Is there Salvation from Belief Alone?

Many Christians, especially newly converted Christians, think that salvation comes by merely believing in Jesus Christ and being baptized.  And that's it.  It's a one time event, and then one is done: even worse, some think what you do in life is of no account. But is this true? Is this what scripture teaches? The answer is a definite no: for the word translated as "belief" is more accurately translated as "faith," and faith is not a mere belief in factual knowledge but rather, it is living by the truth, which is turning away from sin and in doing charity to others or being useful in life.

There are some verses that do in fact seem to teach the above teaching, but one has to also ignore a host of other scripture that teaches against belief alone. Jesus spoke very strongly against those who were in a religion of belief alone, or those who heard His words, and did not do them:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matt. 7:24-27)

And it gets worse: Jesus said those who just say "Lord, Lord" and pray and yet live an evil life will be condemned (Matt. 7:22-23, 25:31-46).  You cannot just believe and live an evil life, without considering your sins. For all will be judged according to their works (Matt. 16:27, Rom. 2:6, Rev. 22:12). And we are talking here about the works of charity, or the effects of doing from good intent, and the work of turning against evil - NOT the external works of the Mosaic ritual law which is what Paul focused on in his letters to the early church.

WHAT PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE SEEM TO CONFIRM BELIEF ALONE?

There are a few passages that seem to confirm that all one has to do is believe to be saved. So lets take a look at them. The first comes from Mark:

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. (Matt. 16:16)

So how do we reconcile this passage with what Jesus said earlier? The issue here is that this verse is not just mentioning baptism by water: baptism by water is merely an external ritual that in itself does nothing. What it is talking about is spiritual baptism: dying to your old self and beginning a new life, which is effected by repentance, or turning away from sin, and doing what God commanded. Baptism signifies a washing away by the truth, for it is from truth that we know that we should fight against sin and turn away from it. That we are not talking about mere water baptism, but a spiritual baptism, we know from the gospel of Mark itself:

I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8)

For when we turn away from sin, putting our trust in Jesus Christ, He fills our heart with the Holy Spirit. That Mark is talking about spiritual baptism, which is spiritual regeneration by turning away from evil, we know from this when James and John asked that they sit at his left and right hand in the kingdom:

Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” (Mark 10:38-40)

Obviously Jesus is speaking figuratively. To drink the cup is to experience temptation, which we can see in Jesus' prayer at the Garden of Gethsemane:

“Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36)

To be baptized is to undergo spiritual regeneration by turning away from sin after having been tempted, through which we receive the Holy Spirit. This is done through Jesus who experienced the most severest of temptations from all of hell. And note that to sit with Jesus is not something Jesus can just give to those who want it: it is given to those who live a life of service and charity, which Jesus explains in the verses following (see Mark 10:41-45). So is salvation a "free gift"?  No, not according to Jesus. We have to undergo temptation ("drink the cup"), turn away from evil ("be baptized"), and live by His commandments in charity and usefulness (be a servant).

There are several other verses that mention "belief" as necessary for salvation or eternal life, all from the gospel of John: John 3:12,15-16,18,36; 6:40,47; 8:24, 11:25-26. The word "belief" here is not mere belief, the exact same word can be translated as "faith" which is to live by the truth: by repentance with utter focus on Jesus to work through us, and to do what He said. This is what "believing the Son" means, it is not mere factual knowledge of the memory. We know it is not mere belief, for Jesus Himself asks:

Who then is that faithful and wise steward? (Luke 12:42)

The word "faithful" comes from the same root word that is translated as "belief." The one that is faithful is the one who does according to what Jesus says, which is described in the parable that follows the question (see Luke 12:42-48). We also know that Jesus considered "belief", or more accurately "faith" - is to do God's will, from the parable of the two sons (see Matt. 21:28-32).

The one who believes, and yet does not put the words into practice in one's life, is compared to a plant that grows from seed in rocky soil quickly, but withers away when the hardship of temptation comes:

The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. (Luke 8:13)

To have no root is to not apply the Word to one's life, that is being "rooted" in the Word. Whereas the ones who received the Word, and live by it, are the ones that grow and bear fruit (Luke 8:15).

So can someone claim to follow Jesus, and yet lie, commit adultery, and steal?  Is that what Jesus taught?  No, and you have been taught this, someone is lying to you.  If you claim to follow Jesus, read the scriptures and follow what Jesus said.

"Knowing is not believing, and that believing is internal; and that it cannot be given except in affection for good and truth, and accordingly to none but those who are in the good of charity toward the neighbor." (Heavenly Arcana, 4319.2)

"A man's life after death is the life of his love and the life of his faith. Hence such as his love and such as his faith had been when he lived in the world, such is the life that awaits him for eternity. It is the life of hell to those who have loved themselves and the world above all things, and the life of heaven to those who have loved God above all things, and the neighbor as themselves. The latter are those who have faith, but the former are those who have not faith." (New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrines, n. 227)

Angelic Orb caught on Security Camera, and a Revelation on the One God Jesus Christ

 With the increased usage of security cameras, there is evidence that some security camera footage have caught the light of an angelic or supernatural being on video tape. I discussed one previously, which involves a healing: see Light of an Angel Caught on Video Tape. And here is another: the minister Charles Shelton heard a thought that he should wake up and start to pray around 3:30am in the morning, and while in prayer he was told to look at the security camera footage. And this is what he saw:



Further video footage is here: the ball of light enters twice into the room where the minister was praying, passing through the wall: Angel Captured on Camera by Minister.

It is better to see spiritual truths internally and rationally, rather than to look for external miraculous evidence. But the reason why I bring this up is that in the 18th century the Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg reported seeing an angelic orb.  For a period of 27 years he was given the gift to communicate with heaven to reveal the internal spiritual meaning of scripture. On one occasion, he woke up from sleep to mediate - just like the minister Charles Shelton - and reports seeing an oval of light. And then afterwards heaven is opened and he begins a dialogue with angels, concerning his thoughts on God and the Trinity:

"Once having awakened from sleep I fell into profound meditation concerning God; and when I looked up, I saw above me in heaven a bright white light in oval form; and when I fixed my gaze upon the light, it receded to the sides and passed into the circumference. And then, lo, heaven was opened to me, and I saw magnificent things, and angels standing in the form of a circle on the southern side of the opening and talking together; and because I had an ardent desire to hear what they were saying, it was therefore given me first to hear the tone, — which was full of heavenly love, and afterward the speech, which was full of wisdom from that love. They were talking together about the One God, and about conjunction with Him, and thence salvation. They spoke ineffable things, most of which cannot fall into the words of any natural language; but because I had sometimes been in company with angels in heaven itself, and then in similar speech with them because in similar state, I was therefore able now to understand them, and to select from their conversation some things which may be rationally expressed in the words of natural language." (True Christian Religion, n. 25)

Swedenborg often reported that much of the angelic ideas were so high above our human concepts that it did not fall into something that could be described in our spoken language, which in itself is an approximation of the meanings we sometimes wish to convey. The apostle Paul had a similar experience to what Swedenborg has described:

"I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter." (2 Cor. 12:2-4)

For Paul it was a one time affair. For Swedenborg, he was able to experience this heavenly communication over a period of 27 years. Most Christians wonder what Paul meant by "third heaven" and Swedenborg explains the three levels of heaven in detail in his works Heaven and Hell and Heavenly Arcana.

Returning to the angelic orb, what exactly were the angels discussing? They were essentially discussing the One God, how He is One Divine Being, One in Essence (Latin Esse), who cannot be divided into multiple beings or persons:

"They said that the Divine Esse is One, the Same, the Itself, and Indivisible. This they illustrated by spiritual ideas, saying that the Divine Esse cannot fall to several, each of whom has the Divine Esse, and still itself be One, the Same, the Itself, and Indivisible; for each one would think from his own Esse from himself, and singly by himself; if then also from the others and by the others, unanimously, there would be several unanimous Gods, and not one God; for unanimity, because it is the agreement of several, and at the same time of each one from himself and by himself, does not accord with the unity of God, but with a plurality — they did not say, of Gods, because they could not; for the light of heaven from which was their thought, and the aura in which their speech was uttered, resisted it. They said also that when they wished to pronounce the word Gods, and each one as a Person by himself, the effort of pronouncing fell instantly into One, yea, to the Only God."

