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?”

104. The Word Is the Means by Which Those Have Light Who Are Outside the Church and Do Not Have the Word

No conjunction with heaven is possible unless somewhere on earth there is a church which has the Word and where the Lord is consequently known, because the Lord is God of heaven and earth, and there is no salvation apart from the Lord.

It is enough for a church to exist that has the Word, even if it consists of relatively few people. The Lord is still everywhere present by means of the Word throughout the whole world; for by it heaven is conjoined with the human race. To be shown that the conjunction exists by means of the Word, see nos. 62-69 above.

19. The Word contains a still more interior sense, called celestial, which we said something about in no. 6 above. But this sense is almost impossible to explicate, as it does not fall so much within the scope of the thought of the intellect as into the affection of the will.

The Word contains this still more interior sense, called celestial, because there emanates from the Lord Divine goodness and Divine truth — Divine goodness from His Divine love, and Divine truth from His Divine wisdom. Both are present in the Word, for the Word is a Divine emanation. And because both are present, therefore the Word gives life to people who read it reverently. However, we will say more on this subject in the section where we show that the constituents of the Word all contain a marriage of the Lord and the church, and so a marriage of goodness and truth.