The Universal Theology of the New Heaven
​ and of the New Church

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In Swedenborg's True Christian Religion 1 - 5 we learn about faith and the Universal Theology of the New Heaven and of the New Church:

THE FAITH OF THE NEW HEAVEN AND OF THE NEW CHURCH 
 1. This faith is first set forth in a universal and in a particular form, that it may serve as a preface set before the work that follows, also as a gate giving entrance to a temple, and as a summary, containing in their own mode the particulars that succeed. It is called the faith of the New Heaven and of the New Church because heaven which is the abode of angels, and the church which is made up of men, act as a one, like the internal and the external man; consequently the man of the church who is in the good of love from the truths of faith and in the truths of faith from the good of love, is, in respect to the interiors of his mind, an angel of heaven; and being such he after death enters heaven and there enjoys happiness in proportion to the state of conjunction of his love and faith. Let it be known that in the New Heaven, which the Lord is now establishing, this faith is its preface, gate, and summary. 

2. THE FAITH OF THE NEW HEAVEN AND OF THE NEW CHURCH IN ITS UNIVERSAL FORM is as follows:

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. 

[2] 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. 

[3] 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). 
 
3. THE FAITH OF THE NEW HEAVEN AND OF THE NEW CHURCH IN A PARTICULAR FORM is as follows:

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. 

[2] THE PARTICULARS OF FAITH ON MAN'S PART are:
(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 against God. 
(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. 

CONCERNING GOD THE CREATOR. 

4. Since the Lord's time the Christian Church has passed through the several stages from infancy to extreme old age. Its infancy was in the lifetime of the apostles, when they preached throughout the world repentance and faith in the Lord God the Savior. That this is what they preached is evident from these words in the Acts of the Apostles:

Paul testified, both to the Jews and to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:21). 

It is a noteworthy fact that some months ago the Lord called together His twelve disciples, now angels, and sent them forth throughout the spiritual world, with the command to preach the gospel there anew, since the church that was established by the Lord through them has at this day become so far consummated that scarcely a remnant of it survives; and this has come to pass, because the Divine trinity has been divided into three persons, each one of whom is God and Lord. [2] Because of this a sort of frenzy has invaded not only all theology, but also the church that from the Lord's name is called- Christian. It is called a frenzy because men's minds have been made so demented by it as not to know whether there is one God or three. On the lips there is one God; but in the thought of the mind there are three; consequently the mind and lips, that is, the thought and speech, are at variance; and the result of this variance is that there is no God at all. The naturalism that prevails at this day is from no other source. Consider, if you will, with the lips speaking of one and the mind thinking of three, whether one of these statements does not, when they meet within, cancel the other. Consequently when a man thinks about God, if he thinks at all it is nothing more than thought from the mere name God, unaccompanied by any sense of the meaning of the name that involves any knowledge of God. [3] The idea of God, with all conception of Him, having been thus rent asunder, it is my purpose to treat, in their order, of God the Creator, of the Lord the Redeemer, and of the Holy Spirit the Operator, and lastly of the Divine trinity, to the end that what has been rent asunder may be again made whole; which is done when the reason of man is convinced by the Word and by light therefrom that there is a Divine trinity, and that the trinity is in the Lord God the Savior Jesus Christ, like the soul, the body, and what goes forth from these, in man; and that thus this article in the Athanasian Creed is true:
  
In Christ God and man, or the Divine and the Human, are not two, but are in one person; and as the rational soul and the flesh are one man, so God and man are one Christ. 

THE UNITY OF GOD. 

 5. As the acknowledgment of God from a knowledge of God is the very essence and soul of the entire contents of theology, it is necessary that the unity of God should be the first thing treated of. This shall be set forth in order in the following sections:
(1) The entire Holy Scripture, and the doctrines therefrom of the churches in the Christian world, teach that God is one. 

(2) There is a universal influx [from God] into the souls of men of the truth that there is a God, and that He is one. 

(3) For this reason there is in all the world no nation possessing religion and sound reason that does not acknowledge a God, and that God is one. 

(4) Respecting what the one God is, nations and peoples have differed and still differ, from many causes. 

(5) Human reason can, if it will, perceive and be convinced, from many things in the world, that there is a God, and that He is one. 

(6) If God were not one, the universe could not have been created and preserved. 

(7) Whoever does not acknowledge a God is excommunicated from the church and condemned. 

(8) With the man who acknowledges several Gods instead of one, there is no coherence in the things relating to the church. These propositions shall be unfolded one by one. 

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