The story of redemption is a story of recovering that which was lost.  As we begin to understand the purpose of creation—why God created and His end in view—the Scriptures will unfold the magnificent love of an Infinite God.  From Genesis 1:1 to the end of the Revelation, God’s eternal purpose is revealed—the creation of an earth, man being its crown, to an angelic heaven as revealed in Revelation 21 from that human race.  His end was in His beginning.  From a celestial Church brought forth under the umbrella named Adam, to the final Church, the New Jerusalem, the Lord would through successive progression accomplish His end in revealing love.

It is love by which all things have their origin.  Love going forth created.  This active endeavor has never withdrawn; it has reigned throughout, as in a series, until the end be manifested and returns to its origin.  Even in the development of a human, from its origin to its end, the process is the same.  Though man passes through many stages in his lifetime in the material body, from infancy, childhood, adolescence to adulthood, the endeavor never changes to bring about the purpose for which he was created.  Divine Providence looks to that end.  Yet parents most often raise their children with the basis of their development being to succeed in this world first and foremost and as an appendage to that success, spirituality, not realizing that the true purpose of that baby’s birth into this earth is to prepare him for a particular use in God’s kingdom.  Most children are raised to believe they can serve two masters.  Yet we know from the teachings of Jesus, no man can do this.  No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matt 6:24)  It is imperative that the purpose of man’s creation and his development for use in God’s kingdom be understood, otherwise, no true Church can possibly be formed in him and hence, no entrance into God’s heavenly kingdom.  If you find what a man loves, you will find his god, for as stated above, as in series love builds to its end.

Love in its going forth had in view an angelic heaven, whereby love might be the all in all. Every end reigns through its cause, and it is the cause that brings about the effect.  The Church, from the human race, would be the basis for God to accomplish His end.  This ultimate basis has now passed through fours stages—from birth to old age, from morning to night, from spring to winter—and now the final Church is being raised up—the New Jerusalem.

There have been in general four churches on this earth since its creation, one after the other.  Daniel sets forth these four Churches, by interpreting King Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the image he had seen. (Daniel 2)  Daniel uses the image to describes four kingdoms, beginning with the head (fine gold), the breast and the arms (silver), the belly and the thighs (brass), and ending with the legs (iron) and the feet (part iron, mixed with clay).  He concludes by telling Nebuchadnezzar, Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet [that were] of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.  Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces to­gether, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth (vs. 34, 35).  The stone that smites the image are those, who John in the Revelation saw as the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven—the final Church.  This heavenly Jerusalem would have it basis in an ultimate here on earth.  The people of this Church are a holy people.  Not only is their understanding purified, they have a perfected will.  They are the ones who are made the bride and the wife of the Lamb, the redeemed of Lord.

These four churches are also pictured by the four beasts coming up out of the sea (Daniel chap. 7).  The first, which should be called the Most Ancient church, existed before the flood; and its consummation or destruction is pictured by the flood.  The second, which should be called the Ancient church, existed in Asia, and a part of it in Africa; it was consummated and destroyed by idolatries.  The third church was the Israelitish, which began with the promulgation of the Decalogue upon Mount Sinai, was continued by means of the Word written by Moses and the prophets, and was consummated or brought to an end by the profanation of the Word; which profanation was complete at the time of the Lord's coming into the world; and in consequence they crucified Him who was the Word.  The fourth is the Christian church, which was established by the Lord through the evangelists and apostles.  Of this church there have been two epochs, one extending from the Lord's time to the Council of Nice, and the other from that Council to the present day; but in its progress it has been divided into three - the Greek, the Roman Catholic, and the Reformed.  All these, however, are called Christian churches. Furthermore, within each of these general churches there have been a number of particular churches; and these, in spite of their secession, have retained the general name, as heresies in the Christian church.

Every Church from the beginning of time has come to an end because of idolatry.  The Christian church has been no different.  It be­gan afresh on the day of Pentecost, after the Lord had glorified His human, and like all others, has been carried away unto dumb idols, even as it was led.