Moreover, they said, God cannot produce another, for does He exist with another, and there is no such thing as a Son of God born from eternity, which is an utter falsehood:

"To this they added that the Divine Esse is a Divine Esse in Itself, not from itself; because from itself supposes an Esse in itself from another prior; thus it supposes a God from God, which is not possible. What is from God is not called God, but is called Divine; for what is a God from God? thus, what is a God born of God from eternity? and what is a God proceeding from God through a God born from eternity, but words, in which there is nothing of light from heaven?"

Moreover, God is love and truth itself, and inasmuch as we are in a state of love and truth, so God is present with us:

"God is the Itself, because He is love itself and wisdom itself, or because He is good itself and truth itself, and thence life itself, which, unless they were the Itself in God, would not be any thing in heaven and the world, because there would not be any thing in them having relation to the Itself. Every quality draws its quality from that which is the Itself, from which it is, and to which it has relation that it may be such as it is. This Itself, which is the Divine Esse, is not in place, but is with those and in those who are in place, according to reception; since of love and wisdom, or of good and truth, and thence of life, which are the Itself in God, yea, God Himself, place cannot be predicated, nor progression from place to place; whence is omnipresence: wherefore the Lord says that He is in the midst of them; and also that He is in them, and they in Him." (True Christian Religion, n. 25-26).

What is most interesting is that to them, the angels, God appears as the central sun in heaven. This brilliant light has been reported by multiple witnesses who have had a Near Death Experience:

"But because He cannot be received by any one such as He is in Himself, He appears as He is in His essence, as a sun above the angelic heavens; the proceeding from which as light is Himself as to wisdom, and the proceeding as heat is Himself as to love. That sun is not Himself; but the Divine love and the Divine wisdom first emanating from Him round about Him, appear to the angels as a sun." (True Christian Religion, n. 25-26).

Moreover, within that sun of heaven God is Man, and is identical to Jesus Christ who appeared to us in human form, and God was within Jesus as a Divine soul just as the soul is within the body of each person - Jesus is not another person or being separate from God, but is God Himself:

"He within the sun is Man; He is our Lord Jesus Christ, both as to the Divine from which He came forth, and also as to the Divine Human; since the Itself, which is love itself and wisdom itself, was a soul to Him from the Father; thus the Divine life, which is life in itself. It is otherwise in every man; in him the soul is not life, but a recipient of life. The Lord also teaches this, saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life; and in another place, As the Father hath life in Himself, so also hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself (John v. 26). Life in Himself is God. To this they added that those who are in any spiritual light may perceive from these things that the Divine Esse, because it is One, the Same, the Itself, and thence Indivisible, cannot be in more than one; and that, if it should be said to be, manifest contradictions would result." (True Christian Religion, n. 25-26).

And as Swedenborg was listening in on this communication, the angels detected in his ideas the ideas of three persons, which was in utter opposition to the primary principle of One God, or Monotheism:

"When I heard these things, the angels perceived in my thought the common ideas of the Christian Church, concerning a Trinity of Persons in unity and their unity in the Trinity, in regard to God; and also concerning the birth of the Son of God from eternity; and then they said, "What are you thinking? Do you not have those thoughts from natural light, with which our spiritual light does not agree? Wherefore unless you remove the ideas of that thought, we close heaven to you and depart." But then I said, "Enter, I pray, more deeply into my thought, and perhaps you will see an agreement." They did so and saw that by three Persons I understood three proceeding Divine attributes, which are Creation, Redemption, and Regeneration; and that they are attributes of one God; and that by the birth of the Son of God from eternity I understood His birth foreseen from eternity and provided in time; and that it is not above what is natural and rational, but contrary to what is natural and rational, to think that any Son was born of God from eternity; but not so, that the Son born of God by the Virgin Mary in time is the only Son of God, and the only begotten; and that to believe otherwise is an enormous error. And then I told them that my natural thought concerning the Trinity of Persons and their unity, and concerning the birth of a Son of God from eternity, I had from the doctrine of faith in the church, which has its name from Athanasius." (True Christian Religion, n. 25-26).

And the angels answered thus:

"Then the angels said, "Well." And they asked me to say from their mouth that, if any one does not go to the very God of heaven and earth, he cannot come into heaven, because heaven is heaven from this only God; and that this God is Jesus Christ, who is the Lord Jehovah, from eternity Creator, in time Redeemer, and to eternity Regenerator; thus who is at once the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and that this is the Gospel which is to be preached. After these things the heavenly light, which was before seen over the opening, returned, and gradually descended thence, and filled the interiors of my mind, and enlightened my ideas concerning the trinity and unity of God." (True Christian Religion, n. 25-26).

A Divine Revelation of the Biblical Canon

What is the true Biblical Canon of the Christian Church, and how is it Divinely Inspired? It is important, as the Word of God should form the basis of all doctrine, and is the foundation of how we should live our life. All of the teachings of Jesus were based on the Word of God, and as He is the Word of God made flesh, His words also became part of the Biblical canon.
The Biblical canon evolved over a long period of time, beginning with the Hebrew canon of the Jewish Church. The basic criteria of the early church of the first four centuries was to gather valid documents of witness testimony concerning the teachings of Jesus. But which books are Divinely inspired? Which Biblical canon is correct among the different churches? Which should be treated as the Word of God, and those that are the words of men?
For answers, let us simply look at what Jesus had to say on the matter, and then follow this with the revelations on the Biblical canon given to the New Church. For Jesus is the one authority from Whom we should seek guidance:

You are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.  And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.  (Matt. 23:8-10)

CONFIRMATIONS ON THE HEBREW CANON BY JESUS

Let's start with the Hebrew canon of scripture which preceded the Christian church. The Hebrew canon, also known as the Tanakh, is divided into three main sections:

1. The Law, or the Law of Moses, also known as the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
2. The Prophets, also known as the Nevi'im: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and The Twelve Prophets (the 12 minor prophets)
3. The Writings, also known as the Ketuvim: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehehiah, Chronicles.

The first two sections of the Hebrew canon, the Law and the Prophets, are directly referenced by Jesus and are definitely part of the Biblical canon:

Don’t assume that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. (Matt. 5:17)

Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them — this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matt. 7:12)

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands. (Matt. 22:37-40)

Among these statements, there is even a more specific statement from Jesus concerning the Prophets:

For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John; if you’re willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who is to come (Matt. 11:13)

I single out this particular quote, because here Jesus states that John the Baptist fulfilled the prophecy that Elijah would return before the coming of the Messiah. This is the very last prophecy in the book of Malachi:

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. (Mal. 4:5-6)

This is not only the final passage in the book of Malachi, but also Malachi is the last book in the Prophets of the Hebrew canon. There is a similar confirmation given by Jesus in another passage:

Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. (Matt. 23:34-35)

Abel was murdered by his brother Cain in Genesis, but who is Zechariah the son of Barachiah? Several commentators identified him with the high priest Zechariah ben Jehoiada, whose death is recorded in 2 Chron 24:20:21, the last book in the Writings in the present day Hebrew canon. This is incorrect, as his father is recorded as Jehoiada, not Barachiah. Jesus here is referencing the prophet Zechariah, the second to last prophet right before Malachi: the prophet Zechariah is declared to be "son of Berechiah" (Zech. 1:1). His manner of death is not recorded. To "shed blood" does not just mean to kill, but in the spiritual sense signifies to profane and distort the truth, which the Jews had done with scriptures leading to their denial of Jesus Christ.

