The Life of Religion

All religion is of life and the life of religion is to do that which is good.

• Everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man who built his house on the rock; and everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does them not, shall be likened to a foolish man who built his house on the sand. (Matthew 7:24, 26).
• Every man who has religion knows and acknowledges that he who leads a good life is saved, and that he who leads an evil life is damned; for he knows and acknowledges that the man who lives aright thinks aright, not only about God but also about his neighbor; but not so the man whose life is evil. (The Doctrine of Life §1) Read more.
  • The life of a man is his love, and that which he loves he not only likes to be doing, but also likes to be thinking. The reason therefore why we say that the life is to do that which is good is that doing what is good acts as a one with thinking what is good, for if in a man these two things do not act as a one, they are not of his life. (The Doctrine of Life §1)
  • The reason why all religion is of the life is that after death everyone is his own life, for the life stays the same as it had been in this world, and undergoes no change.  For an evil life cannot be converted into a good one, nor a good life into an evil one, because they are opposites, and conversion into what is opposite is extinction. (The Doctrine of Life §8)
• That religion is of the life and that the life of religion is to do that which is good is seen by everyone who reads the Word, and is acknowledged by him while he is reading it. (Life §2) Read more.
  
  • Whoever shall break the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens. For I say to you that unless your righteousness shall exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of the heavens. (Matthew 5:19-20)
  • Not every one who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens; but he who does the will of My Father who is in the heavens.
    Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then I will profess to them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you who work iniquity. (Matthew 7: 21-23)
  • When the Son of man shall come in His glory, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory. And He shall say to the sheep on His right hand, Come you blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me. Then shall the righteous answer, When saw we Thee so?
    
    And the king shall answer and say to them, Amen, I say to you, Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me. And the king shall say the like things to the goats on the left, and because they have not done such things, He shall say, Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matthew 25:31-41).
• Suggested Reading: The Doctrine of Charity §13-89
• Suggested Search: use

In proportion as a man shuns evil as sins, in the same proportion he does goods, not from himself but from the Lord.

• He who does truth, comes to the Light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are worked in God. (John 3:21)
• Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in Him, If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:31-32).
• Who does not or may not know that evils stand in the way of the Lord’s entrance to a man? (The Doctrine of Life §18)
• If a man wills and does goods before he shuns evils as sins, the goods are not good. (The Doctrine of Life §23) Read more.
  • A man who is in good not only acts aright from the will but also thinks aright from the understanding, and this not only before the world but also before himself when he is alone.  Not so a man who is in evil. (The Doctrine of Life §47)
  • Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. (Matthew 23:25)
  • Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (I Samuel 15:22)
• Two things however are requisite: first, the man must shun evils because they are sins, that is, because they are infernal and diabolical, and therefore contrary to the Lord and the Divine laws; and secondly, he must do this as of himself, while knowing and believing that it is of the Lord. (The Doctrine of Life §22)
• It is a truth that no man can do good, which is good, from himself; but to destroy, by applying this truth, all the good of charity that a man does who shuns evils as sins, is gross wickedness; for it is diametrically contrary to the Word, which commands that man shall DO. It is also contrary to the precepts of love to God and love towards the neighbour, on which commandments hang the Law and the Prophets; and it undermines and overturns the whole of religion; for every one knows that religion consists in doing good, and that every one will be judged according to his deeds. Every man by nature is such that he can shun evils, as of himself, from the Lord's power, if he implores it; and what he does after this, is good from the Lord. (The Doctrine of Life §31)
  • Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except you abide in Me.  I am the vine, you are the branches; He who abides in Me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. (John 15: 4-5)
• In proportion as any one shuns evils as sins in the same proportion he loves truths. (The Doctrine of Life §32) Read more.
  • He who shuns evils as sins, loves truths and longs for them. The more he shuns them, so much the more love and longing does he feel, because so much the more he is in good. The result is that he comes into the heavenly marriage, which is the marriage of good and truth, in which is heaven, and in which must be the church. (The Doctrine of Life §41) Read more.
    • It is indeed possible for a man to love truths who does not shun evils as sins; yet he does not love them because they are truths, but because they minister to his reputation, and thereby to his honors or gains, so that if they do not minister to it he loves them not.  (The Doctrine of Life §35)
    • In proportion as any one is in good, and from good loves truths, in the same proportion he loves the Lord, because the Lord is good itself and truth itself. (The Doctrine of Life §38)
      • If a man love Me, he will keep my words. (John 14:23)
  • In proportion as any one loves the truth, in the same proportion he desires to know it, and in the same proportion is affected at heart when he finds it. No one else comes into wisdom.  And in proportion as any one loves to do the truth, in the same proportion he senses the pleasantness of the light in which the truth is.  It is the same with… sincerity and justice in the case of one who shuns thefts of every kind; with chastity and purity in the case of one who shuns adulteries of every kind; and with love and charity in the case of one who shuns murders of every kind.  On the other hand, one who is in the opposites to these heavenly things knows nothing about them, although everything that is truly something is present in them. (The Doctrine of Life §89)
  • It is evident that the truth of the Word cannot take root in those who do not care for the truth, nor in those who love the truth outwardly and not inwardly, nor in those who are in the lusts of evil, but in those in whom the lusts of evil have been dispersed by the Lord. In these the seed – that is, the truth – takes root in their spiritual mind.  (The Doctrine of Life §90) Read more.
    • No man has in him a grain of truth more than he has of good; thus that he has not a grain of faith more than he has of life. In the understanding indeed there may exist the thought that such or such a thing is true, but not the acknowledgment which is faith, unless there is consent thereto in the will. Thus do faith and life keep step as they walk. (The Doctrine of Life §52)
      • Even so faith, if it does not have works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. (James 2:17-18)
• Suggested Reading: The Doctrine of Charity §1-12, God's Purpose and How to Cooperate
• Suggested Search: shun

