Faith AND Charity - What is this man saying ?

[LittleHamster]

Would anyone care to interpret this quote and comment on its validity ?

"It is very evident from their Epistles that it never entered the mind of any of the Apostles that the church of this day would separate faith from charity by teaching that faith alone justifies and saves apart from the works of the law, and that charity therefore cannot be conjoined with faith, since faith is from God, and charity, so far as it is expressed in works, is from man. But this separation and division were introduced into the Christian church when it divided God into three persons, and ascribed to each equal Divinity."

- Emmanuel Swedenborg, "True Christian Religion", section 355

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Swedenborg
http://www.swedenborgdigitallibrary.org ... tcrtc.html

[B. W.]

Would anyone care to interpret this quote and comment on its validity ?

"It is very evident from their Epistles that it never entered the mind of any of the Apostles that the church of this day would separate faith from charity by teaching that faith alone justifies and saves apart from the works of the law, and that charity therefore cannot be conjoined with faith, since faith is from God, and charity, so far as it is expressed in works, is from man. But this separation and division were introduced into the Christian church when it divided God into three persons, and ascribed to each equal Divinity."

- Emmanuel Swedenborg, "True Christian Religion", section 355

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Swedenborg
http://www.swedenborgdigitallibrary.org ... tcrtc.html

Before commenting it is important to note what Emanuel Swedenborg taught:

Emanuel Swedenborg denied the Vicarious Atonement, and denies the Trinity, and denies deity of the Holy Spirit. Jesus viewed as divine.

His writing helped the founder of Mormonism become inspired about marriages in heaven, etc, look up on line the connection Mormonism has with Swedenborg's writings.

He taught that all religions lead to God in unequal enlightenment stages, so therefore, all religions of the world need to gel together in religious understanding and Christianity needs a rebirth from this synthesis with other religions.

In the article link you sent, just reading what he wrote regarding the Trinity is enough to create caution regarding him with a BIG RED FLAG.

Therefore, the quote above by him shows that all religions of the world need to gel together in religious understanding (charity doing) and Christianity needs a rebirth from this synthesis by forsaking the old salvation by grace by faith thing and just get with the world's religious program: groovy - peace out man - wowie dude...

Please note that the true import of the scriptures regarding Christian good works (charity) is that such spring forth naturally due to the sanctifying work of God the Holy Spirit. If you but look closely at your quote of his, Swedenborg is denying the work of the Holy Spirit.

Please take my advise - shun Swedenborg at all cost...
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[LittleHamster]

Thanks for that B.W.

I'll put his books on the extremely-low-priority list of things to read.