JESUS CONFIRMS THE BOOK OF DANIEL AS SCRIPTURE

Jesus, so far, affirms the Hebrew canon in regards to the Law and the Prophets as it exists now among the Jews. However there is one exception, and this concerns the book of Daniel. Jesus quotes from Daniel as a prophet:

“So when you see the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place” (let the reader understand), “then those in Judea must flee to the mountains!" (Matt. 24:15)

This shows that the book of Daniel was once included among the Prophets in the Hebrew canon, but was moved out among the Writings. Why? The theory of modern scholars is that portions of Daniel were written later during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes IV in the second century B.C. However Josephus records that the book of Daniel was shown to Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C., and several copies were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls dating from the 2nd century B.C. (see Josephus on Alexander the Great and the Book of Daniel). Moreover, the apocryphal book of Enoch, written around this time, borrowed some of its material from Daniel. Moreover, Aramaic scholars indicate that the Aramaic of Daniel dates from the period of 700-200 B.C., rather than the later period of 200 B.C.- 200 A.D. (see Aramaic and the Old Testament - Part 1). The problem here is with the scholars who are rather ignorant or in denial of prophetic visions.

Perhaps Daniel was placed among the Writings, which were regarded as a lesser authority, because a large portion was written in Aramaic instead of Hebrew, and Hebrew was considered the sacred language. This would have to ignore the fact that Gen. 31:47 and Jer. 10:11 are written in Aramaic. And indeed I found evidence that is the case. In the Talmud, specifically Megillah 3a, there is a story of some rabbis who began to translate Hebrew into Aramaic, and then were forbidden to do so as God's secrets were only allowed to be known among the Jews, or that Aramaic would begin to reveal some hidden secrets (there is actually a good example of this in Psalms 2:12 which has puzzled scholars - see Psalm 2:12 | Kiss the Son or Embrace Purity? - the correct answer is "Kiss the Son"). Aramaic translations of scripture played an important role around this time for rabbinic Judaism. The translator had translated the Law and the Prophets, but was not allowed to translate the Writings (Ketuvim) because it contained the book of Daniel. The Talmud then gives an interesting answer as why this is the case:

"What is the reason that he was denied permission to translate the Writings? Because it has in it a revelation of the end, when the Messiah will arrive. The end is foretold in a cryptic manner in the book of Daniel, and were the book of Daniel translated, the end would become manifestly revealed to all."

This is rather interesting - Daniel chapter 9 is a 490 year prophecy beginning in 457 B.C. and ending in 34 A.D., predicting the coming of the Messiah in 31 A.D. As the Talmud was compiled in the 4th-5th centuries A.D., it is quite possible that even the Jews could not deny that the book of Daniel predicted the coming of Jesus Christ. And thus they decided to move the book of Daniel from the Prophets to the Writings, using the excuse that a portion of it was written in Aramaic instead of Hebrew. This section of the Talmud also gives a weak explanation of why Daniel was not a prophet compared to Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, the last three prophets. The reason? Unlike other prophets Daniel did not send his message to the Jews. More likely, the Jewish scribes wanted to lower the priority of the book of Daniel due to its Messianic prophecies fulfilled in Jesus. We now know from the revelations of the New Church that indeed a judgment occurred in the spiritual world upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, fulfilling the prophecies that the Jews study hours on end without knowing the meaning. So this statement from the Talmud is remarkably accurate.

JESUS CONFIRMS THE PSALMS AS SCRIPTURE

Jesus, so far, affirms the Hebrew canon in regards to the Law and the Prophets. In addition to this, Jesus affirms that the book of the Psalms is also a part of the Word of God:

These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me. (Luke 24:44)

This should come as no surprise as Jesus often quoted from the Psalms as scripture, and is one of the most often quoted books in the New Testament.

JESUS CONFIRMS PROVERBS AS SCRIPTURE

So what about the rest of the books in the Writings? Initially I thought Jesus had only quoted from the Psalms. I researched all quotations of the Old Testament in Index to Old Testament Quotations, and to my surprise, Jesus quoted from Proverbs. Here is a puzzling quote:

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ (John 7:38)

What book is Jesus quoting? This has puzzled scholars. A note in the ESV says Jesus may be alluding to Isa. 58:11, Ezek. 47:1-12, or Zech. 14:8. Others have suggested allusions in Jer. 2:13, 17:13 and Ps. 63:1. However none of these passages fit. Jesus may be paraphrasing, and if so He probably was referencing this verse, which is the only one that speaks of waters flowing out of a person:

The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters, a flowing river, a fountain of wisdom. (Prov. 18:4)

Jesus, however, was not quoting this passage directly, but rather He was referencing the book of Proverbs as a whole. Nowhere in the verse does it say "Whoever believes in Me." However the book has these verses at the beginning:

Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you. (Prov. 1:20-23)

The word for "pour" is the same Hebrew word for "flowing" in Prov. 18:4 which Jesus paraphrased, and Prov. 1:23 and 18:4 are the only two verses that use the word in this manner, and it appears only two other times in Proverbs with a different meaning. This suggests that Jesus conflated the two verses in a paraphrase. Wisdom is personified crying out for people to listen, which is a representation of the Word made flesh. However one other aspect of Jesus' quote is that He mentions water flowing out of the heart. This comes from another verse in Proverbs:

Counsel in a man’s heart is deep water; but a man of understanding draws it out. (Prov. 20:5)

Again, the phrase "deep water" is mentioned only in Proverbs  18:4 and this verse. This leads me to believe Jesus had memorized the whole book, and unified verses that mentioned the same Hebrew words.

There are two additional references to Proverbs from Jesus. We have this passage:

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. (Matt. 16:27)

And this is based off another verse from Proverbs:

Will he not repay man according to his work? (Prov. 24:12)

And one other:

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. (Rev. 3:19)

Which is based on this verse:

The LORD reproves him whom he loves (Prov. 3:12)

THE BOOK OF JOB AS SCRIPTURE

If we look across all the quotes of the Old Testament, among the Writings only Psalms and Proverbs are quoted or referenced by Jesus. If we expand our search to quotes by the apostles, Paul quotes Job three times and Job is referenced in James 5:11. However for the book of Job there is a direct reference in the book of Ezekiel, including a reference to the prophet Daniel (Ezek. 14:14,20). Jesus not only considered Ezekiel among the prophets, but directly quotes the book of Ezekiel (Mark 8:18 quotes Ezek. 12:2 and Mark 6:34 references Ezek. 34:5).

WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS?

The Writings in the Hebrew canon includes several other books, neither quoted by Jesus nor the apostles.  This is where we get into a grey area. When Jesus mentioned the Psalms among the Law and the Prophets in Luke 24:44, some misinterpret this as a reference to the entirety of the Writings since in the present day Bible the Psalms is the first book of the Writings. But this is a false argument. The Jews never actually settled the exact order of the Writings in the time of Jesus: the book of Psalms was not always the first book. According to the article Ketuvim:

"The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b–15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles. In Tiberian Masoretic codices, including the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex, and often in old Spanish manuscripts as well, the order is Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Esther, Daniel, Ezra."

The book of Ruth was most likely written around the time of Ezra in the 5th century B.C. as it deals with intermarriage, an issue that arose during that time  (see Ezra 9:1, Neh. 13:1). Although Ecclesiastes has been attributed to Solomon, internal language indicates it was also written around the time of Ezra at the earliest. Scholars examining the book of Esther now know that it was likely written in the 4th century B.C. and was most likely intended as a historical novel. Also among the Writings is the book of Lamentations, which according to tradition was written by Jeremiah.
By the time of the first century A.D., however, the collection of books in the Writings was somewhat fluctuating as Josephus mentions that the Biblical canon contained 22 books instead of 24, indicating two of the books in the Writings were not yet considered canonical. We also know that certain books among the Writings were debated among the Jews in the first century A.D. From Development of the Hebrew Bible Canon:

"The Mishnah, compiled at the end of the 2nd century CE, describes a debate over the status of some books of Ketuvim, and in particular over whether or not they render the hands ritually impure. Yadaim 3:5 calls attention to a debate over Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes."