The Ten Commandments teach what evils are sins.

• What nation in the wide world is not aware that it is evil to steal, to commit adultery, to kill, and to bear false witness:  If men were not aware of this, and if they did not by laws guard against the commission of these evils, it would be all over with them, for without such laws the community, the commonwealth, and the kingdom would perish.  (The Doctrine of Life §53)
• One might… wonder why these laws known as they are throughout the world over, were promulgated from Mount Sinai by Jehovah Himself with so great a miracle.  But listen: they were promulgated with so great a miracle in order that men may know that these laws are not only civic and moral laws, but are also spiritual laws; and that to act contrary to them is not only to do evil to a fellow citizen and to the community, but is also to sin against God. (The Doctrine of Life §53)
• Suggested Reading: Apocalypse Explained §1027:2, 1028:2

The Ten Commandments… are in a brief summary the complex of all things of religion, by which there is a conjunction of God with man and of man with God.

God spoke all these words saying:

• There shall be with thee no other God in my presence. Read more.
  
  • In the sense nearest the letter this commandment means that idols must not be worshiped, for the reason that before this time and after it down to the Lord’s coming, idolatrous worship prevailed in a great part of Asia. (True Christian Religion §291)
  • This commandment means also in the natural sense that no man dead or living should be worshiped as a god… In the natural sense, which is the sense of the letter, this commandment means also that no one except God, and nothing but what proceeds from God is to be loved above all things. (True Christian Religion §292-293)
  • And one of them, a lawyer, asked, tempting Him and saying, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?  And Jesus said to him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God in thy whole heart, and in thy whole soul, and in thy whole thought. This is the first and great commandment. (Matthew 22:35-37)
  • For any person or thing that is loved above all things is God and is Divine to the one who so loves. For example, to one who loves himself or the world above all things, himself or the world is his God. (True Christian Religion §293)
  • The spiritual sense of this commandment is, that no other God than the Lord Jesus Christ is to be worshiped, because He is Jehovah, who came into the world and wrought the redemption without which neither any man nor any angel could have been saved. (True Christian Religion §294)  Those also sin against it who persuade themselves of the actual existence of three Divine persons from eternity. (True Christian Religion §296)
  • I and my Father are one. (John 10:30)
  • Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:10)
• Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain; for Jehovah will not holy him guiltless that hath taken His name in vain. Read more.
  
