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How Important is a Relationship with Jesus?
By Kurt Simons | December 26, 2007
1. The command to do so is one of the Commandments (Deuteronomy 6:5).
2. Within the Commandments, it is the first Commandment (Deuteronomy 6:5).
3. Jesus said it is the greatest Commandment (Matthew 22: 38).
4. This Commandment is repeated 13 more times in the Old and New Testaments:
Deuteronomy 11:1, 13, 22; 19: 9; 30: 16, 20
Joshua 22: 5, 23: 11
Psalm 31: 23; 116:1
Matt 22:37
Mark 12:30
Luke 10:27
5. A smallcanonsearch.com search under “love to the Lord,” “love the Lord,” “loving the Lord,” “love God,” and “approach God” provides a total of 675 passages. For instance,
“…[T]rue love consists in a person’s loving the Lord above all things, and their neighbor as theirself (Arcana Coelestia 33).
“The chief thing of the church…is to acknowledge God, to believe in God, and to love Him.” (New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine 281)
“[T]he church is with those who love the Lord, and who love the neighbor as themselves” (Arcana Coelestia 1844).
“[T]he Word teaches nothing else than that everyone should live in charity with his neighbor, and love the Lord above all things. (Arcana Coelestia 1408).
6. “[I]f anyone does not approach the God of heaven and earth Himself, he cannot enter heaven, because it is that one God who makes heaven to be heaven, and that same God is Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah the Lord, the Creator from eternity, the Redeemer in time, and the Regenerator for eternity to come“(Apocalypse Revealed 961, True Christian Religion 26, emphasis Swedenborg’s).
For Further Reading
Topics: Issues, Theology | 15 Comments »
December 30th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Awesome post! I have just found a renewed spiritual strength from studying the Writings and getting closer to the Lord. I look forward to more Good News from all you folks at the Swedenborg Project!! Keep up the good work.
February 16th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Good post! But does God really want a relationship with everyone? Calvinists would say no, but what would you say?
April 27th, 2008 at 6:49 am
I have a problem with Swedenborg’s denial of sudden (and deathbed) salvations. Surely, Jesus’ own promise to the theif dying on the cross next to him (that they will be together in Paradise that very day) is proof that salvation can be sudden. The thief was converted during his execution! Also Paul’s reply to the jailer who asked how he could be saved (”believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved”) imlies sudden conversion. Paul did not say “believe and live a good life and you might be saved” but “believe .. and you WILL be saved”. None of us can be good enough to be saved on our own merit, but with the right relationship with Jesus (accepting his Lordship) we are counted right with God and we begin to change by inward union with Jesus. This process itself is NOT sudden, but the beginning of the process is. It will not be complete until Heaven. It is a measure of God’s mercy that a criminal who repents and accepts Jesus at death is still counted worthy of Heaven. To deny this is to retain God’s justice but deny his mercy. That mercy and justice are balanced in the nature of God and in his dealings with us is what the atoning death of Jesus is all about.
April 27th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Hi Lane,
To quote Swedenborg’s True Christian Religion “God is love itself and wisdom itself, and these two constitute His Essence” (n 37) and “It is the essence of love to love others outside of oneself, to desire to be one with them, and to render them blessed from oneself” (n. 43-45). My understanding, then, would be that God literally can’t help Himself (not that He wants to!) – He by definition of Who He is loves everyone. So He not only loves everyone here now, but all the people that will ever exist.
April 27th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Hi Sandi,
I think you have answered your own question: “This process itself is NOT sudden, but the beginning of the process is.†God is, as you note, mercy itself, and doesn’t yank our chain, but lets us develop spiritually at our own speed. As far as the thief on the cross, my assumption is that he had laid all the groundwork, in effect done all the conversion, before he came to the cross and his experience there was like the Gestalt “aha,†when everything all of a sudden falls into place and you see what you had not before. But, again, this isn’t as sudden as it may appear, but just the final step of a long-in-preparation process. I think there is a big difference between that and someone who was never interested in salvation until suddenly being confronted with death. However, I also think that since we can’t really see the inner workings of another person, we have no legitimate basis for judging their spiritual state (and are told in the teachings of the Second Coming not to try). Which has always made sense to me when I think about how hard it often is to know and judge our own motives!
July 17th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Dear Kurt, I am grateful to have found your website. I am desirous of studying E.S.’s religious writings,but I am very far from anyone with the same desire. I did go to the Bryn Athyn Cathedral about 4 years ago, but found it very ritualistic,and the good people without a real personal relationship with our Blessed Lord Jesus. This nearly turned me off,but I still felt/sensed,that E.S.’s Writings were (and are) truth.
