77. The Word is the Word according to a person’s understanding of it, that is, according to how it is understood. If it is not understood, the Word is indeed called the Word, but it is not the Word in the person.

The Word is the truth according to a person’s understanding of it, for the Word [in him] may not be the truth. Indeed, it may be falsified.

The Word is spirit and life according to a person’s understanding of it, for the letter without an understanding of it is lifeless.

Since a person possesses truth and life according to his understanding of the Word, he possesses faith and love also in accordance with that understanding; for truth is connected with faith, and love with life.

Now because the church is formed by faith and love and in accordance with these, it follows that the church is a church in consequence of its understanding of the Word and in accordance with that understanding — a noble church if it possesses genuine truths, an ignoble one if it is without genuine truths, and a destroyed one if it possesses falsified truths.

70. The Word Exists in All of the Heavens, and Is the Source of the Angels’ Wisdom

No one has known before that the Word exists in the heavens, nor could it have been known as long as the church remained unaware that angels and spirits are people, like people in the world, and that they have the same kinds of things that people do, in every respect, the sole difference being that angels and spirits are spiritual, and everything they have comes from a spiritual origin, while people in the world are natural, and everything they have comes from a natural origin. As long as this fact remained hidden, they could not know that the Word exists also in the heavens, and that angels read it there, and so do spirits below the heavens.

However, lest this remain hidden forever, I have been given to be in the company of angels and spirits, to speak with them, and to see their surroundings, and afterward to report much of what I have heard and seen. This I have done in the book Heaven and Hell (London, 1758); and it can be seen from it that angels and spirits are people, and that they have in abundance everything that people in the world have.

That angels and spirits are people may be seen in the aforementioned book, Heaven and Hell 73-77 and 453-456; that they have the same things as people have in the world, nos. 170-190; that they also hold Divine worship and hear sermons in the temples they have, nos. 221-227; and that they have written materials and also books, nos. 258-264, including the Word, no. 259.