  • In the natural sense, which is the sense of the letter, to take the name of Jehovah God in vain means the name itself, and its abuse in various kinds of conversation, especially in false speaking or lying, and in useless oaths. (True Christian Religion §297)
  • But to swear by God and His holiness, by the Word or the Gospel, at coronations, inaugurations into the priesthood, and inductions into offices of trust, is not to take the name of God in vain, unless he who takes the oath afterwards discards his promises as vain. (True Christian Religion §297)
  • But the name of God, because it is holiness itself, must be used continually in the holy things pertaining to the church, as in prayers, psalms, and all worship, also in preaching, and in writing on ecclesiastical subjects.  This is so because God is in all things of religion, and when He is solemnly invoked He is present through His name and hears. In such ways is the name of God hallowed. (True Christian Religion §297)
  • Our Father who art in the heavens, hallowed be Thy name... (Matthew 6:9)
  • There are many names of God that must not be taken in vain, as Jehovah, Jehovah God, and Jehovah of Hosts, the Holy One of Israel, Jesus and Christ, and the Holy Spirit. (True Christian Religion §297)
  • In the spiritual sense, the name of God means everything which the church teaches from the Word, and by which the Lord is invoked and worshiped. All such things in the complex are the name of God.  To take the name of God in vain, means therefore to introduce any of these things into frivolous conversation, into false speaking, lying…or incantations; for this too is reviling and blaspheming God, thus His name.  The Word and whatever the church has from it is the name of God. (True Christian Religion §298) Read more.
    
    • That the name of any one means not his name alone but his every quality…The names of persons and of places in the Word do not mean persons and places, but the things of the church.  Nor in the natural world does a name mean the person’s name only, but his character also, because this adheres to his name; for in common conversation it is customary to say, ‘This he does for the sake of his name,’ or ‘for the fame of his name,’ or this man has a great name,’ meaning that he is celebrated for such things as are in him, as for talents, erudition, merits, and so on.  Who does not know that he who disparages … anyone in name, also disparages … the actions of his life? In idea the two are joined together, and the fame of his name is destroyed. (True Christian Religion §300)
• Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy; six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Jehovah thy God. Read more.
  
  • In the natural sense… it means that six days are for man and his labors, and the seventh for the Lord, and rest for man from the Lord.  In the original tongue Sabbath signifies rest.  With the children of Israel the Sabbath, because it represented the Lord, was the sanctity of sanctities, the six days representing His labors and conflicts with the hells, and the seventh His victory over them, and consequent rest; and as that day was a representative of the completion of the whole of the Lord’s work of redemption it was holiness itself.  But when the Lord came into the world, and in conseqence representations of Him ceased, that day became a day of instruction in Divine things, and thus also a day of rest from labors and of meditation on such things as relate to salvation and eternal life, as also a day of love towards the neighbor. (True Christian Religion §301)
  • And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and, as He was accustomed, He went into the synagogue on the day of the Sabbath, and stood up to read. (Luke 4:16)
  • In the spiritual sense, this commandment signifies man’s reformation and regeneration by the Lord, the six days of labor signifying his warfare against the evils and falsities that are in him from hell, and the seventh day signifying his conjunction with the Lord, and regeneration thereby.  Man’s spiritual labor continues as long as that warfare lasts, but when he is regenerated he has rest. (True Christian Religion §302) Read more.
    
    • Regeneration is effected in a manner analogous to that in which man is conceived, carried in a womb, born and educated. The first act in the new birth is called reformation, which belongs to the understanding; and the second is called regeneration, which belongs to the will and there from to the understanding. The internal man is to be reformed first, and through that the external.  Then a conflict arises between the internal and the external man, and the one that conquers rules the other.  The regenerate man has a new will, and a new understanding.  The reformation and regeneration of man are signified by this commandment in the spiritual sense because they coincide with the labors and combats of the Lord with the hells, and with His victory over them, and the rest that followed. For the Lord reforms and regenerates man and render him spiritual in the same manner in which He glorified His Human and made it Divine. (True Christian Religion §302)
    • Suggested Reading: True Christian Religion §571-620
  • In the celestial sense this commandment means conjunction with the Lord, followed by peace, because of protection from hell.  For the Sabbath signifies rest, and in this highest sense, peace; therefore the Lord is called the Prince of Peace. (True Christian Religion §302)
  • Peace has in it confidence in the Lord, that He directs all things, and provides all things and that He leads to a good end. (Arcana Coelestia §8455)
  • They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid. (Micah 4:4)
• Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may be well with thee upon the earth. Read more.
  