THE CORRUPTIONS OF THE GREEK SEPTUAGINT
 

The Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek in the 3rd and 2nd centuries A.D., due to the fact that Greek became a de facto language during the Greek empire and was widely known. Unfortunately, the Septuagint added additional books to the canon, as well as spurious additions that were never part of the Hebrew scriptures. Thus early on the Jewish rabbis rejected the Septuagint. These books, however, entered into the Biblical canon of the early church, and were not removed until the Reformation. They are now known as the "Apocrypha." Other works added in other branches of the church that were never part of the Hebrew scriptures are more generally known as "Deuterocanonical" works. The Septuagint also mixed up the order of the Biblical canon, and for the most part is the main determining factor for the order of the books of the Old Testament as we have it today, which unfortunately mixes the Prophets with the books of the Writings.

INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF DIVINE INSPIRATION
 

Up until now, I have referenced Jesus as the primary authority for determining which scriptures should be considered canonical or referenced as the Word of God. But problems remain, and the main problem that is in front of most in modern times is why one book is Divinely inspired over another?

In the 18th century, the scientist Emanuel Swedenborg received a series of waking visions over a period of 27 years that revealed the internal spiritual sense of the Bible, where it was revealed that scripture has multiple levels of meaning: the natural or most literal sense, then a more symbolic spiritual sense, and higher than that, the celestial sense. These waking visions occurred after he had an encounter with Jesus, and part of his mission was to reveal how and why the Bible was Divinely Inspired. The proof for which books are Divinely inspired is laid out in full in several volumes. So which books of the Bible are Divinely inspired? They are those that contain an internal spiritual sense, for when reading them the scripture connects our external minds to the thoughts of angels and to the ultimate Divine. Swedenborg spelled it out in the following passage:

"The books of the Word are all those which have the internal sense; books which do not have it are not the Word. The books of the Word in the Old Testament are: The five Books of Moses; the Book of Joshua; the Book of Judges; the two Books of Samuel; the two Books of Kings; the Psalms of David; and the Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi." (Heavenly Arcana, n. 10325)

So how does the above list compare with what Jesus definitely declared as scripture?  It includes every book of the Law and the Prophets, and the book of Daniel is recognized as belonging among the Prophets as well. Among the Writings it acknowledges the Psalms, as well as the book of Lamentations indicating it was indeed written by Jeremiah according to long standing tradition. Thus the list matches exactly what Jesus said when referencing the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms (Luke 24:44).

THE BOOKS OF JOB, PROVERBS AND SONG OF SOLOMON
 

Missing from the list of books that have an internal spiritual sense are the books of Job, Proverbs and Song of Solomon. Despite this, in several passages Swedenborg does occasionally quote from Job and Song of Solomon as scripture. So why did he exclude them?  Swedenborg used the following three criteria for the Biblical canon:

1. The book must be focused on the Lord and His church.
2. The book must contain within it an internal spiritual sense.
3. The internal spiritual sense must be written in a sequential series.

The first criteria is easy to see to everyone, and it is because of this criteria that there was debate among the Jews concerning the Song of Solomon. It is also true for the book of Job:

"That the book of Job is a book of the Ancient Church is manifest, as has been mentioned, from its representative and significative style; but it is not of those books which are called the Law and the Prophets, because it has not an internal sense which treats solely of the Lord and of His kingdom; it is this alone which makes a book of the genuine Word." (Heavenly Arcana, n. 3540)

However in other passages, Swedenborg notes that the book of Job contains an internal spiritual sense (Apocalypse Explained, 740.15). Thus it is quoted as support in explaining certain passages of scripture. The Song of Solomon is similar and is also quoted as scripture, but like Job it is a collection of sayings rather than written in a cohesive series (Heavenly Arcana, n. 9942.5, 3942.2).

As for the book of Proverbs it is not mentioned directly by Swedenborg, but it falls into the same category as Job and Song of Solomon: it is a collection of sayings but they are not written in a cohesive series. It is only implicitly referenced where he says "we are told in the Word that a person will be judged according to his works" (Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 281). This is mentioned in Matt. 16:27, which in turn references Pro. 24:12.

With the exception of Daniel, Psalms and Lamentations, what is apparent is the Writings was perhaps originally intended to be considered as "Ancillary Writings" to be used in support of scripture, provide additional historical context, or preserve an ancient Hebrew writing. But among these the books of Job, Proverbs and Song of Solomon have a higher status as they contain individual sayings that contain an internal spiritual sense that are useful in support of genuine scripture.

THE LOST BOOK OF JASHER
 

In addition to the book of Job, there is another work of the Ancient Church known as the book of Jasher, which is referenced as scripture in Josh. 10:12-13 and 2 Sam. 1:17-18. In the visions received by Swedenborg, he was told in the 18th century that this book was not lost but was still intact. In my research I discovered that this work has probably remained intact in a later manuscript, the book of Jasher written in Rabbic Hebrew, which unfortunately has later additions. But there is internal evidence that this work is indeed based on an ancient copy. For this research, see the following prior blog posts:

• The Lost Book of Jasher, the Exodus, and Emanuel Swedenborg
• The Book of Jasher: a lost ancient book of the Bible, or a medieval forgery?
• Jasher: the Lost book of the Bible, as foreseen by Swedenborg

And lastly, for internal evidence that it is indeed a copy of an ancient account, see The Astronomy of the Birth of Abraham. In terms of its canonical status, I would include it as scripture, with caveats. Ideally we would need a critical edition that would point out to the reader what are probably the later additions to the work.

THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

For the New Testament, the words of Jesus are the Word of God and should be considered higher priority than those of the Apostles. In the revelations given to the New Church, it was shown only the four Gospels and the book of Revelation have an internal spiritual sense, and thus should be considered genuine scripture (Heavenly Arcana, 10325).

So what about the letters of the apostles? These are written in a different style, and provide useful doctrinal teachings for the church. Thus by their nature they are of lesser authority than the words of Jesus. Since they do not have an internal spiritual sense, they are not Divinely inspired in the way that genuine scripture is. In his private diary, Swedenborg indicated that the letters of Paul, although not having an internal spiritual sense, were "Divinely influenced" in terms of their overall subject matter:

"...the Lord spoke from Divine Wisdom Itself, by correspondences, exactly as He also spoke by the prophets, consequently from His own Divine; and that Paul indeed spoke from inspiration, but not in the same way as the prophets, to whom every single word was dictated but that his inspiration was that he received an influx, according to those things which were with him, which is quite a different inspiration, and has no conjunction with heaven by correspondences." (Spiritual Diary, n. 6062)

In a private letter to Harley Swedenborg explains this further:

"With reference to the writings of the Apostles and Paul I have not included these in ARCANA COELESTIA, and this for the reason that they are doctrinal writings, and so are not written in the style of the Word as are the Prophets, David, the Gospels, and the Revelation. The style of the Word wholly consists of correspondences, on which account it effects an immediate communication with heaven. In the doctrinal writings, however, there is another style which indeed communicates with heaven, but mediately. That they were so written by the Apostles was in order that the new Christian Church might commence through these, on which account doctrinal matters could not be written in the very style of the Word, but in a manner that might be more clearly and more directly understood. Nonetheless, the writings of the Apostles are good books for the Church, maintaining the doctrine of charity and its faith as strongly as ever did the Lord Himself in the Gospels and in the Revelation, as can be clearly seen and observed if one attends to the matter while reading those writings."

