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?”

3. The natural man, however, still cannot be persuaded by these considerations that the Word is Divine truth itself, containing Divine wisdom and Divine life; for he regards it in terms of its style, in which he does not see this wisdom and life.

Nevertheless, the style in the Word is the Divine style itself, with which no other style can be compared, however sublime and admirable it seems. For it is as darkness compared to light.

The style in the Word is such that there is something holy in every sentence and in every word, indeed in some places in the very letters. Because of that the Word conjoins a person with the Lord and opens heaven.

[2] There are two emissions emanating from the Lord: Divine love and Divine wisdom. Or to say the same thing, Divine goodness and Divine truth. For Divine goodness is a property of His Divine love, and Divine truth a property of His Divine wisdom. In its essence the Word is both of these. And because, as we said, it conjoins a person with the Lord and opens heaven, therefore the Word fills a person who reads it prompted by the Lord, and not by himself simply. It fills him with the goodness of love and truths of wisdom — his will with the goodness of love, and his intellect with truths of wisdom. The person has life as a result through the Word.

258. Written Materials in Heaven

Since angels do have language and their language is one of words, they also have written materials; and through those written materials just as through their conversation, they express what their minds are sensing. I have sometimes been sent pages covered with writing, just like pages handwritten or printed and published in our world. I could even read them in much the same way, but I was not allowed to get more out of them than a bit of meaning here and there. This was because it is not in keeping with the divine design to be taught by written materials from heaven, but [only] by the Word, since this is the sole means of communication and union between heaven and earth, and therefore between the Lord and humanity.

We gather from Ezekiel that pages written in heaven appeared to the prophets as well:

When I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me by the spirit, and in it the scroll of a book that he unrolled in my sight. It was written on the front and on the back. (Ezekiel 2:9-10)

And in John,

I saw in the right hand of the one who was sitting on the throne a book written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. (Revelation 5:1)