I would appreciate any advice you could give me.
Thankyou,In Christ, Richard
July 18th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Hi Richard,
I sympathize with your feelings. I think that Swedenborg’s revelation is just what he says it is, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. But traditional “Swedenborgian” churches and organizations have never, as far as I can tell, put emphasis on relating to Jesus. However, change is in the wind. The groundwork for the needed combination of relating to Him and following the teachings of both His First and Second Comings is in its early stages. We hope it will become a flourishing church center focused on Jesus. Its website is http://secondadventchristian.org/. For the time being, that’s only option I am aware of, and what I do myself (and you probably do too!), is to find a good Bible-based church in your area with a pastor who really knows His Bible. Beyond that, I always try to be ready to offer whatever aspects of the new Good News, of the Second Coming, anyone seems interested in – and I try to make it clear that it all begins with Jesus.
Best,
Kurt
July 19th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Thank you for the support and good advice.
In Him,Richard
September 13th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I was raised a Swedenborgian and find myself hesitant to join a good” bible based” church. I guess my thinking is elitist. What can I learn from them when they don’t know about the writings? Won’t it be frustrating? Won’t it be peoplewho are trying to figure out what the bible is saying, instead of being able to just look it up? I look forward to having my mind corrected on this matter, because I find I don’t feel drawn to going to a New Church because of that elitist sort of feeling. I want to continue to join the human race, and that is how I have always felt ever since being raised in this different and “better” church.
So, what you are talking about still happens. I was born in the early 70s, and I have left the church. I am interested however, in somehow renewing my spiritual path in a more concrete way.
September 13th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Oh, I also want to say that you have helped me put my mind to rest about raising my future kids. I can now conceive of raising them Christian, and secondarily sharing with them the things I personally believe (From Swedenborg). This also seems like an easier sell to my future husband.
Thanks.
September 14th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Keri,
My thought is that those feelings of superiority, of elitism, haven’t just afflicted you. They have, I believe, been a central reason for the failure of the organized new church to grow over the last two centuries.
All of this superiority feeling is of course completely at odds with the servant/humility Jesus exampled and taught, and not exactly in keeping with His teachings about love of the neighbor either!
The scariest thing about evil, at least to me, is that it distorts your thinking so that you end up thinking evil is normal. In other words, the more you allow evil to influence you, the more you lose your ability to see that evil for what it is. And you end up trapped in spiritual misery that you can no longer see your way out of. Take for example your question (which I am sure many other people have also wrestled with), “What can I learn from them when they don’t know about the writings?” In other words, it is not enough to know and live the letter of the Word – you have to have the teachings of Swedenborg’s revelation, and they are more important than the Word since you have to have them to properly understand the Word. Or so that logic runs. The Second Coming teachings are certainly a wonderful gift from Jesus, but to relegate the Old and New Testaments to some kind of second-class status? Wow! The point that I am trying to make is that, as a “Swedenborgian” subculture member, a person picks up insidious intellectual and emotional baggage that is not what the Second Coming in fact teaches, and that not only doesn’t help them but spiritually cripples them.
I am not just talking theory here. It’s personal too. Just like you I had – and still have, and fight – the elitist notion. One of the biggest helps I’ve found in doing this has been going to a “good Bible-based church” down the street from us, a Methodist church, to be precise, with a minister who really knows his Bible (not something that, in my experience, is always the case for Swedenborgian preachers I’ve heard). I also sometimes watch Joel Osteen on TV, and have read Rick Warren’s book on the purpose-driven life. You do not have to hear very much from such sources to realize that there is more than a lifetime of good and useful teaching to learn about from the Bible, even if you never heard of Swedenborg. As demonstrated by the fact that Biblical Christianity is the largest religion on the planet!
Bottom line here, I think, is your wonderful observation that you’d like to continue rejoining the human race. Amen to that! In working on this I have found it helpful and mind-clearing to think of myself as a Christian. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ is, after all, a fundamentally Christian event. And I don’t worship either Swedenborg or his books, so I am certainly not a “Swedenborgian!”
I am a big fan of happy endings, so I do what I can on the web, reaching out to, hopefully, build a network of folks who see the need for a full-spectrum new Christian approach, oriented toward all Jesus’ teachings, of both the First and Second Comings, with charity and freedom the main compass point for navigation forward. In the meantime, I am working on getting to know the Lord God Jesus Christ as my personal Friend and Saviour
September 30th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Hi Kurt,
It’s good to see your new posting,prompted by Keri’s testimony.I should check more often than I do in order to get some nice surprises.