So in other words, the writings of the apostles should be considered as ancillary writings, in the same way that the Jews created another section of scripture called the Writings or Ketuvim. And there is actually another hidden reason for this, from Divine Providence: these ancillary writings protect the most holy scriptures from being profaned by falsehoods:

"That the Epistles of Paul have not an internal sense is known in the other life; but it is permitted that they may be in the Church, lest those who are of the Church should work evil to the Word of the Lord, in which is the internal sense. For if man lives ill, and yet believes in the holy Word, then he works evil to heaven; therefore the Epistles of Paul are permitted, and therefore Paul was not permitted to take one parable, not even a doctrine, from the Lord, and to expound and unfold it; but he took all things from himself. The Church, indeed, explains the Word of the Lord, but by means of the Epistles of Paul; for which reason also it everywhere departs from the good of charity, and accepts the truth of faith; which, however, the Lord has taught, but in such wise that the good of charity should be the all." (Spiritual Diary, n. 4824)

This actually solves quite a few issues. There are some doctrinal issues with the letters of Paul, where he can easily be taken out of context. In the quote of Rom. 3:10-18, Paul actually quoted from the Septuagint version of Psalm 14 which includes a spurious addition. And note: Paul admitted that at times he gave his own opinions, that were not from the Lord:

"To the rest I say (I, not the Lord)" (1 Cor. 7:12)"(I speak as a man)" (Rom. 3:5)
"I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh" (Rom. 6:19)
"That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting." (2 Cor. 11:17)
"(I speak foolishly,)" (2 Cor. 11:21)
"(I speak as a fool)" (2 Cor. 11:23)
"Brethren, I speak after the manner of men" (Gal. 3:15)

So according to Paul himself, he sometimes speaks from himself, sometimes from the Lord.

In addition to this, the letter of Jude, and the epistles of Peter, reference the apocryphal book of Enoch as scripture, which was written around the second century B.C. If it is understood that there are different levels of inspiration, and that these are doctrinal writings, then readers can have a more nuanced understanding of the texts. Quotations by apostles have lower authority that quotations of scripture by Jesus (see comment below).

A SUMMARY OF THE BIBLICAL CANON

To conclude, here is a summary of the Biblical canon as discussed in this article, with a tentative proposal as to its order:

• The Law: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
• The early Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings
• The latter Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Twelve Prophets
• The Psalms: Psalms
• Poetic Writings: Job, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes
• Historical Writings: Jasher, Ruth, Chronicles, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah
• Gospels and Revelation: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Revelation
• Apostolic Writings: everything else as we have it now in the New Testament

In this arrangement, Lamentations and Daniel are moved out of the Writings and back among the Prophets.

The book of Psalms is followed by the Writings, which is divided into poetic, historical and fictional sections. The Psalms is immediately followed by Job. Ezekiel mentions Noah, Daniel and Job in two passages (Ezek. 14:14,20). Noah is mentioned in the Law, Daniel is in the Prophets, and Job here represents the third section of scripture which can be classified as "Psalms and Poetry." These prophets were used signify the entirety of the Word as testimony against the Jews. In its spiritual sense, Swedenborg confirms that these three men signify all the truths of the Word (Apocalypse Explained, 724.28).

Although the book of Jasher can be placed between Deuteronomy and Joshua, to be conservative I have placed it in the historical Writings since it does include later additions.

The Origin of the Soul, the Virgin Birth of Jesus, and Human Genetics

THE ORIGIN OF THE SOUL

In modern times there are often debates as to the origin of the soul and when the embryo becomes a viable human being. The revelations of the New Church are clear: a soul becomes infused in the embryo at conception. This matches the biological definition of the beginning of life: it begins at conception.

In prior posts, I have discussed the belief in reincarnation in some eastern religions. The revelations of the New Church provides an answer once and for all: life begins at conception. Past life memories do indeed happen, but this happened more often in ancient times when one would enter into communication with a spirit and begin to recall the memory as if it was one's own (see Heavenly Arcana, n. 5843, 5858, 6199). It would often be a similar personality, or one that had similar habits or fears, as the thoughts of our mind is the result of constant influx from the spiritual world.

Swedenborg received an amazing revelation on Christianity and the Second Coming that provides spiritual understanding that is rationally and logically consistent. The majority of the writings are based on direct revelations he received from the Lord, but occasionally he does draw upon his scientific knowledge of his day (18th century). On the surface, he made some false declarations on genetics, namely, the soul originates from the seed of the father and the body comes from the mother (e.g., Heavenly Arcana, n. 1815, 2005, 10052.2, 10125.2, True Christian Religion, n. 92, 103). This idea he may have borrowed from Aristotle (Generation of Animals, book II, 4), but Aristotle's opinion on this matter is not so simple and a bit convoluted and contradictory (for an analysis see Understanding Aristotle's Reproductive Hylomorphism). We know this is incorrect: modern genetics states that the body of a human is composed of equal parts from both the father and mother.

This presents a difficult problem, as Swedenborg makes these statements on genetics to support some of the theology concerning the virgin birth. But actually it is only an apparent falsehood. Although Swedenborg may have believed the scientific knowledge derived from Aristotle, the revelations explicitly declare that the soul is only derived from spiritual influx, not from the seed of the father or ovum of the mother:

"Who at this day does not believe that man springs from the seed and the ovum according to nature? and that there is in the seed from the first creation the ability of producing itself into such forms, first within the ovum, next in the womb, and afterward of itself, and that it is not the Divine which continues to produce? The cause of its being so believed is, that no one knows there is any influx from heaven, that is, through heaven from the Lord" (Heavenly Arcana, n. 4322)

And then we have this statement:

"Unless there were such an eminent perfection in prior and simple things, neither man, nor any animal, could exist and afterward subsist from seed" (Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 204)

These statements are correct, but they directly contradict the other statements that says the soul comes from the seed of the father. So what gives? It is later explained that the seed of the father is merely a receptacle for the spiritual influx of the life of the soul (Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 269, 310). Also, "nature contributes nothing at all to the production of plants and animals, but ...all are produced by that which flows in from the spiritual world into the natural" (Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 344). Also, the image of creation originates from the spiritual, not the natural (Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 315). Elsewhere, Swedenborg explicitly states that as the soul descends it becomes "clothed" with natural substances, and becomes seed (Angelic Wisdom concerning Marriage Love, n. 220, 245). This process of "clothing" or encapsulation of the soul from influx first begins with the seed of the father and ends with conception in the ovum of the mother.

The soul is spiritual in origin, and in its descent first becomes conjoined with the seed of the father and then the ovum of the mother. It is merely a receptacle for spiritual influx. A viable embryo must have spiritual influx, seed from the father and the ovum from the mother. Thus we see that when Swedenborg says the soul is from the father, or the seed of the father, he is oversimplifying for the audience of his day.

It should also be pointed out that the seed corresponds to the soul of the body (Heavenly Arcana, 3855, 9258.2) and the "giving of seed" corresponds to spiritual influx (Heavenly Arcana, 6139). Thus what Swedenborg said on the matter is true by symbolic correspondence - for the seed of the father eventually becomes the vessel of the soul at conception.

THE VIRGIN BIRTH

The gospels of Matthew and Luke describe how Jesus was born of a virgin, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 as well as some ancient myths describing a God-man born of a virgin, which probably originated from a more ancient church in the Middle East that preceded Judaism. It is by virtue of the virgin birth that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God (Luke 1:35) - the idea of a second person or a Son "born from eternity" is a later falsehood invented by men that was unknown to the early church. Although the virgin birth is not explicitly declared in the gospel of John, John states that Jesus is the "Word made flesh" and was thus unlike any other man or ordinary prophet. In later dialogue the Jews argue with Jesus over the identity of His father, whom Jesus does not reveal to them.

So why did Jesus have to be born of a virgin?  No one has been able to answer this question, if it was even asked, but the revelations do give us an answer. The virgin birth is very important as it is a sign given to explain exactly who Jesus is: His soul was Divine, and was not derived from the seed of any human father. It was God Himself who descended as to the Divine truth and became clothed in human form. The invisible God is the Father, His visible form is the Son, born in time to the virgin Mary.