The first Church is set forth in the first few chapters of Genesis and is called Man (Adam).  This Church (celestial) came forth as the image of God, and was created after His likeness.  This Church, unlike any that would follow, had love as its principle.  Those of this Church had the Word inscribed on their hearts.  Their communication with God was face to face.  Their fellowship had been like that of angels; they had immediate revelation from the Lord, knowing what was good and true.  They could eat freely.  However, one thing they were not allowed to do was to eat of the pride of their own intelligence.  For in so doing, they would become a divided person—their will separated from their understanding, and communication from heaven would be altered.  Idolatry begins with the mind being divided.  When man desires his own intelligence more than that from of Lord, that affection will subtlety corrupt the mind, as seen by the serpent beguiling Eve through his subtlety (Genesis 3).  The woman being deceived was in the transgression, revealing the profaning of man's will.  The love of rule, from the mere delight of the love of rule, gradually entered, which allowed man view himself as a god, and little by little, the influx from the Infinite altered.  Man began to live totally by his senses.  It is this idolatry that separates man from God.

Idolatry is nothing more than external worship separated from internal, that is, the in­ternal is separated from true love to the Lord, and love toward the neighbor.  Though the external appears in form to love God and the neighbor, when man's will, which is of the internal, is defiled, the result can be nothing but idolatry.

We can read how the first Church (golden age), after being placed on the outside of the garden of God, continued to degenerate.  Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5).  The human race, because of its idolatry, destroyed itself.  The will of man was totally defiled because of an inundation of temptations.  Had not the Lord provided a Church through Noah, a preacher of righteousness, man would have perished eternally.  It was through this Church that the Lord provided for man's understanding to be saved.  A spiritual Church could be raised up.

The second Church (silver age) established after the flood was a representative Church, i.e., the doctrinals consisted of what was collected from the significances of the first Church.  The second Church was established through a body of people under the umbrella name Noah and its worship consisted under the names of his three sons.  Their worship was not of external things, but by the external things, they were reminded of internal.  However, we read in Genesis 11, how quickly this Church began to digress.  Though they were of one language and one speech, they began to divert worship to themselves.  They joined the doctrinals with the affections of their defiled will.  They said, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top [may reach] unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.  The knowledges of the representatives turned to magic.  Lest this Church, like the former, profane what was holy and destroy itself, the Lord confounded their language.  As the succeeding Churches began to worship external things without internal, they more and more began to be led by hell.

To keep this second Church from perishing, the Lord re-established representative worship with the tribe of Eber.  From Eber, the Hebrew nation would come forth.  The Hebrews offered sacrifice in their worship to God, whom they called Jehovah.  The Lord never required sacrifice, however; He permitted it because this Church would correspond its sacrifices to internals.  However, like the previous generation, this Church too, became idolatrous.  So much so, the Lord would say to Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee.  And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing (Genesis 12).

It would be through Abram and his seed and their history that the Lord would reveal the immutability of His counsel—who He was and how He intended to re-unite the depraved will with the understanding—giving to us strong consolation who flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us. (See Hebrews 6:11-20).  This hope is the final Church, the New Jerusalem.  The Scriptures tell us that every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as He is pure.  We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3).

The story depicting the journey of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with special emphasis on Joseph, would reveal the raising of man into a new life.  Though every man is born with the potential of a spiritual rational mind, as describe by the birth of Isaac and it to be opened whereby influx from the One who is life might descend through the heavens, through the soul, thence through that spiritual rational mind, then through the natural mind on into the body, many stubbornly choose to remain in a natural rational mind, described by Ishmael born of the Egyptian handmaiden to inherit the promise.  It is only by the birth of a spiritual rational man (Isaac) that the way would be paved for God’s Church to be formed.  This spiritual rational mind can only be opened in man, as he shuns evils as sins against God, in obedience to His commands in steadfastness till that which is potential from birth be given. Otherwise, what he might call rational is only natural—spiritual things commingled with corporeal.  It may have the form of a Church, but nothing truly has changed in the man.  His will is still defiled though his outward life project godliness.  His natural affections, desiring to rush the process of regeneration, has created a form of religion that will forever afflict and will cause him much grief if he ever comes to his senses and realizes it has to be put off.  Self-love and love of the world cannot abide in the same house with love to God and toward the neighbor.  Again, you cannot serve two masters.

