Repentance from Sins — The Pathway to Heaven

Selection from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The Lord cannot rid us of the evils in our outer nature without our help. In all Christian churches the accepted teaching is that before we come to take Holy Communion we should examine ourselves, see and admit our sins, and repent by refraining from them and rejecting them because they come from the devil. Otherwise our sins are not forgiven, and we are damned.

Even though the English accept a theology of faith alone, in the prayer before Holy Communion they explicitly enjoin self-examination, acknowledgment, confession of sins, repentance, and taking up a new life. They threaten people who do not do so by saying that the devil will enter into them as he entered into Judas and fill them with all iniquity, destroying both body and soul. The Germans, Swedes, and Danes, who also accept a theology of faith alone, teach much the same in their prayer before Holy Communion, adding the threat that otherwise we will render ourselves liable to the punishments of hell and eternal damnation because of this mixture of the sacred and the profane. The priest reads these words with a loud voice to the people who come to Holy Communion, and the people hear them with a full recognition of their truth.

However, when these same people hear a sermon about faith alone on the very same day, when they hear that the law does not condemn them because the Lord has fulfilled it for them, that on their own they cannot do anything good without claiming credit for it, and that therefore their deeds contribute nothing whatever to their salvation and only their faith does, then they go home totally oblivious to their earlier confession. In fact, they dismiss it to the extent that they are thinking about this sermon on faith alone.

So which is true, the first or the second? Two mutually contradictory statements cannot both be true. For example, • one option is that there is no forgiveness of sins and therefore no salvation, only eternal damnation, unless we examine and identify and recognize and confess and reject our sins--unless we repent. • The other option is that things like this contribute nothing to our salvation, because by suffering on the cross the Lord has made full satisfaction for people who have faith; and if we only have faith--a trust that this is true--and are sure that the Lord's merit has been credited to our accounts, then we are sinless and appear before God with faces washed gleaming-clean. We can see, then, that all Christian churches share the basic conviction that we need to examine ourselves, see and admit our sins, and then refrain from them; and that otherwise we face not salvation but damnation.

We can see that this is also divine truth itself in passages in the Word where we are commanded to repent, passages like these:

• John said, "Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. Right now, the axe is lying at the root of the tree. Every tree that does not bring forth good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." (Luke 3:8-9)

• Jesus said, "Unless you repent, you will all be destroyed." (Luke 13:3, 5)

• Jesus proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God: "Repent, and believe the good news." (Mark 1:14-15)

• Jesus sent out his disciples who preached repentance as they went forth. (Mark 6:12)

• Jesus told the apostles that they were to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all nations. (Luke 24:47)

• John preached the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3)

Think about this, then, with some clarity of mind and if you are religious you will see that repentance from sins is the pathway to heaven. You will see that faith apart from repentance is not really faith and that people who are without faith because they are without repentance are on the road to hell.

There are people who accept a faith separate from charity and who justify themselves by what Paul says to the Romans:

"We are justified by faith apart from works of the Law" (Romans 3:28).

They worship this statement like people who worship the sun; and they become like people who stare so constantly at the sun that their eyesight becomes dull and incapable of seeing things in normal light. They do not see what "works of the Law" means here--not the Ten Commandments, but the rituals described by Moses in his books, everywhere referred to as "the Law."

To keep us from thinking that it means the Ten Commandments, Paul goes on to explain

"Then do we abolish the Law by faith? Far from it, we strengthen the Law" (Romans 3:31)

If we convince ourselves of faith alone on the basis of this statement, then by staring at this passage like the sun we blind ourselves to places where Paul lists the laws of faith and says that they are in fact deeds of charity. After all, what is faith apart from its laws? We blind ourselves to the places where he lists evil deeds, saying that people who do them cannot enter heaven.

We can see from this what blindness comes from a misunderstanding of this one passage.

The reason the evils in our outer self cannot be expelled without our cooperation is this — One of the principles of the Lord's divine providence is that whatever we hear, see, think, intend, say, and do seems to belong to us completely. If it did not seem like this, we would not be able to accept divine truth, decide to do good, or internalize love and wisdom. We would have no charity and faith and therefore no union with the Lord, no reformation and regeneration, and no salvation.

