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?”

8. Since the Word is inwardly spiritual and celestial, it has therefore been written solely in terms of correspondences, and something written solely in terms of correspondences is written in its outmost sense in the kind of style found in the Prophets and Gospel writers. Even though this style seems to be an ordinary one, still it conceals in it Divine wisdom and all the wisdom of angels.

34. The case would be the same with the heavens where angels dwell, without the world where people dwell. The human race is their foundation, containing vessel and buttress, the Word being both among people and within them. For the heavens are all divided into two kingdoms, called the celestial kingdom and the spiritual kingdom. These two kingdoms rest on the natural kingdom inhabited by people. And so the case is likewise with the Word, which exists among people and within them.

That the angelic heavens have been distinguished into two kingdoms, celestial and spiritual, may be seen in the book Heaven and Hell 20-28.