It is as the true affections of good and truth are sought and recovered by those who recognize they are sinners (as told in the three parables in Luke 15) that there can be joy in the presence of the angels of God.  The Pharisee will only mummer and complain; he sees no need for change.  His outer life exhibits to the world his piousness, and though he for years has served and lived a natural moral life according to the commandment, being ever with the presence of the Father, yet he never actually makes conjunction.  Only through cracks and chinks as in a floor does influx from the Infinite above flow into him.  His service has flowed from his own love for gain, honor and reputation, and upon hearing of a repentant sinner receiving true conjunction with the Father with all its happiness and no true blessing flowing into his own life, anger can only result; for his self-love is assaulted.

A man will never seek for something that he does not know that is lost, but when he realizes what is lost, he will go after it till he finds it; it will be sought for diligently till it is recovered.  These are those who are in a state of repentance, who are willing to hear and receive instruction according to the Divine laws of heaven, and do what is necessary for the potential path provided for true influx to be opened.  It is only as the spiritual rational mind is opened that God can form His true Church in man.  Only then can the peace that passes all understanding flow from above.

The third Church (brass), the Israelitish, actually had its rise during the time the posterity of Jacob was in Egypt.  Its worship from the previous representative Church had declined into externals alone; all internal knowledge of God had totally vanished.  A new king—the truth they lived by—had arisen over Egypt who knew not Joseph.  Many gods were being worshipped at this time.  Though a representative Church, they were in the house of bondage.  The name of God and worship had come to demise.  It would take the Lord’s Divine mercy seeing His people’s affliction and hearing their groaning to re-establish through Moses, the representative of truth Divine, which would lead God's people back to Himself.  They were held in Egypt, pictured as the lower earth, devoid of the lively oracles which would lead them to the Promised Land, to the place where they could perform their true uses in God’s kingdom.

The angel of the Lord says to Moses, appearing unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, I [am] the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.  God re-establishes who He is and now to loosen a people from what they had accepted as truth would not come without much difficulty.  Spiritual law would have to be insinuated into their base life to awaken them, not only to bring them out of the land of Egypt and the Red Sea but also to prove them in the wilderness, reforming them and preparing them for the Promised Land.

This people were reconstituted as a Church at Mount Sinai.  We read in Exodus 19:3-6: And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto Myself.  Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine: And ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

The giving of the Ten Commandments, both historically and spiritually is the first revelation of who God is and how He could be approached and conjunction between God and man be made.  They, being the first, represented the whole of God’s Word in Divine summary.  From their beginning to their end, Divine Love is revealed, and as stated above, love reigns throughout, as in a series, until its end is manifest.

Though this people said they would do all that the Lord had spoken, their hearts remained in Egypt.  They were stubborn, rebellious, and idolatrous people.  Though they saw the many acts of God, they still did not know His way.  They only gratified their lust.  However, it would be this Church and its history that God would use to get His Word written, preparing the way for Himself to come into the earth.  This third Church was a Church of representatives.  Its sacrifices and offerings only pointed to His first advent.

The third Church was at its end, a nighttime, when the Lord came into the world.  It was steeped in idolatry.  Being a Church of representatives, the Israelite Church totally relied on external worship as their salvation.  This idolatry blinded them from the reality.  They had become totally ignorant of internal things, and even their moral natural life was not bearing fruit; it only projected a covering of a vibrant fig tree.  They drew near with their mouths, but their hearts were far from Him.  This is true idolatry; it adds faith as an appendage to an evil life and uses it as a tool to rule and control to acquire its own evil ends.  Unless the steps of progress of reformation whereby man can begin to regenerate, there can be no conjunction with the Lord.