Every person inherits hereditary evils from the father and mother, and the other revelation is that another reason why God had to become incarnate in human form was that so that He could dwell in a human body and fight against the temptations and power of the hells which had been inherited from the evils from the human mother. Jesus had only inherited evil tendencies from Mary in his most external outward form, but at a higher level, the level of His soul which was Divine, He could succumb to no evil. Evils from the mother can be removed, but those inherited from the father cannot (Heavenly Arcana, n. 1573). Otherwise, in no manner could the Divine be tempted. The idea of an "immaculate conception" for Mary is not only false, but it obscures the rationale for why God had to become incarnate to save humanity. It was only through the human form that God could fight directly against the hells which at the time had gained dominion and power over humanity.

FIRST PROBLEM: CHRIST IS OF THE SEED OF DAVID

The majority of Christianity accepts the virgin birth at face value without questioning why Jesus had to be virgin; even Islam accepts this fact. There is an obvious problem posed by the virgin birth: many prophecies in scripture state that the Messiah would be born from the seed of David. This was first given to David with the promise that his seed would rule over the house of Israel forever (2 Sam. 7), and this was fulfilled by Jesus. But that simply could not be true if Jesus was born of a virgin, correct? One simple explanation around this is that Mary was a descendant of the house of David - we know that as her genealogy is presented in Luke. But "seed" and "son" is always through the male line, and this can be seen in the genealogy of the kings that descended from David.

Another curious fact is that Joseph's genealogy is presented in Matthew. But that yet brings up another question: why even mention the genealogy through Joseph if he had nothing to do with the virgin birth? Joseph is specifically called "son of David" (Matt. 1:20), moreover, Mary only conceived only after she was espoused to Joseph of the "house of David" (Luke 1:27). Why, if Joseph has nothing to do with the virgin birth?

Throughout the gospels, Jesus is called "son of David," and its actually the very first statement of the New Testament (e.g., Matt. 1:1, 9:27, 12:23, 15:22, 20:30-31, 21:9,15). In Luke, David is called Jesus father (Luke 1:32) and of the lineage of David (Luke 2:4). In John, people mention how the Messiah must come from the "seed of David" (John 7:42). Paul is even more specific: concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was of the seed of David, according to the flesh (Rom. 1:3). And later, Paul again calls Jesus of the "seed of David" (Heb. 4:7). But this can only occur through the male line, not through a virgin birth.

Jesus, interestingly, points out this problem. In all three of the synoptic gospels, He asks the question: if Christ or the Messiah is the son of David, how come David calls the Messiah "Lord"? (Matt. 22:42-46) It ends with "no one was able to answer."  And an explicit answer is never given in the Gospels. One answer was given in the revelations of the New Church: Jesus indeed was a man like you and I, but upon the resurrection He made His body fully Divine, to the point that Jesus is now the Divine Human, or "God-Man," and it can no longer be said of Jesus that He is the son of Mary, for everything that was of the human nature has now been transformed into the Divine. In this manner God can interact directly with humanity without the intermediary of angels. But this still does not answer how Jesus could be of the seed of David if He was born of a virgin.

The problem I am pointing out here is not a new one. In the history of Christianity, one of the earliest heresies was a Jewish Christian sect that was later known as the "Ebionites." They regarded Jesus as a mere man and followed the "Adoptionist" heresy which declared Jesus only became the Son of God at the baptism of John. They modified the Gospel of Matthew into a forgery known as the Gospel of the Ebionites which removed the story of the virgin birth, perhaps due to the apparent discrepancy between that story and these prophecies indicating that the Messiah was to be born of the seed of David. Most accounts from the early church fathers agree that the Ebionites rejected the virgin birth and regarded Jesus as the biological son of Joseph and Mary. There are some modern scholars who followed a similar reasoning to the Ebionites and surmised the virgin birth was added later since its not mentioned in the Gospel of Mark.

SECOND PROBLEM: WHERE DID THE Y CHROMOSOME COME FROM?

The second problem with the virgin birth is an obvious problem to anyone with a knowledge of human genetics, much of it unknown before the 20th century. The problem is simple: all males have a Y chromosome, and can only be passed from male fathers. An XX chromosome means the offspring would be female and an XY chromosome means the offspring would be male. Jesus, being fully man, obviously had a Y chromosome.  Where did it come from? In the animal kingdom there is the phenomenon of parthenogenesis, where a female spontaneously gives birth when her egg undergoes division, but this always leads to female offspring.

There is one exception to this: there is a rare genetic defect among females known as "XY gonadal dysgenesis." In this case, a female is born that is female in every way except she happens to carry the Y chromosome. Such females do not undergo puberty and their ovaries are non-functional: they can never give birth. However recently a girl was discovered who had this syndrome but her ovaries were discovered to be normal: see Girl with Y chromosome sheds light on maleness.

So, was this the case for the virgin Mary?  Two (or more) things would need to occur biologically:

1. Mary would need to produce an ovum that somehow produces an XY pairing for a male, and this has never been documented among any female.
   
2. The XY ovum would need to undergo parthenogenesis as it does it some animal species, where it splits and then recombines. This has never been documented, and several very rare steps would need to happen for this process to end with a viable embryo (see Can a Virgin Give Birth? Yes—but it’s very, very, very, very unlikely.)
   

This would solve the problem of the missing Y chromosome, and even though born of a virgin, Jesus could still be said to be of the "seed of David."

Another possibility: the Holy Spirit, as it overshadowed Mary, borrowed the Y chromosome from Joseph, and created a unique vessel which became Jesus Christ, somehow done with no sexual intercourse. This would explain why the Gospels trace back the lineage of both Joseph and Mary to the house of David. Thus two conditions are satisfied: Jesus is of the seed of David and yet has no human father, for only God is His Father as the spiritual influx came direct from the Holy Spirit, that is, from the Divine alone. In this scenario, the seed of Joseph was modified to be a vessel of God's spirit, rather than house another human soul. In His day the Jews recognized Jesus as the son of Joseph (see John 6:42)

The underlying biological science of the virgin birth is merely a rational exploration into the truth of what has been revealed.  While we do not have a definite answer, I would prefer these routes of exploration rather than mutilate the gospel records. That it may be important can be seen from the fact that it took 46 years to build Herod's temple, which Jesus said represented his body. And there happen to be 46 chromosomes in the human body (see The Lost Doctrine of the Temple of the Divine Human)

The important thing to realize here, is that the Father and Son are one in Jesus Christ just as the soul and body are one. For the Father dwells in Jesus (John 14:9-10) just as the soul dwells in the body. And this is why Jesus had to be born in such a miraculous manner.

Major Insider Reveal: Selected by Extraterrestrials by William Tompkins

 

In the 18th century, Swedenborg described in his visions the existence of extraterrestrial humans on other planets. I have, in prior blog posts, connected this to contactee accounts of human extraterrestrials and the burst of UFO activity that followed after World War II. The subject matter soon became a part of secret military programs, and censorship of the media. It is a complicated subject as this is often swept under the table by counter intelligence efforts, and the general public is blissfully unaware of the enormous budgets that are poured into secret programs, and doubt the ability of the military to keep a secret. But recently I have seen evidence of a shift in policy among the military: they are slowly beginning to turn on the faucet of information, in a slow "drip drip" manner so as not to shock the public. It is a hard thing for many to accept, as they are brainwashed by the media - and even by our current system of education - to believe in many falsehoods.

The first major insider reveal, I think, was the book The Day After Roswell, written by Lieutenant Colonel Philip J. Corso:

He served in the army and arranged for about 10,000 Jews to leave Rome for Palestine at the end of World War II. Following this he served four years on the National Security Council for President Eisenhower. In 1961, he became Chief of the Pentagon's Foreign Technology desk in Army Research and Development. And what was he working on? In the book, he states that the 1947 crash of a flying saucer did indeed crash in Roswell New Mexico. This confirmed the accounts of many witnesses that were gathered by independent researchers. And one of his primary responsibilities was to take the crash remains, bring it to U.S. corporations, and reverse engineer it. Two of the major technological developments that came out of this was the integrated circuit, responsible for the computer you are reading this on, and the other was fiber optics, now used for many communications.