  • In the natural sense... to honor thy father and thy mother means to honor parents, to be obedient to them, to be devoted to them, and to return thanks to them for the benefits they confer, which are that they provide food and clothing to their children, and so introduce them into the world that they may act in it as civil and moral persons; and introduce them also into heaven by means of the precepts of religion, thus providing both for their temporal prosperity and their eternal happiness. All this parents do from a love which they have from the Lord, in whose stead they act. (True Christian Religion §305)
    • Suggested Search: parents
  • In a broader sense, to honor the king and magistrates is meant by this commandment, since they provide for all in general the necessities which parents provide in particular.  In the broadest sense this commandment means that men should love their country, since it supports and protects them; therefore it is called fatherland from father.  But to country, king and magistrates honor must be rendered by parents and by them implanted in their children. (True Christian Religion §305) Read more.
    
    • One’s country is more a neighbor than a single community, because it consists of many communities, and consequently love towards the country is a broader and higher love.  Moreover, loving one’s country is loving the public welfare.  One’s country is the neighbor because it is like a parent; for one is born in it, and it has nourished him and continues to nourish him, and has protected and continues to protect him from injury.
      
      Men ought to do good to their country from a love for it, according to its needs, some of which are natural and some spiritual.  Natural needs relate to civil life and order and spiritual needs to spiritual life and order. That one’s country should be loved, not as one loves himself, but more than himself is a law inscribed on the human heart; from which has come the well-known principle, which every true man endorses, that if the country is threatened with ruin from an enemy or any other source, it is noble to die for it, and glorious for a soldier to shed his blood for it.
      
      This is said because so great should be one’s love for it. It should be known that those who love their country and render good service to it, from good will, after death love the Lord’s kingdom, for then that is their country; and those who love the Lord’s kingdom love the Lord Himself, because the Lord is the all in all things of His kingdom. (True Christian Religion §414)
    • This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his soul for his friends. You are My friends, if you do whatever things I command you. (John 15:12-14)
    • Suggested Search: country
  • In the spiritual sense, to honor father and mother means to reverence and love God and the church.  In this sense, God, who is the Father of all, is meant by father, and the church by mother. …In the spiritual sense mother means the church, because as a mother on earth nourishes her children with natural food, so does the church nourish her children with spiritual food. (True Christian Religion §306)
  • But He answering said to them who told Him, Who is my mother, and who are My brothers?  And stretching forth His hand to His disciples He said, Behold, My mother and my brothers.  For whoever shall do the will of My Father who is in the heavens, he is My brother, and sister and mother.  (Matthew 12:48-49)
• Thou shalt not murder. Read more.
  
  • In the natural sense, Thou shalt not murder means not to murder a man, and not to inflict upon him any wound from which he may die, also not to maim his body. It also means not to inflict any deadly harm upon his name and reputation, since with many reputation and life go hand in hand. (True Christian Religion §309)
  • In a broader natural sense, murder means enmity, hatred, and revenge, which breathe slaughter; for in them murder lies concealed as fire in wood under ashes… These passions are murder in intention, not in act; but if fear of the law or of retaliation and revenge were removed from them, they would break forth into act, especially if there is treachery or ferocity in the intention… This is because whatever pertains to the intention pertains also to the will, and so essentially to the deed. (True Christian Religion §309)
    • You have heard that it was declared to the ancients, Thou shalt not murder; and whoever shall murder shall be subject to the judgment.  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother rashly shall be subject to the judgment; and whoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be subject to the council; and whoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be subject to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:21-22)
    • Suggested Reading: The Doctrine of Life §67-73
  • In the spiritual sense murder means all modes of killing and destroying the souls of men, which modes are various and manifold, as for example, turning men away from God, religion, and Divine worship by insinuating scandalous thought against these, or by inducing such persuasions as cause aversion and even abhorrence. (True Christian Religion §310)
    • The thief comes not except to steal and to slaughter and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly. (John 10:10)
  • In the celestial sense to kill means to be rashly angry with the Lord, to hate Him, and to wish to blot out His name. It is said of such that they crucify the Lord. (True Christian Religion §311)
    • Suggested Search: cross, crucify
• Thou shalt not commit adultery. Read more.
  
  • To commit adultery means in the natural sense, not only to commit whoredom, but also to do obscene things, to speak lascivious things, and to think about filthy things. (The Doctrine of Life §74)
    • You have heard that it was declared to the ancients, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman in order to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27-28)
  • That in proportion as any one shuns adultery, in the same proportion he loves marriage; or what is the same, in proportion as any one shuns the lasciviousness of adultery, in the same proportion he loves the chastity of marriage, is because the lasciviousness of adultery and the chastity of marriage are two opposite things, and therefore in proportion as any one is not in the one, he is in the other. (The Doctrine of Life §75)
  • In the spiritual sense to commit adultery means to adulterate the goods of the Word and to falsify its truths. (True Christian Religion §314)
  • In the celestial sense to commit adultery means to deny the holiness of the Word, and to profane it. (True Christian Religion §315)
  • Suggested reading: The Doctrine of Life §74-79
• Thou shalt not steal. Read more.
  
