Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church

“The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church in Universal form, is this: That the Lord from the eternal, who is Jehovah, came into the world in order that He might subjugate the hells, and glorify His Human: and that apart from this no one of mortals could have been saved; and that they are saved who believe in Him.” (T.C.R. 2.)

We are taught that the Word consists of the celestial sense, the spiritual sense, and the natural sense which is the sense of the letter.

The celestial sense treats of the Lord and His Glorification, the spirituual sense, of the regeneration of man and of the Lord’s Kingdom, the natural sense, of the reformation of the natural man.In the Third Testament in its literal sense, all these subjects are treated of. This appears like a paradox. We read: “There are in Heaven and in this world a successive order and a simultaneous order. In successive order one thing follows another from highest to lowest; but In simultaneous order one thing is next another from inmost to outmost. Successive order is like a column with successive parts from top to bottom; but simultaneous order is like a connected structure with successive circumferences from center to surface. It shall now be told how in the ultimate successive order becomes simultaneous order. It is in this way: The highest things of successive order become the inmost things of simultaneous order, and the lowest things of successive order become the outmost ones of simultaneous order. Comparatively speaking it is as if a column of successive parts were to sink down and become a connected body in a plane… Apply this to the Word. The celestial, the spiritual, and the natural proceed from the Lord in successive order, and in the ultimate are in simultaneous order; thus now the celestial and spiritual sense of the Word are simultaneous in its natural sense.” (Sacred Scripture 38)

The Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church, concerning the Lord, as first taken up, is the celestial sense in the natural or literal sense of the Word.

It is only as by regeneration man’s mind is opened to the spiritual or celestial degree, that one is in the spiritual or celestial sense proper.

When we first read the Faith of the New Heaven and the New Church concerning the Lord we see it as something outside of ourselves, something which took place two thousand years ago, by which we are in danger of thinking that we are saved by what the Lord did when in the world apart from the Lord’s particular redemption of us….

Read full sermon by Rev. Theodore Pitcairn