And the other claim? They discovered some of the extraterrestrials were hostile. And this is the origin of the Space Defense Initiative (SDI) under Ronald Reagan.  And we don't have to take his word for it: Reagan explicitly mentioned the "extraterrestrial threat" in his public speeches and mentioned that as a reason we should end the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Although Corso does not mention it, these hostiles are probably responsible for biological research into both the animals and humans on this planet, and are responsible for many human abductions. In my opinion, it is the biological bacteria and viruses on this planet that is protecting us, but one group is intent on creating hybrids to get past this problem (see The Threat: Revealing the Secret Alien Agenda, by Jacobs). This is probably one of the reasons why the military had to be careful what they revealed to the public.

So I left the subject of extraterrestrials for a while, and once things settled personally for me after this coronavirus pandemic broke out, I decided to read a book entitled Selected by Extraterrestrials, by William Tompkins, who unfortunately passed away recently in 2017. A second volume of his work has been published this year posthumously by Dr. Michael Salla. And when I read it, although the book is poorly written and includes a lot of "fluff", it drops a number of bombshells confirming what I previously regarded as rumors or hearsay in UFO research. And some of it is just so unbelievable, even to me, and probably more so for those who have no knowledge of the research. But I am going to report on it anyway, because many people need to start getting their heads out of the sand.

So who is William Tompkins? He worked for Navy intelligence during World War II out of southern California. He would later work for an Aerospace company, Douglas Aircraft Company (the editor, Robert Wood, worked at the same company). After the book was published, Dr. Michael Salla, through the Freedom of Information act was able to confirm the following:

• William Tompkins was part of the staff to Admiral Rico Botta of the U.S. Navy, who in 1942 reported to the Naval Air Station in San Diego, California.
• William Tompkins job was "Disseminator for Advanced Research."
• Rico Botta was selected by Secretary of the Navy Forrestal to be the individual who controlled the information brought back by naval intelligence operatives from Nazi Germany.
• Before Rico Botta took over Naval Air station in San Diego, he visited all four of the principal aircraft companies: Lockheed, North American, Douglas Aircraft and Northrup.
• Within 2 months of Rico Botta's visit to these four aircraft companies, which would later become aerospace companies, the companies were visited by Williams Tompkins who presented packages to them.

Here is a picture of Admiral Rico Botta of the U.S. Navy:

 

A short biography can be found here: http://www.epnaao.com/BIOS_files/DECEASED/Botta-%20Rico.pdf.  What is interesting is this statement, after having served at the Naval Air Station at San Diego:

“For exceptionally meritorious conduct (in that capacity) from December 31, 1942 to August 14, 1945...” he was awarded the Legion of Merit. The citation states in part: “...By his outstanding technical knowledge and skill, (he) enabled his department to meet the ever increasing demands of the Fleet Air Commands for combat aircraft of the latest type and with the latest combat-improved changes installed...”

Now, with that out of the way, William Tompkins makes the following statements, some of which came out in interviews after the book was published:

• The Battle of Los Angeles in 1942 was caused by an incursion of flying saucers. Two were shot down and recovered by the navy.
  
• Naval intelligence officers in Germany were reporting back very strange things: German scientists had advanced flying saucer technology.
• Maria Orsic of the Vril society was also independently successful in developing advanced flying saucer technology.
  
• Portions of the plans from German scientists were relayed to William Tompkins. Tompkins would drop off these notes at the aforementioned companies to try to reverse engineer them.
  
• The German technology was surprisingly advanced. The Naval intelligence officers, to their utter surprise, discovered they were receiving assistance from an extraterrestrial reptilian race.
  
• The particular reptilian race was not only hostile to humans, but had been involved in human history for the last 5-6,000 years. Their objective is to keep the human race suppressed and ignorant.
  
• This reptilian race was familiar with advanced mind control methods, and would use it to keep humans suppressed. Tompkins avoids questions in this area, indicating it is a sensitive topic and probably still classified.
• Amazingly, the plans and designs for the Apollo Missions to the Moon originated at Douglas Aircraft, at the direction of Tompkins, who made an unofficial trip to present it to von Braun, whose group was later incorporated into NASA.
• Tompkins had no formal education, but had been selected to join the U.S. Navy due to his amazing photographic memory.
• Tompkins would have these amazing detailed plans, or answers to his questions, come into his head, despite the lack of his formal education. Scientists would approach him to discover where all this information was coming from.
• Tompkins later discovered, quite by accident, that the secretaries assigned to him were Nordic extraterrestrials.  These "secretaries" were both extremely beautiful and highly intelligent, and were responsible for feeding ideas into Tompkins through telepathy.
• The "secretaries" would never confirm who they were, and like other similar reports, were apparently never allowed to confirm their identity.
• The purpose of the Apollo missions to the Moon was to help push the human race to become interstellar.
• Before they landed on the Moon, NASA discovered there were artificial structures on the surface of the Moon. Tompkins himself saw some of the photographs, confirming the testimony of several prior witnesses (e.g., Karl Wolfe, who saw the photographs at CIA headquarters in Langley)
  
• The Moon had the capacity to house within it massive cities. This was recently confirmed with the discovery of large lava tubes under the lunar surface. Tompkins states the Moon was probably designed for this.
• When Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon, several large massive extraterrestrial ships were seen on the other side of the crater. Although this was never reported to the public, HAM radio operators at the time reported similar testimony (see https://www.quora.com/Did-Neil-Armstrong-really-see-aliens-on-the-moon-Or-is-the-whole-story-made-up)
  
• Although not stated in the book, it is implied that the other agenda was to help the human race defend itself against a possible extraterrestrial threat.
• Tompkins would confirm in another interview that the secret space program now known as "Solar Warden," as discovered recently by British hackers, is indeed real.
• Another secret program that was successful based on extraterrestrial knowledge, is extension of human life, again confirming some other bizarre witness testimony about our secret space program. Our lives have been artificially shortened, as well as our brain functioning capacity. This program was seen necessary for long trips for interstellar travel.
  

OK. That was a lot. Its a lot to take in, and I had to absorb and think about it before immediately rejecting it offhand. But Tompkins is not the only one saying these things, most of the information can be found in other witness accounts. The difference here, Tompkins is not another UFO researcher, he obviously is an insider. So let's examine some of this one by one.

WAS THERE A NAZI PROGRAM INVOLVING FLYING SAUCERS?

The first surprise for me was that reverse engineering of UFO technology did not begin in 1947 from the crash in Roswell, but in 1942 under the U.S. Navy. And actually before that under Nazi Germany, except the Germans were being given explicit help. Surprisingly, evidence for this is right out there in the public, and it is completely brushed over in the history books. One good book on this is Hitler's Flying Saucers: A Guide to German Flying Discs of the Second World War, by Henry Stevens. I happened to have it and never read it as I thought it was too speculative. I skimmed through it and was surprised by the amount of research. Much of it is circumstantial or indeed speculative, but among the pages I found this:

• A CIA Document from 1952 confirms that the Germans were building flying saucers as early as 1941. It states: ""Flying saucers" have been known to be an actuality since the possibility of their construction was proven in plans drawn up by German engineers toward the end of World War II." This confirms Tompkins account. The CIA probably had this knowledge from the U.S. Navy programs.
  
• The CIA document mentions an engineer that said Nazi Germany had plans for a flying saucer as early as 1941. He was present in Prague for a test flight of an experimental flying saucer.
  
• The American military thought "Foo fighters", strange globes that followed American airplanes during WWII, were of German origin, which they called "Phoo bombs". My surmise on this is these were probably extraterrestrial.
• An FBI Report from 1957 spoke to a Polish prisoner of war who saw a flying saucer ascend from a German facility east of Berlin in 1944.

