identifying gold and silver. They are like stone markers or signposts along
the road that show the way to the church building where the one true
God is worshiped. They are like lighthouses on rocks by the sea that let
sailors at night know where they are and which direction to steer their
ships on the wind.
The first identifying sign of faith, which is the belief that the Lord is
the Son of the living God, is like the morning star for all who are coming
into his church.
(b) Illegitimate faith is all faith that departs from the one and only 380
true faith. Illegitimate faith exists in people who climb up some other way
and view the Lord not as God but only as a human being.All faith that
departs from the one true faith is illegitimate. This is self-evident.
Given that only one faith is true, it follows that any faith that departs
from it is not true. The marriage between the Lord and the church gen-
erates everything that is good and that is true in the church. Everything
that is essentially goodwill and essentially faith comes from that mar-
riage. Any goodwill and faith that are not from that marriage come
from an illegitimate bed, not a legitimate one. They come from either a
polygamous marriage bed or an adulterous one. Every faith that
acknowledges the Lord and yet adopts false and heretical beliefs comes
from a polygamous bed.
A faith that acknowledges three lords over one church comes from an
adulterous bed. It is like a single woman who is promiscuous; or like a
married woman who has a husband but rents herself out overnight to
two other men, and when she sleeps with them she calls each of them her
husband. Therefore these types of faith are called illegitimate.
In many passages the Lord calls people with these types of belief
“adulterers.” He also means people like this when he mentions thieves
and robbers in John:
Truly I say to you, those who do not enter through the door to the sheep-
fold but instead climb up some other wayare thieves and robbers. I am the
door. Anyone who enters through me will be saved. (John 10 : 1 , 9 )Coming into “the sheepfold” is coming into the church and also coming
into heaven. It means coming into heaven because heaven and the
church are one. Nothing else constitutes heaven except the church in the
spiritual world. Therefore just as the Lord is the bridegroom and hus-
band of the church, he is also the bridegroom and husband of heaven.
[ 2 ] To test and find out whether a given faith is a legitimate or an ille-
gitimate offspring, one can use the three indications presented just above:
§380 faith 457