apparently burning zeal, many holy utterances about repentance and charity, while they deem both of these useless in respect to salvation; for by repentance they mean no other than lip-confession, and by charity that charity only that pertains to public life; but this they do to please the people. It is such who are meant by these words of the Lord:

Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied by Thy name? and in Thy name done many mighty works? But then will I profess unto them, I know you not; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity (Matt. 7:22, 23).

In the spiritual world I once heard a man praying after this manner: "I am full of sores, leprous, unclean from my mother's womb; there is not a sound spot in me from my head to the sole of my foot; I am not worthy to raise my eyes towards God; I am deserving of death and eternal damnation; have mercy upon me for the sake of Thy Son; purify me in His blood; on Thy good pleasure depends the salvation of all; I implore mercy."

Hearing him pray thus, the bystanders asked, "How do you know that you are such?"

He replied, "I know it because I have heard so."

But he was then sent to angelic examiners, before whom he spoke in the same way; and these, after examination, reported that he had spoken the truth about himself, and yet without knowing a single evil in himself, because he had never examined himself, but had believed that after lip-confession evils were no longer evils in the sight of God, both because God turns His eyes away from them, and because He has been propitiated. In consequence of this he had not come to a sense of any evil, although he was a willful adulterer, a thief, a wily detractor, and intensely revengeful; such he was in heart and will, and therefore would be such in word and deed did not the fear of the law and of the loss of reputation restrain him. After he was found to be such, he was judged and sent away to the hypocrites in hell.

The character of such may be illustrated by comparisons:

They are like temples where only the spirits of the dragon, and those who are meant by "locusts" in the Apocalypse, are congregated; and they are like the pulpits therein, where the Word is not because it is put beneath the feet.

They are like plastered walls with the plaster beautifully colored, but within them when the windows are opened, owls and direful night birds are flying about.

They are like whitened sepulchres which contain dead men's bones.

They are like coins made of the dregs of oil or of dried dung covered with gold.

They are like the bark and wood fiber covering rotten wood

Like the garments of Aaron's sons about a leprous body

Like ulcers containing pus covered over with a thin skin, and supposed to be healed.

Who does not know that a holy external and a profane internal do not accord? Such also are more afraid than others to examine themselves; therefore they are no more sensible of the viciousness within them, than they are of the pungent and ill-smelling substances in their stomachs and bowels before they are cast out into the draught.

But it must be remembered that those here spoken of are not to be confounded with those who do well and believe rightly, nor with those who repent of some sins, and when worshiping, and still more when in spiritual temptation, speak within themselves or pray from a like oral confession; for such a general confession both precedes and follows reformation and regeneration.

(True Christian Religion 517-519)