Though the Word was made flesh and dwelt among them, they did not see it, much less hear it.  Their minds were blinded by the god of this world, at His first advent, as it is with many today of that first advent.  They looked for the Lord’s coming to elevate them to superiority, rather than a revelation of a process of regeneration—knowing God’s will and how to live in accordance with it. They declared themselves Abraham's seed and never in bondage to any man.  Yet, the knowledge alone, they had appended to their evil lives, would not save them.  As I stated above, though the external appears in form to love God and the neighbor, when man's will, which is of the internal is defiled, lost, the result can be nothing but idolatry.  Though this Church avowed Abraham as their father, they were still doing the works of their father the devil.  The spiritual rational mind had not been opened through regeneration.  Out of an evil natural rational they were serving who they called god.

The Lord's coming nullified representatives.  Hebrews 10:1-6 states, For the law having a shadow of good things to come, [and] not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.  For then would they not have ceased to be offered; because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.  But in those [sacrifices there is] a remembrance again [made] of sins every year.  For [it is] not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.  Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared me:  In burnt offerings and [sacrifices] for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

God, Himself, came into the world.  Love revealed itself in the ultimate.  The Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin Mary and the power of the Highest overshadowed her, and that which was born of her was called the Son of God.  The Lord had descended to redeem that which was lost.  Through successive acts of redemption, He would subjugate the hells, putting in Divine order that which was out of order, revealing the process for man to know His will and live in accordance with it whereby man once again might have conjunction with God.  Hanging on the cross, the final temptation, He revealed how opposed the unregenerate natural rational was to a holy God.  The putting off of that maternal human and the raising of a Divine Human gave mankind a more sure word, as a light shinning in dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in his heart.  The spirit of truth of a visible God can once again be formed in man’s conscious mind as he progresses through the steps of regeneration—abstaining from evil as sin against God and willing to live well—only then will he truly be led of the Lord.  This regeneration is analogous to the Lord’s glorification.  For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  (2 Peter 1:11)

The fourth Church (iron) began after the Lord's ascension.  The human of the Lord had been glorified, and through the Divine Human would proceed the Spirit of truth.  The path was freshly opened, and as the Apostles preached the Lord God Jesus Christ, and the process whereby He disarmed principalities and powers, making a public example of them, triumphing over them in Himself, glorifying of the human—the death, burial and resurrection—Divine influx came directly into man, from the breath of His mouth, in order that the Christian Church might be formed.  However, it would not be until the Lord’s Second Advent, His coming again in Divine revelation, that the final Church—the New Jerusalem could descend.  Like those in the old, Abraham preferring Ishmael who served for its purpose, will with anguish let go.  The desire is to commingle the two and let both serve together.  However, the spiritual rational mind will never be given till the old is cast out.  No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.  And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.  But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.   No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better. (Luke 5:36-39)

The Church set up through the Apostles has come to its midnight.  The things that the Comforter, the Helper, the Holy Spirit had brought to their remembrance, which they taught and set forth in the gospels, of the Lord manifesting His glory in His First Advent, would prepare the way for His Second Advent.  They knew the Lord would come again in ‘great glory’ as He had come in glory in His First Advent.  He had told them that the things He had spoken unto them were in proverbs: but the time would come, when He would no more speak in proverbs, but would show them plainly of the Father. (John 16:25)

Even before the Apostles’ departure, their epistles speak of Christian Church's end because of its love being profaned, and once love is putrefied, the truth that reveals it is destroyed.  They so with diligence looked for the Second Advent, whereby a more inward sense of their revelation would be given.  For they knew in part and they prophesied in part; they saw through a glass darkly.  They were looking for the day to see “face to face” and to know even as also they were known.  (1 Corinthians 13)  Nevertheless, they were not negligent to provoke this fourth Church unto love and good works.  Only those who kept the Lord's commandments which pertained to the internal man and it being prepared according to Divine order—not just the natural rational mind, but also the spiritual rational mind—would be in the final Church, the New Jerusalem.  But those who would draw back, His soul would have no pleasure.  So the writer of the Hebrew letter states: ....do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised.  "For yet a little while, and the coming one shall come and shall not tarry.... (Heb 10:35-37) RSV

