and I will love them and manifest myself to them. We will come to
them and make a home with them.” (John 14 : 21 , 23 )
These sentences were written in the presence of the Lord’s twelve
apostles. While I was writing them, the Lord sent the apostles to me.
2
Briefly Put, Faith Is Believing That People
Who Live Good Lives and Believe the Right Things
Are Saved by the LordWe are created for eternal life. All of us are capable of inheriting it, pro- 340
vided we use in our lives the means of salvation that have been prescribed
for us in the Word. On these points all Christians agree, as do all non-
Christians who have religion and sound reason.
There are indeed many means of being saved, but each and every one
of them relates to living a good life and believing the right things. There-
fore they all relate to goodwill and faith, for goodwill is living a good life
and faith is believing the right things. These two universal categories of
means of being saved—goodwill and faith—are not just prescribed for us
in the Word, they are commanded.
From the fact that they are commanded it follows that goodwill and
faith give us the capacity of providing ourselves with eternal life through
a power that is assigned and given to us by God. The more we use that
power and look to God, the more God increases the power until he turns
every aspect of our earthly goodwill into spiritual goodwill and every
aspect of our earthly faith into spiritual faith. In this way God brings
dead goodwill and faith to life, and brings us to life as well.
[ 2 ] Two things have to come together before we can be said to be liv-
ing a good life and believing the right things. In the church these two
things are called our inner self and our outer self. When our inner self has
good intentions and our outer self has good actions, then the two unite.
Our outer self acts from our inner self, and our inner self acts through our
outer self; we act from God and God acts through us. On the other
hand, if our inner self has evil intentions, but our outer self still has good
actions, nonetheless both are acting from hell. Our intentions come
from hell and our actions are hypocritical. Our hellish intentions are
§340 faith 409