It is obvious that if it did not seem like this there would be no possibility of repentance from our sins and in fact no faith whatever, and that if it did not seem like this we would not be human but would be devoid of any rational life, like animals. Submit the matter to reason, if you will. Does it not seem exactly as though we ourselves think about what is good and true in spiritual, civic, and moral matters? Then accept the theological principle that everything good and true comes from the Lord and nothing from us. Can we not recognize the conclusion that we should do what is good and think what is true as though we were autonomous, but that we should still admit that these actions are being done by the Lord? Particularly, can you not see that we are to expel evils in apparent autonomy but still admit that the source of our doing this is the Lord?

There are a great many people who do not know that they are involved in evil because they do not do evil things outwardly. They are afraid of civil laws and of losing their reputations, so by habitual practice they have trained themselves to avoid evil deeds as harmful both to their reputations and to their purses. However, if they do not avoid evil deeds on religious grounds, because they are sins and are in conflict with God, then the cravings for evils and their pleasures are still there within them like foul water that is dammed up and stagnant. They might examine their thoughts and intentions and discover these compulsions if they only knew what sins were.

A great many people who have settled on faith divorced from charity are like this. Since they believe that the law does not condemn them, they pay no attention to sins. They even doubt whether there are such things as sins. If there are, they are not sins in God's sight, because they have been pardoned.

Natural moralists are like this as well — people who believe that everything depends on our civic and moral life and its vigilance and nothing on divine providence. People are like this too who take great care to cultivate a reputation and a name for decency and honesty for the sake of position or profit. After death, though, people like this who have had no use for religion become spirits that embody their compulsions. They look absolutely human to themselves, but from a distance they look like images of Priapus * to others. They see everything in darkness and nothing in light, like owls.

(from Divine Providence 114-117)

* priapus - In Greek mythology, Priapus is a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia.

Infernal Freedom vs Heavenly Freedom

Selection from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The more nearly a man is conjoined with the Lord the more distinctly does he seem to himself as if he were his own, and the more clearly does he recognize that he is the Lord's.

There is an appearance that the more nearly one is conjoined with the Lord the less he is his own. It so appears to all who are evil; and it so appears also to those who believe from their religion that they are not under the yoke of the law, and that no one can do good from himself. For all such are unable to see otherwise than that not to be one's own means not to be allowed to think and will evil, but only good; and as those who are conjoined with the Lord are neither willing nor able to think and will evil, all such conclude from the appearance to themselves, that this is not to be one's own. This, however, is the exact opposite of the truth.

There is infernal freedom and there is heavenly freedom. To think and will evil, and to speak and do it so far as civil and moral laws do not hinder, is from infernal freedom. But to think and will good, and to speak and do it so far as opportunity is granted, is from heavenly freedom. Whatever a man thinks, wills, speaks, and does from freedom seems to him to be his own; for every one's freedom is wholly from his love. For this reason, those who are in a love of evil have no other perception than that infernal freedom is freedom itself; while those who are in a love of good perceive that heavenly freedom is freedom itself, and consequently its opposite is slavery both to the good and to the evil. Yet every one must confess that either the one or the other of these is freedom — for there cannot be two kinds of freedom, in themselves opposite and each freedom in itself. Furthermore, every one must confess that to be led by good is freedom, and to be led by evil is slavery; because to be led by good is to be led by the Lord, and to be led by evil is to be led by the devil. Since, then, everything that a man does from freedom appears to him to be his own, for it is of his love, and to act from one's love is to act from freedom, as has been said above, so it follows that it is conjunction with the Lord that makes a man seem to himself to be free and therefore his own; and the nearer the conjunction with the Lord is the more free he seems, and thus the more his own. He appears to himself more distinctly as if he were his own, because the Divine love is such that it wills its own to be another's, thus to be the man's or the angel's. Such is all spiritual love, and pre-eminently the Divine love. Moreover, the Lord in no case compels any one; for anything to which one is compelled does not appear to be his own; and what does not appear to be one's own cannot come to be of his love, and thus be appropriated to him as his. Therefore man is led by the Lord continually in freedom and is also reformed and regenerated in freedom.

The more distinctly a man appears to himself to be as if he were his own the more clearly he recognizes that he is the Lord's, because the more nearly he is conjoined with the Lord the wiser he becomes; this truth wisdom teaches and recognizes; and the angels of the third heaven, because they are the wisest of the angels, also perceive it and call it freedom itself; but to be led by themselves they call slavery. And this, they say, is the reason: that the Lord does not flow immediately into what belongs to their perception and thought from wisdom, but into their affections of love for good, and through these into the former; that they have a perception of the influx in the affection from which they have wisdom; and that then all that they think from wisdom appears to be as if from themselves, and therefore as if it were their own; and that by this a reciprocal conjunction is established.