Be assured, during the fourth Church, the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which should never be destroyed; one that would break in pieces and consume all previous kingdoms, and it would be this Church which would stand forever!  But would He do this by coming again in a human body, as He had in the First Advent, or would His Second Advent be a spiritual coming whereby the clouded mind might be opened and a more interior understanding of the Father be given?  Just how would this Second Advent occur?  In John’s gospel chapter 16:12-13, Jesus Himself states:  I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.  Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

Widely accepted are the Sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament as Divine revelation, written by holy men of old as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.  Though the oracles of God were committed to the Jew, they viewed their revelation solely by their senses; they had no understanding of its inward meaning.  They were kept in ignorance and blindness, lest they mix the holy thing and profane.  Because they were an obstinate people, they were well suited for preserving the Word of God until the appointed time the inward sense could be restored.  When the revelation was manifested, however, in its ultimate, those to whom that revelation was given rejected it.  For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.  (Matt.13:15)

The four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are received as Divine revelation by the Christian Church of the setting forth of the Lord’s advent, along with the letters of the other apostles.  The New Testament, simply put, is an inward sense of the revelation of the Old Testament, not a different revelation or a different God.  The Lord’s coming did not destroy the law; He fulfilled, He interpreted its meaning.  The One God, the Creator had revealed the redemption of that which was lost.  He showed the way whereby man could once again have communion with God by so walking even as He walked.  I suggest you study the parable of the sower.  It treats the fourfold kind of earth where the seed is sown.  How the ground in the earth is prepared determines its reception.  When the love of self is removed, only then is the spiritual rational mind opened into which the good seed falls, will bear much fruit.  But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.  For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.  (Matt. 13:16-17)

The Lord’s Second Advent would be a more inward sense of the revelation, not a different revelation, but a more inward revelation of the same God.  The Father would be seen plainly!  The written Word of God that had been concealed in the clouds of the letter both in the Old and New Testament are now being opened, and the Lord is coming in ‘great glory’.

When the time had come in the Christian Church that the love of many had waxed cold, the Lord would prepare a man.  Governing from his early childhood in a home where Christian character depended on obedience to the Ten Commandments as the basis of life rather than religious theology as an addendum, by God’s Divine providence, this man’s life would be on a quest to seek for the understanding of the ‘causes of causes’.  Throughout his lifetime he would not be satisfied with just natural knowledges, but there had to be an elevation to moral, then spiritual knowledge—the fullness.  It would not come immediately, but through persistence over a lifetime, this man’s spiritual rational mind would be opened and he would be given as much as he needed.  (See Luke chapter 11)

Keep in mind that man examines everything by the principles that are established in his mind.  As stated earlier in this article, a child’s birth into the earth is for his preparation for use in the kingdom of God, and when this love is principle, as in a series, it builds to that end.  He will ask and keep on asking, he will seek and keep on seeking, and he will knock and keep on knocking.  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. (Luke 11:10)  To such a man, Emanuel Swedenborg, whose life was prepared with the ability to receive influx as a human instrument, re-establishment of the authority of God's Word entered the earth, not a different word or religion, but a more inward sense.  His writings have been in the earth for over two hundred years, but like the third Church (Israelitish), and also the fourth Church (Christian), as a hold, these writings of the most inward sense of the Sacred Scriptures have been rejected; the revelation did not come as men expected.  Yet the honest seeker, who truly wants ‘face to face’ communion with a visible God, will prepare himself for reception of the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.  For God seeks those who will worship Him in Spirit and in truth.