This publication is for fostering a movement towards a true Christian religion.
A true Christian religion has three primary components: 1) an acknowledgement of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior and as the one God of heaven and earth, 2) an affirmative attitude towards the Word of the Lord (contained in what is known as the Old and New Testaments) and the Heavenly Doctrines (authored by the Lord through the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg), and 3) a life according the Ten Commandments and faithful to the Lord’s leading through the His Word and the Heavenly Doctrines.
Three essentials
There are three essentials of the church, an acknowledgment of the Divine of the Lord, an acknowledgment of the holiness of the Word, and the life that is called charity. According to the life which is charity is every one’s faith; from the Word comes the knowledge of what the life must be, and from the Lord are reformation and salvation. If the church had held these three as essentials it would not have been divided, but only varied, by intellectual dissensions, as light varies the color in beautiful objects, and as various circlets give beauty in the crown of a king.
Divine Providence 259, Ager
An Acknowledgement of the Lord
Jesus says to him, I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.
Philip says to Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.
Jesus says to him, Am I with thee so much time, and hast thou not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. . . .
John 14:6-9
And Jesus coming spoke to them, saying, All authority is given to Me in heaven and on earth. Going forth, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all things whatever I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all the days, even to the consummation of the age. Amen.
Matthew 28:18-20
True faith is the one only faith, which is a faith in the Lord God the Savior Jesus Christ and this is held by those who believe Him to be the Son of God, the God of heaven and earth, and one with the Father. True faith is the one only faith, because faith is truth, and truth cannot be broken or cut into fragments, with one part tending to the left and another to the right, and the truth of it still remain.
True Christian Religion 379, Ager
An Affirmative Attitude to the Word and the Heavenly Doctrines
[Jesus said], [T]he sayings which I speak to you are spirit, and are life
John 6:63
Then Simon Peter answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the sayings of eternal life. And we have come to believe and know that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
John 6:68, 69
That the Lord manifested Himself before me, His servant, and sent me to this office, that He afterward opened the eyes of my spirit and thus introduced me into the spiritual world and granted me to see the heavens and the hells, and to talk with angels and spirits, and this now continuously for several years, I affirm in truth; as also that from the first day of that call I have not received anything whatever pertaining to the doctrines of that church from any angel, but from the Lord alone while I have read the Word.
True Christian Religion, 779, Ager
There are therefore two principles; one of which leads to all folly and insanity, and the other to all intelligence and wisdom. The former principle is to deny all things, or to say in the heart that we cannot believe them until we are convinced by what we can apprehend, or perceive by the senses; this is the principle that leads to all folly and insanity, and is to be called the negative principle. The other principle is to affirm the things which are of doctrine from the Word, or to think and believe within ourselves that they are true because the Lord has said them: this is the principle that leads to all intelligence and wisdom, and is to be called the affirmative principle.
Arcana Caelestia 2568, Potts
Life According to the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Word
And behold, one coming said to Him, Good Teacher, what good shall I do that I may have eternal life?
And He said to him, Why callest thou Me good? None is good except One, God; but if thou willest to enter into the life, keep the commandments.
He says to Him, Which?
And Jesus said, This, that thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, honor thy father and mother; and, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Matthew 19:16-19
And God spoke all these words, saying, I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of servitude.
Thou shalt have no other gods before My faces.
Thou shalt not make to thee a carved image, nor any figure of what is in the heavens above, or what is in the earth beneath, or what is in the waters beneath the earth.
Thou shalt not bow· thyself ·down to them, nor serve them; for I, Jehovah thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the sons, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate Me; and doing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain; for Jehovah will not hold· him ·innocent who takes His name in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou serve, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God; thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son nor thy daughter, thy manservant nor thy maidservant, nor thy beast, nor thy sojourner who is in thy gates; for in six days Jehovah made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be prolonged upon the ground that Jehovah thy God is giving to thee.
Thou shalt not murder.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not answer against thy neighbor as a false witness.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.
Exodus 20:1-17
And I saw, and behold a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him a hundred forty-four thousand, having His Father’s name written on their foreheads. . . . [T]hese are they who follow the Lamb wherever He goes; these were bought from men, the first fruits to God and the Lamb.
Revelation 14:1, 4,
And behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to render to each according as his work shall be.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.
Happy are they who do His commandments, that their authority may be in the tree of life, and that they may come into the gates into the city. But outside are dogs, and sorcerers, and harlot-mongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and all that love and do a lie.
I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches; I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright and morning Star.
Revelation 22:12-16
Every religion is a way of life, because everyone after death continues his life, and his life remains the same as the life he had led in the world and does not change. For an evil life cannot be turned into a good one, nor a good one into an evil one, because they are antithetical, and conversion into an antithesis means extinction. So then, because they are antithetical, a good life is called life, and an evil life is called death. It follows, therefore, that religion is a way of life, and that its life is the doing of good.
Doctrine of Life 8, Rogers
[I]nsofar as a person refrains from evils, so far he is in the Lord’s presence and in the Lord, and that insofar as he is in the Lord, so far he does good, not of himself, but from the Lord.
This results, then, in the general law, that insofar as someone refrains from evils, so far he does good.
Doctrine of Life 22, Rogers