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?”

20. 4. The spiritual sense of the Word has been previously unknown. Every single thing found in nature corresponds to something spiritual. So, too, every single thing found in the human body. This is something we showed in the book Heaven and Hell 87-115. But what correspondence is has been previously unknown, even though in very ancient times it was quite well known. For people who lived then, the study of correspondences was the supreme study, and so universal that all their manuscripts and books were written in terms of correspondences.

[2] The book of Job, which is an ancient book, is full of correspondences.

Egyptian hieroglyphics, and also the fables of antiquity, were full of them too.

The ancient churches were all representative of things pertaining to heaven. Their rites and likewise their statutes, in accord with which their worship was instituted, consisted of nothing but correspondences.

So, too, everything connected with the church among the descendants of Jacob. Their whole burnt offerings and other sacrifices in their every particular were correspondent forms. Likewise the Tabernacle, with everything in it. And their feasts as well, such as the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Feast of Firstfruits.

So also the priesthood of Aaron and the Levites, including the holy vestments of Aaron and his sons. And all the statutes and judgments as well which had to do with their worship and life.

[3] And because Divine emanations in the world manifest themselves in correspondent forms, therefore the Word was written solely in terms of correspondences. Because the Lord spoke in accordance with His Divinity, He consequently spoke in terms of correspondences. For whatever emanates from the Divine, descends into such expressions in nature as correspond to their Divine origins, and these expressions then conceal within them the Divine contents called celestial and spiritual.

105. We need to explain, however, how the presence of the Lord and heaven and conjunction with them is possible in all lands by means of the Word.

The whole of heaven is, in the Lord’s sight, like a single person. So, too, the church. To be shown that it also actually appears as a person, see the book Heaven and Hell 59-86.

In that person, the church where the Word is read, and where the Lord is consequently known, is like the heart and lungs — the celestial kingdom being as though the heart, and the spiritual kingdom the lungs.

[2] As the heart and lungs are the two founts of life in the human body, and all the rest of the organs and viscera subsist and have life from them, so also do all people in the world subsist and have life from the conjunction of the Lord and heaven with the church through the Word — all those who have any religion, who worship one God and live rightly, who are therefore included in that grand humanity, and who relate to its organs and viscera surrounding the thoracic cavity which contains the heart and lungs. For the Word in the church, even if possessed by relatively few, is life to all the rest from the Lord through heaven, as the organs and viscera of the entire body have life from the heart and lungs. They also have a similar communication.

[3] This, too, is the reason that Christians among whom the Word is read constitute the breast of that grand humanity. They are also at the center of all, with Roman Catholics round about them. Around them are Muslims who acknowledge the Lord as a very great prophet and as the Son of God. After them come Africans. And the outmost periphery is composed of nations and peoples from Asia and the Indies. Regarding the arrangement of these peoples, something more may be seen in the short work The Last Judgment 48.

All those who are in that grand humanity also face toward the middle where the Christians are.