  • To steal, in the natural sense, means not only to commit theft and robbery, but also to defraud, and under some pretext take from another his goods. (The Doctrine of Life §80)
  • [To steal] also extends to all impostures and illegitimate gains, usuries and exactions; and again to frauds in paying taxes and duties and in discharging debts. Laborers transgress this commandment when they do their work unfaithfully and deceitfully; merchants, when they practice deceit in their merchandise, in weight, in measure, and in their accounts; officers, when they deduct from the soldier’s wages; judges, when they give judgment for friendship, reward, relationship, or other reasons, preventing law and evidence, and so depriving others of the goods which they rightfully possess. (True Christian Religion §317)
  • In the spiritual sense, to steal means to deprive others of the truths of their faith, which is done by means of falsities and heresies.  Priests, who minister solely for gain or from a lust for honor, and teach what they see or might see from the Word to be untrue, are spiritual thieves, since they take away from the people the means of salvation, which are the truths of faith.  Such are called thieves in the Word. (True Christian Religion §318)
    • Amen, amen, I say to you, He who enters not in by the door into the fold, but climbs up some other way, that one is a thief and a robber. But he who enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. (John 10:1-2)
  • In the celestial sense, thieves mean those who take away from the Lord His divine power; also those who claim for themselves His merit and righteousness.  These, even if they adore God, still do not trust in Him but only in themselves, and also do not believe in God, but only in themselves. Those who teach what is false and heretical and persuade the common people that it is true and orthodox, although they read the Word, and from it may know what is false and what is true, also those who by fallacies confirm falsities of religion and seduce men thereby, may be compared to impostors and their impostures of all kinds; and because such impostures are in the spiritual sense essentially thefts, such persons may be compared to counterfeiters who strike false coins and gild them or give them the color of gold and pass them for pure coins. (True Christian Religion §319-320)
• Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Read more.
  
  • Bearing false witness against the neighbor, or testifying falsely, mean, in the natural sense nearest to the letter, to act the part of a false witness before a judge, or before others not in a court of justice, against one who is rashly accused of any evil, and to support the accusation by the name of God or anything else that is holy, or by one’s personal influence and strength of his personal reputation. In a wider natural sense this commandment forbids all kinds of lies and hypocrisies in civil life which look to an evil end; also slandering and defaming the neighbor, to the injury of his honor, name, and fame, on which the man’s whole character depends.  In the widest natural sense, the commandment forbids plots, cunning devices, and premeditated evils against any one, which spring from various sources, as enmity, hatred, revenge, envy, emulation, and the like. (True Christian Religion §321)
    • You are from your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth, because the truth is not in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8:44)
    • Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people. (Leviticus 19:16)
  • In the spiritual sense, bearing false witness means to persuade that falsity of belief is true belief and evil of life is good of life, and the reverse, doing this from purpose, not from ignorance; that is, doing this after one has learned what is true and good, not before. (True Christian Religion §322)
    • If you were blind, you would not have sin; but now you say, We see; therefore your sin remains. (John 9:41)
  • In the celestial sense bearing false witness means blaspheming the Lord and the Word, thus banishing truth itself from the church; for the Lord is the Truth itself, as likewise the Word. (True Christian Religion §323)
• Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s. (Exodus 20:1-17) Read more.
  
  • These two commandments have relation to all the preceding ones, and teach and enjoin not only that evils must not be done, but also that they must not be lusted after, consequently that evils pertain not solely to the external man, but also to the internal; since he who refrains from doing evils and yet lusts to do them, still does them. (True Christian Religion §326)
    • Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but within they are full of rapine and intemperance. (Matthew 23:26)
  • It is known that when the Lord was in the world, He taught the internal things of the church, and these internal things are not to lust after evils; and He so taught in order that the internal and external man may make one.  This is the being born anew, of which the Lord spoke to Nicodemus in the third chapter of John; and no man can be born anew or be regenerated, and consequently become internal, except from the Lord.  (True Christian Religion §326)
  • In the spiritual sense, these two commandments forbid all lusts that are contrary to the spirit, thus all that are contrary to the spiritual things of the church, which relate chiefly to faith and charity; for unless lusts are subdued, the flesh let loose would rush into every wickedness. (True Christian Religion §327)
  • For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other. (Galatians 5:17)
  • The lusts of the flesh, the eye, and the other senses, separated from the lusts, that is, from the affections, the desires and the delights of the spirit, are wholly like the lusts of beasts, and consequently are in themselves beast-like. (True Christian Religion §328)
  • But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. (James 1:14-15)
• Suggested Reading: Arcana Coelestia §8861-8910, Apocalypse Explained §948:4-5, 949:3

