truth is in them and they are in the light of truth because, as I said
before, the Lord is the light itself and the truth itself.
I can support this point from experience. I saw a spirit who seemed
simple in his interaction with other spirits because he acknowledged the
Lord alone as the God of heaven and earth, basing this faith of his on a
few truths from the Word. He was taken up into heaven among the wiser
angels. I was told that when he was there he was just as wise as they were.
In fact, he uttered a great many truths, completely as if they were his own
ideas, although he had known none of them before. [ 4 ] Those who come
into the Lord’s new church will experience the same state. This is the
state that is described in Jeremiah:
This will be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after
these days. I will put my law inside them. I will write it on their hearts.
No longer will people teach their friends, and brothers and sisters, say-
ing “Know the Lord.” They will all know me, from the least of them to
the greatest of them. (Jeremiah 31 : 33 , 34 )
This state will also be like Isaiah’s description:
A branch will come out of the trunk of Jesse. The truth will wrap his
thighs. Then the wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie
down with the goat. A nursing child will play over a cobra’s hole, and a
weaned child will reach a hand over the den of a poisonous snake,
because the earth will be full of the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters
cover the sea. In that day the nations will seek the root of Jesse and
glory will be his rest. (Isaiah 11 : 1 , 5 , 6 – 10 )5
Faith without Goodwill Is Not Faith;
Goodwill without Faith Is Not Goodwill;
and Neither of Them Is Living Unless It Comes from the Lord355 The church today has separated faith from goodwill. The church says that
faith alone apart from the works of the Law justifies us and saves us. It
says that goodwill cannot be united to faith, because faith comes from
God while goodwill (to the extent that it becomes actual in deeds) comes
from ourselves.