February 23, 2019

REGENERATION (pt. 6)

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine
Emanuel Swedenborg
Doctrinal Series
REGENERATION
(pt. 6)



No man can be regenerated unless he knows such things as are of the new life, that is, of spiritual life. ... These he must learn from revelation.

As that:
• the Lord, who is God from eternity, came into the world to save the human race;
• He has all power in heaven and in earth;
• the all of faith and the all of charity, thus all truth and good, is from Him; that there is a heaven, and a hell;
• man is to live to eternity, in heaven if he has done well, in hell if he has done evil.
These and many other things belong to faith, which the man who is regenerating ought to know; for he who knows them, may think them, afterwards will them, and lastly do them, and so have new life. Whilst he who does not know that the Lord is the Savior of the human race, cannot have faith in Him, love Him, and thus do good for the sake of Him. He who does not know that all good is from Him, cannot think that his own salvation is from Him, still less can he will it to be so, thus he cannot live from Him. He who does not know that there is a hell and a heaven, nor that there is eternal life, cannot even think about the life of heaven, nor apply himself to receive it, and so in other cases.
(from The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 177, 178)

February 22, 2019

REGENERATION (pt. 5)

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine
Emanuel Swedenborg
Doctrinal Series
REGENERATION
(pt. 5)



No man can be regenerated unless he knows such things as are of the new life, that is, of spiritual life. The things which are of the new life, or which are of the spiritual life, are truths which are to be believed and goods which are to be done; the former are of faith, the latter of charity. These things no one can know from himself, for man apprehends only those things which are obvious to the senses, from which he procures to himself a light which is called natural light, from which he sees nothing else than what relates to the world and to self, but not the things which relate to heaven and to God. These he must learn from revelation.

As that:
• the Lord, who is God from eternity, came into the world to save the human race;
• He has all power in heaven and in earth;
• the all of faith and the all of charity, thus all truth and good, is from Him; that there is a heaven, and a hell;
• man is to live to eternity, in heaven if he has done well, in hell if he has done evil.
(The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 177)

February 21, 2019

REGENERATION (pt. 4)

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine
Emanuel Swedenborg
Doctrinal Series
REGENERATION
(pt. 4)



Man continually inclines to, and lapses into, what he derives from heredity: hence he confirms with himself that evil, and also superadds more from himself. These evils are altogether contrary to spiritual life; they destroy it; wherefore, unless man receives new life, which is spiritual life, from the Lord, thus unless he is conceived anew, is born anew, is educated anew, that is, is created anew, he is damned; for he wills nothing else, and thence thinks nothing else, but what is of self and the world, in like manner as they do in hell.
(The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 176)

February 20, 2019

REGENERATION (pt. 3)

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine
Emanuel Swedenborg
Doctrinal Series
REGENERATION
(pt. 3)



Every man is born of his parents into the evils of the love of self and of the world. Every evil, which by habit has acquired as it were a nature, is derived into the offspring; thus it descends successively from parents, from grandfathers, and from great-grandfathers, in a long series backwards; whence the derivation of evil at length becomes so great, that the whole of man's own life is nothing else but evil. This continual derivation of evil is not broken and altered, except by the life of faith and charity from the Lord.
(The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 175)

February 19, 2019

REGENERATION (pt. 2)

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine
Emanuel Swedenborg
Doctrinal Series
REGENERATION
(pt. 2)



Man is not born of his parents into spiritual life, but into natural life. Spiritual life consists in loving God above all things, and in loving his neighbor as himself, and this according to the precepts of faith, which the Lord has taught in the Word. But natural life consists in loving ourselves and the world more than the neighbor, yea, more than God Himself.
(The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 174)

February 18, 2019

REGENERATION (pt. 1)

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine
Emanuel Swedenborg
Doctrinal Series
REGENERATION
(pt. 1)

He who does not receive spiritual life, that is, who is not begotten anew by the Lord, cannot come into heaven; which the Lord teaches in John:
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except anyone be begotten again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. (3:3)
(The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 173)

February 17, 2019

REPENTANCE AND THE REMISSION OF SINS (pt. 9)

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine
Emanuel Swedenborg
Doctrinal Series
REPENTANCE AND THE REMISSION OF SINS
(pt. 9)

After a man has explored himself, and acknowledged his sins, and has done the work of repentance, he must remain constant in good even to the end of life. For if he afterwards relapses into his former life of evil and embraces it, he then profanes, for he then conjoins evil with good; whence his latter state becomes worse than his former, according to the words of the Lord:
When the unclean spirit goes out from a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest, but doth not find; then he saith, I will return into my house whence I went out; and when he cometh and findeth it empty, and swept, and adorned for him, then he goeth away, and adjoineth to himself seven other spirits worse than himself, and, entering in, they dwell there, and the latter things of the man become worse than the first (Matt. 12:43-45).
(The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 169)