As the end of the Lord's Divine providence is a heaven from the human race, it follows that its end is the conjunction of the human race with Himself; also that its end is for man to be more and more nearly conjoined with Him , for thus man possesses heaven more interiorly; also that its end is for man by that conjunction to become wiser; also to become happier, because it is from wisdom and according to it that man has heaven, and by means of it also has happiness; and finally, that its end is for man to appear to himself more distinctly to be his own, and yet to recognize more clearly that he is the Lord's. All these things are of the Lord's Divine providence; for they all are heaven, which it has for its end.

(from Divine Providence 42-45)

The Happinesses of Heaven vs. Those of Hell

Selection from Divine Providence ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The more nearly a man is conjoined with the Lord the happier he becomes.

About the degrees of happiness the same may be said as was seen in yesterday's article, about the degrees of life and of wisdom in the measure of conjunction with the Lord. For happiness, that is, beatitudes and pleasures, are exalted as the higher degrees of the mind, which are called spiritual and celestial, are opened in man; and after his life in the world these degrees are enlarged to eternity.

No one who is in the pleasures of the lusts of evil can know anything about the pleasures of affections for good in which the angelic heaven is; for these two kinds of pleasure are directly opposite to each other in internals, and therefore interiorly are opposite in externals; although they differ little on the mere surface. For every love has its own pleasures, even the love of evil in those who are in lusts, such as the love of committing adultery, taking revenge, defrauding, stealing, doing cruel deeds, and in the most wicked even the love of blaspheming the holy things of the church, and of chattering venomously against God.The love of ruling from love of self is the fountain head of these pleasures. They are from the lusts that beset the interiors of the mind; and from the interiors they flow down into the body, and there excite the unclean things that titillate the fibers; and thus bodily pleasure springs from the mind's pleasure in accord with the lusts.

What kinds of unclean things there are that titillate the bodily fibers of such persons it is granted to every one after death to know in the spiritual world. They are in general cadaverous, excrementitious, stercoraceous, reeking, and urinous things, for the hells of such abound in these unclean things. That these are correspondences can be seen in the work on The Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom (n. 422-424). But after they have entered hell these filthy pleasures are turned into direful things. All this has been said that it may be understood what the happiness of heaven is, and the nature of it, which will now be considered. For every thing is known from its opposite.

The joys, satisfactions, pleasures, and delights, in a word, the happinesses of heaven, cannot be described in words, although in heaven they are perceptible to the feeling; for what is perceptible to the feeling only cannot be described, because it does not fall into ideas of thought, and thus not into words; for it is the understanding alone that sees; and it sees the things that pertain to wisdom or truth, and not the things that pertain to love or good. For this reason these happinesses are inexpressible; nevertheless they are exalted in a like degree with wisdom. Their varieties are infinite, and each is ineffable. This I have heard and perceived.

And yet these happinesses enter as man puts away the lusts of love of evil and falsity as if of himself, although from the Lord; for these happinesses are the happinesses of the affections for good and truth, and are the opposites of the lusts of the love of evil and falsity. The happinesses of affections of the love of good and truth begin from the Lord, thus from the inmost; and they pour themselves forth therefrom into lower things even to the lowest, and thus fill the angel, making him to be as it were wholly a delight. Such happinesses in infinite variety are in every affection for good and truth, especially in an affection for wisdom.

The pleasures of the lusts for evil and the pleasures of affections for good cannot be compared; because the devil is inwardly in the pleasures of lusts for evil, and the Lord is inwardly in the pleasures of affections for good. If a comparison must be made, the pleasures of lusts for evil can only be compared to the lewd pleasures of frogs in ponds, or of snakes in putrid places; while the pleasures of affections for good may be compared to the delights of the mind in gardens and flower-beds. For the same things that affect frogs and snakes affect those in the hells who are in the lusts for evil; and the same things that affect the mind in gardens and flower-beds affect those in the heavens who are in affections for good; for, as has been said above, corresponding unclean things affect the evil, and corresponding clean things affect the good.

From all this it can be seen that the more nearly any one is conjoined with the Lord the happier he becomes. But this happiness is rarely manifest in the world; for man is then in a natural state, and the natural does not communicate with the spiritual by continuity but by correspondences; and this communication is felt only in a certain quiet and peace of mind, that especially follows combats against evils. But when man puts off the natural state and enters the spiritual state, which he does after his departure from the world, the happiness described above gradually manifests itself.

(Divine Providence 37-41)