1. The Sacred Scripture, or Word, Is Divine Truth Itself

Everyone says that the Word comes from God, is Divinely inspired, and so is holy. But even so, no one has known before this wherein the Divinity in it lies. For in its letter the Word appears as though written in the ordinary way, in a foreign style, neither as sublime or nor as lucid as writings of the present age seem to be.

As a result, a person who worships nature as God, or in preference to God, and so thinks prompted by self and his own self-interest, and not prompted by heaven in response to the Lord, may easily fall into error regarding the Word, and into scorning it, and when reading it, saying to himself, “What is this? What is that? Is this Divine? Can God, whose wisdom is infinite, speak so? Where is the holiness in it, and what makes it holy, other than some teaching of religion and so conviction?”

100. In what way the Lord is the Word is something few people understand, for they think that it is possible indeed for the Lord to enlighten and teach a person by means of the Word, and yet not that He can for that reason be called the Word. But be it known that everyone embodies his own love, and so his own goodness and his own truth. A person would otherwise not be human, and nothing in him would be human.

It is because a person embodies his own goodness and own truth that angels and spirits are human. For every good and every truth emanating from the Lord is, in its form, human.

The Lord, however, is Divine goodness itself and Divine truth itself. Thus He is supremely human, on whose account every person is human.

That every Divine good and Divine truth is, in its form, human, may be seen in the book, Heaven and Hell 460. And it will be seen still more clearly in treatises to follow, which will have as their subject Angelic Wisdom.

25. The Lord has disclosed the Word’s spiritual sense at the present day because a doctrine of genuine truth has now been revealed. And this doctrine, and no other, accords with the Word’s spiritual sense.

This sense is moreover symbolized by the Lord’s appearing on the clouds of heaven with glory and power (Matthew 24:30-31), in a chapter dealing with the end of the age, meaning the ultimate end of the church.

An opening of the Word in respect to its spiritual sense was also promised in the book of Revelation. This sense is there meant by the white horse, and by the great supper to which all are summoned (Revelation 19:11-18).

The spiritual sense will for a long time not be acknowledged, and that solely because of people caught up in doctrinal falsities, especially falsities regarding the Lord, who therefore do not give entrance to truths. That is meant in the book of Revelation by the beast and the kings of the earth that were gathered to make war against Him who sat on the white horse (Revelation 19:19). The beast means Roman Catholics, as in chapter 17:3 there, and the kings of the earth mean those Protestant Reformed who are caught up in doctrinal falsities.