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?”

71. As regards the Word in heaven, it is written in the spiritual style of writing, which is quite different from any natural style. The spiritual style consists of nothing but letters, each of which carries a meaning, and there are diacritical marks over the letters which enhance the meaning.

The letters used by angels in the spiritual kingdom are similar to typographical letters in our world. But the letters used by angels in the celestial kingdom — each of which also carries a whole meaning — are similar to ancient Hebrew letters, being curved in various ways, with marks above and within them.

[2] Because that is the nature of their writing, therefore their Word does not contain any names of the persons or places found in our Word, but instead of names it has expressions with symbolic meanings. For example, instead of Moses it has “historical Word.” Instead of Elijah it has “prophetic Word.” Instead of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob it has “the Lord in respect to His Divinity and Divine humanity.” Instead of Aaron it has “priesthood, ” instead of David “kingship, ” both as attributes of the Lord. Instead of the names of the twelve sons of Jacob, or of the tribes of Israel, it has various expressions having to do with heaven and the church. Similar expressions are used for the names of the Lord’s twelve disciples. Instead of Zion and Jerusalem, it has the church in relation to the Word and in relation to doctrine drawn from the Word. Instead of the land of Canaan it has the church itself. Instead of the cities there on each side of the Jordan it has various expressions having to do with the church and its doctrine. And so on with all the other names.

[3] It is the same with numbers. These are not found in the Word in heaven, either, but instead it has expressions to which the numbers in our Word correspond.

It can be seen from this that the Word in heaven is one that corresponds to our Word, and thus that they are united. For they are united by the correspondences.