Also known as The New Church
or The Church of New Jerusalem, Swedenborgianism has been around since the late
eighteenth century. This new religious movement developed around the writings
of the scientist and Swedish Lutheran theologian Emanuel Swedenborg.
Swedenborg was an
exceptional scientist writing over thirty scientific papers, but he decided to
leave his profession to write and speak on spiritual matters. He became
convinced that he was to bring about a revival of Christianity, so he spent the
last twenty-five years of his life in this pursuit.
Like numerous founders of
new religious movements, Swedenborg declared himself called of God to restore
apostate Christianity. However, his account of being ‘chosen’ is a cause for concern:
I
went to my room, but that night the same man revealed himself to me again. I
was not frightened then. He said that He was the Lord God, the Creator and
Redeemer of the world, and that He had chosen me to declare to men the
spiritual contents of Scripture; and that He Himself would declare to me what I
should write on this subject. Then, on the same night, the world of spirits,
hell, and heaven were opened to me with full conviction. I recognised there
many acquaintances of every condition in life. And from that day on I gave up
all practice of worldly letters and devoted my labour to spiritual things. I
have written entire pages and the spirits did not dictate the words, but
absolutely guided my hand, so it was they who were doing the writing… as flowed
from God Messiah…[1]
These ‘spirits’ led
Swedenborg to completely redefine historic Christianity. He began to offer new
interpretations of previously held biblical truths, as well as adding
extra-biblical revelations – hence he gave rise to what became known as The New
Church.
Our concern, in this
article, is what Swedenborg taught about the person and work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. How does the New Church answer
Jesus’ question to his disciples: Who
do you say that I am?
The New Church and Jesus.
The New Church teaches that
there is one God and Jesus is God. If we stopped there, we may
conclude that they are orthodox in this teaching but, upon closer inspection,
we discover they are not.
The Lord Jesus Christ is
the one God of heaven and earth — the all-powerful Creator and Provider, and
the approachable, loving, personal God who reaches out to all of us. The Father
is the Soul, the Son is the Body, and the Holy Spirit is the Activity of the
One Divine Person.[2]
In denying the orthodox view
of the Trinity, the New Church offers something quite different. Jesus, they
claim, was the soul of the Father; this soul took on a body to become the Son
and all he said and did, his activity, was the Holy Spirit. They define this as
a trinity of aspects - soul, body, and influence. This is far from the historic
doctrine of the Trinity.
James White[3]
helpfully defines the biblical view of the trinity in this way:
1) There is one and only one God,
eternal, immutable.
2) There are three eternal Persons
described in Scripture – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. These Persons are
never identified with one another – that is, they are carefully differentiated
as Persons.
3) The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are identified as being fully deity—that is, the Bible teaches the Deity of Christ and the Deity of the Holy Spirit. (John 1:1; John 20:28; Isaiah 9:6; Titus 2:13; Colossian 2:9; 1 Corinthians 2:11; Hebrews 9:14; Acts 5:3-4).
The New Church teaches that
Jesus is only one of numerous avatars.
They claim that God has
appeared on earth in other religions, for example Rama and Krishna in Hinduism.
Jesus is only simply the Christian incarnation. Therefore, God has, and does,
reveal himself through other religions and so all religions can lead to
salvation. But this is not what Jesus said or what the bible teaches:
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under
heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and
you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the
end of the earth.” Acts 1:8.
The New Church teaches that Jesus saved us, not through his death, but through
his life.
According to The
New Church:
[Jesus] overcame
evil and restored a sense of balance in the world, leaving us in freedom to
choose good or evil. He taught us how we should live our lives; in fact he
showed us how to do it. It is only by so doing that we can be truly happy. When
we die, we continue to make these choices, which determines whether we live in
heaven loving God and doing his will, or turn away from him to hell. Jesus set
the stage so that we are free to choose. We must do our part to choose good,
which will draw us closer to the Divine. This is how Jesus saves…
Swedenborg
spiritualised Jesus’ death and therefore completely redefined its meaning.[4]
He denied the need for a vicarious atonement saying:
Reason
alone should convince anyone who is the least bit enlightened that sins can be
taken away from us only by active repentance—that is, by our seeing our sins,
begging the Lord for help, and desisting from them.[5]
Ultimately,
according to this teaching, salvation is dependent on us. We can choose to
accept to follow Jesus’ example, keep the commandments, and ask the Lord for
help. This can perhaps be summed up by the phrase: Do your best and God will do
the rest.
The Bible teaches something quite different. The
Apostle Peter wrote: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that
we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you
have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 and “For Christ also suffered once for
sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” 1
Peter 3:18
The Apostle Paul wrote:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew
no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21
Much more
could be said about what The New Church teaches contrary to the Word of God,
but hopefully this article is enough to show they have a ‘different’ Jesus and
therefore a ‘different’ Gospel – one that cannot save.
[1]
Cyriel O. Sigstedt, The Swedenborg Epic: The Life and Works of Emmanuel
Swedenborg (New York: Bookman 1952) pp. 198, 211
[2] https://newchurch.org/get-answers/spiritual-concepts/
[3] https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/theology-matters/a-brief-definition-of-the-trinity/
[4] https://swedenborg.com/recap-why-jesus-suffer-die/
[5]
Emanuel Swedenborg – The Lord 17:3 (https://swedenborg.com/recap-why-jesus-suffer-die/)
Comments