I haven’t been long enough in ES’s teachings to have an elitist attitude about my knowledge of them,but I think an elitist feeling can be had by anyone of any faith tradition. I first heard the Gospel in a Baptist church back in the early 1960s. I believed for quite awhile that only a Baptist could be saved.I seem to remember that this was the “feeling” of most others in my group. Sometime later,I read an autobiography about a Presbytarian missionary. I was shocked when I realized that he was a ‘born again Christian.” How could that be??!!
Well,that was many years ago,and since then I have found much spiritual growth in the writings of many different kinds of Bible based brothers and sisters in Christ. The most important factor being “In Christ,” is the great leveling factor to all elitism.Having Fellowship with a person,truly and experientially in love with Christ,who has Jesus Christ as his or her All in All,is the sweetest joy this side of Heaven. People like that are not always easy to find; it’s usually the Lord Jesus plus other things,but there are those who find all their delight in Him.Those are the ones I pray to meet and fellowship with.
Yours, Richard
October 5th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Richard,
Point well taken – I guess every church does consider itself superior to other churches. But I think Swedenborgian “elitism” has a unique spin on this subject due to the long history of association of Swedenborgians and Swedenborg’s ideas with the world’s intellectual “elite.” This association has come from both directions – those intellectuals using ideas from Swedenborg (not necessarily accurately) on the one hand and Swedenborgians boasting in their PR of all the famous intellectuals supposedly influenced by Swedenborg on the other.
Though I have never made an exhaustive review of the matter, as far as I have found almost none of the famous intellectual “elite” typically included in such lists was ever affirmatively interested in the teachings revealed through Swedenborg as part of their religious belief. Indeed, I would have trouble naming any beyond Helen Keller and, to some extent at least, Elizabeth Barret Browning. Most of that elite appear to have basically picked out bits and pieces of Swedenborg for commentary purposes of their own, some of which, such as Kant’s critique, have overtly attempted to undermine Swedenborg’s credibility
In any case, I think you have gone to the heart of the matter in pointing out that a relationship with Jesus is the cure for any kind of elitism or, for that matter, any feeling of need for elitism. I mean, if Jesus is in your heart, you will want to love your neighbor, not feel superior to him or her!
November 19th, 2008 at 4:51 am
Hi all,
I’ve been reading a lot on this website about NC “elitism” and I just would like to say a little bit in defence of the New Church. I was born and raised Roman Catholic. I found the NC about 18 years ago and became a member about 12 yrs ago (Olivet). One of the things (among many) that blew me away about the NC doctrines was the explicit teaching that the “church” is an internal church and that it exists wherever truth and good are united within a person and that only the LORD knows where the “church” is. I thought that if a church held THAT thinking then it was truly a wise church. I did not notice any particular ‘elitism’ – only a desire on the part of my congregation to share the wealth. The other point i’d like to make is that at NC services I never once heard the minister mention the name Swedenborg from the pulpit. Always reference is made to “the Writings” but never “Swedenborg says”. This was always something i appreciated about NC. I do appreciate however Kurt’s concern about elitism as i have heard the same concern from other born-and-raised Swedenborgians; i just wanted to say that as an outsider who came into the New Church, I didn’t notice anything elitish.
I also want to say thank you to Kurt for this excellent website – am loving it
November 21st, 2008 at 10:29 am
Hi Fran,
Thanks for your input. One of the big challenges of being an “insider,” i.e. a long-time participant in one of the Swedenborgian/New Church groups, is that of trying to see how you appear to a newcomer. So communications like yours are particularly valuable, not least because they remind us to be wary of generalizations or stereotypes. It certainly wouldn’t be fair to assume that just because a person is Swedenborgian/New Church that therefore they are elitist. That’s especially so since you could make just the opposite case, that Swedenborgians feel insecure. Why otherwise, for instance, would they quote all those famous people, even though almost all of those people saw the theological works as curiosities and just the work of Swedenborg the man!?
Well, an insecurity theory obviously shouldn’t be applied in any unthinking stereotypical way either. Indeed, the social and psychological history of the Swedenborg “movement” has been sufficiently complex, especially for such a small group, that it seems clear no simple theory is going to explain it! In any case, while I think looking at the past can be useful, I don’t mean to propose getting overly distracted by it. The big-time history of the Second Coming lies in new forms and directions that are still over the horizon of the future, and that, I believe, is where the focus of our effort and belief should lie.