At the time the author concluded that UFO researchers had "jumped to the conclusion" that UFOs were extraterrestrial and not of a terrestrial origin, as there was a habit to ignore the evidence from Germany. Tompkins testimony changes that conclusion: German indeed had a flying saucer research program, but they were reverse engineering it, with extraterrestrial help.

A (FORMER?) EXTRATERRESTRIAL BASE ON THE MOON?

The idea of artificial structures of the Moon seems preposterous at first, but other witnesses have reported this - some researchers were even allowed to take a look at the original photographs. Several researchers and witnesses have said that NASA brushed them out in the photographs revealed to the public, and I have discussed this previously on this blog. But surprisingly, Emanuel Swedenborg was told in his visions the Moon was inhabited in the 18th century (Earths in the Universe, n. 111-112). For the other extraterrestrials he had to guess about their origin, and was probably mistaken when identifying certain planets of our solar system, but was explicitly told by the angels that this group were indeed from the Moon. Unfortunately what the secret space programs know is kept hidden from the public, and Swedenborg's statements on human extraterrestrials have caused many to reject the revelations. Obviously, if you have extraterrestrials on the Moon they have to be extremely advanced, and were (are?) probably using it as a temporary base. When one understands that bacteria and viruses on earth can be lethal to extraterrestrial life, an advanced civilization traveling the stars may prefer such sterile locations to setup temporary way stops.

WHAT ABOUT TELEPATHIC HUMAN EXTRATERRESTRIALS?

Many witnesses, not just Tompkins, report encounters with extraterrestrial humans who prefer to communicate telepathically rather than verbally.  In one of his visionary encounters of extraterrestrials, Swedenborg seemed to encounter this but did not seem to understand it, as the concept of "telepathy" did not even exist. Instead he attributed the non-verbal communication to a type of "internal breathing" that affected the Eustachian tube of the inner ear (Earths in the Universe, n. 87).

As for the behavior of extraterrestrial UFOs, why they do not make contact?  Swedenborg saw that these extraterrestrial societies regarded humans on earth as barbaric and evil. There also seemed to be a spiritual barrier that Swedenborg had to cross that separated the earth from other extraterrestrial societies, and this because unlike their societies humans on earth were very external and materialistic, something that was very averse to their way of life and thinking, which was more internal and spiritual. This was because in many other extraterrestrial societies contact with heaven was not broken, and communication with spirits is utterly normal to them. They did not experience the "fall of Adam" as we did here on earth, and this idea has been expressed in other witness accounts.

WHAT ABOUT A REPTILIAN EXTRATERRESTRIAL RACE?

This testimony of an extraterrestrial reptilian race from Tompkins took me by surprise, and my first reaction was to reject it.  I realized this was because there are a lot of false conspiracy theories on the internet regarding extraterrestrial reptilians, which mix in truth with fiction and speculation. Some researchers have reached some very false conclusions, confusing the effects of mind control programs with these reptilians, a subject for another day. However, if one reads multiple independent witness accounts, indeed there are many reports of encounters with reptilian humanoid extraterrestrials in these UFO contacts. So I knew of these accounts, but despite that, it was still shocking to see that this was indeed true from an inside account that they do indeed exist. But was more surprising: Tompkins states several times this reptilian race has been involved in human affairs for thousands of years, and they want to keep the human race suppressed. When we see the Nazis exterminating millions in concentration camps, putting many into slave labor, this implies that their agenda is very negative for the human race. And, they need an earthly government to do their bidding.

So, suspending my initial idea to reject this statement, my question was: if true, how did Swedenborg miss this?  He was not only allowed to give a full account of heaven and hell in the afterlife, but had accidentally encountered several human extraterrestrials from other planets in the spiritual world while in full waking state. But they were all human, not once did he mention any other kind. I surmised one reason he may have missed this is that in the spiritual world, those who are deceptive are represented by serpents, as all animals are representative of internal human affections and thoughts, good or evil. So, if Swedenborg actually encountered a deceptive humanoid reptilian race, he might have thought that the serpents were merely representative of their cunning and deceptive nature.  So out of curiosity, I decided to take another look at his private Spiritual Diary, which is actually the original document where he first reported his extraterrestrial encounters. There is an interesting passage of one of his encounters with the most evil spirits among hell, who were according to Swedenborg were under a "fantasy" seeming to walk across the globe beneath their feet, supposing themselves to be the greatest gods ruling the universe (Spiritual Diary, n. 284-285). They were deceitful and cunning and were adept at perverting the thoughts of the innocent, and were described as the "poisons and deceits of the serpent" (Spiritual Diary, n. 287). Maybe a coincidence, but their nature of deceit, and perverting human thought, coincides with Tompkins testimony how this reptilian race uses mind control techniques to suppress the human race. It is unclear as evil spirits in the spiritual world do the same, but the account is curious as the word "globe" is used by Swedenborg to refer to planets. Was it just their fantasy, or did he happen to encounter an evil sort of extraterrestrial from our own planet? Later, Swedenborg encountered in his vision a group of advanced extraterrestrials, who would travel in the form of a "globe" between solar systems, gathering immense knowledge. These were of a different sort, but it is curious how again he used the word "globe" to refer to extraterrestrials traveling between solar systems. There is a later passage with the heading, THE SEAT OF CERTAIN ONES IN HEAVEN WHO ARE CALLED STARS. Here, he relates that there was a certain spirit appearing at the "zenith" high above, who at times appeared as a "smooth serpent," whom Swedenborg relates to the dragon of the Apocalypse in Rev. 12:4. While holding preference for the Jewish race, he wished to destroy all other humans, and pervert Christian doctrine, and was quite deceitful and had caused trouble for Swedenborg for 3 years (Spiritual Diary, n. 461). Later Swedenborg explicitly calls this spirit a "star" that supposed he was the sun for all others (Spiritual Diary, n. 466), and in another passage, calls this spirit a "dragon" whose deceit has "persisted for many ages past, and has perverted countless numbers" (Spiritual Diary, n. 487).

None of this is conclusive, for Swedenborg focused solely on universal spiritual truths. But what is hidden may actually be right in front of us: the serpent, a symbol of evil and deceit that caused the fall of Adam in ancient times, has perhaps a hidden more literal story of a reptilian race interfering with human affairs. The extraterrestrial interpretation would be a more literal application of scripture than the more universal one, where a serpent spiritually represents those who are materialistic and deceitful. And it all ends with the Apocalypse, in a great battle between Christ who descends from heaven against the dragon who has a stranglehold on planet earth. While in a spiritual sense this represents the Second Coming of Christ in the spiritual sense of the Word against those who have followed a falsified and corrupt form of Christianity, on a more literalistic level it possibly refers to the hidden war between the Nordic humans and reptilians. The dragon, in a spiritual sense, are those who separate faith from charity, and in a sense refers to those who are stuck in a false belief system that renders them spiritually powerless and useless in life. If there is an extraterrestrial factor in all of this, it makes sense to introduce in Swedenborg's revelations that extraterrestrial humans do indeed exist. So get over that, and see the big picture.

UFO researchers have said there are too many sightings: they have to be somewhere close by. If they are human they could walk down the street and you would never know it. I have read multiple independent accounts, where these extraterrestrials have warned us that there is a hostile race interfering with human affairs, and Tompkins sheds a bit more light on it. Unfortunately he did not say everything.

This all sounds like science fiction, but we have this account from Tompkins where some of the facts can be independently verified. And consider: why did God choose to become incarnate on our planet?  Could it be, our planet will be (or is) at the center of a conflict of extraterrestrial proportions? Indeed, I think some of these human extraterrestrials do actually follow that point of view. One of them reportedly had said, "We are God's celestial army." But in all of this, it is we who have to solve our problems, and follow internal spiritual discernment to weed out the falsehoods from the truth, and determine who is friend and who is foe. But it is good to hear we have friends who have decided to become involved in our affairs to help.