Repentance is the first thing of the church in man.

• And in those days John the Baptist presented himself, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is near. For this is he who was declared by Isaiah the prophet, saying, The voice of him who cries in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. (Matthew 3:1-3).
• What woman, having ten drachmas, if she loses one drachma, does not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and search with care until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost. So I say to you, There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. (Luke 15:8-10)
• It is a common principle of every religion that a man ought to examine himself, repent, and desist from sins, and that if he fails to do so he is in a state of damnation. (The Doctrine of Life §64)
• The question therefore is, How ought a person to repent? And the reply is, Actually; that is to say, he must examine himself, recognize and acknowledge his sins, pray to the Lord, and begin a new life. That without examination repentance is not possible, has been shown... But of what use is examination except that one may recognize his sins? And why should he recognize his sins, except that he may acknowledge that they are in him? And of what use are these three things, except that the person may confess his sins before the Lord, pray for help, and then begin a new life, which is the end sought? This is actual repentance. (True Christian Religion §530) Read more.
  • Who cannot understand that he who does not examine and see his sins remains in them? For every evil is delightful to a person from his birth. It is delightful to him to take revenge, to commit whoredom, to defraud, to blaspheme, and especially to exercise dominion from self-love. Does not this delight prevent your seeing these sins? And if, perchance, you are told that they are sins, do you not from their delight excuse them, and even prove to yourselves by means of falsities that they are not sins? And, therefore, you remain in them, and afterward commit them more frequently than before, and this even until you do not know what sin is, or indeed whether there is any such thing.
    
    With anyone who actually repents it is different. His evils, such as he has recognized and acknowledged, he calls sins, and therefore begins to shun them and turn away from them; and finally to feel their delight to be undelightful. And so far as this is done he sees and loves good, and at length feels the delight of good, which is the delight of the angels of heaven. In a word, so far as anyone puts the devil behind him, he is accepted by the Lord, and is taught, led, withheld from evil, and kept in good by Him; and this is the way, and the only way, from hell to heaven. (True Christian Religion §567:6) Read more.
    • A person is born into evils of every kind... All evils are innately delightful, because a person is born into the love of self, and that love delights in all the things that are his own, that is, the things that he wills and thinks. Unless these inbred delights are subdued, everyone remains in them until death; and they are not subdued unless they are regarded as sweet poisons which kill, or as flowers beautiful in appearance but inwardly toxic, that is, unless the delights of the evils are regarded as being fatal, and this until they become undelightful. (Doctrine of Charity §2)
• That a person ought [to do actual repentance], everyone may know… from the Decalogue or Catechism which is in the hands of all Christians, where, in six of the commandments nothing is commanded but that they should not do what is evil. And unless evils are removed by repentance, a person cannot love his neighbor, still less God; yet on these two commandments hang the law and the prophets, that is, the Word, consequently salvation. (True Christian Religion §530)
• If at recurring seasons there is actual repentance, as often, for instance, as a person prepares for the communion of the holy supper, and if he afterward abstains from one or another sin which he then discovers in himself, this is sufficient to initiate him into the actuality [of repentance], and when he is in that he is on the way to heaven, for he then from being natural begins to be spiritual, and to be born anew from the Lord. (True Christian Religion §530)
• Repentance of the mouth and not of the life is not repentance. Sins are not remitted by repentance of the mouth, but by repentance of the life. Sins are continually remitted to man by the Lord, for He is mercy itself, but sins adhere to man, however he may suppose that they are remitted; nor are they removed from him except by a life according to the precepts of true faith. So far as he lives according to them, so far sins are removed; and so far as they are removed, so far they are remitted. (The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine §65)
• Suggested reading: True Christian Religion §509-566, The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine §159-169