0. The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture ¹

By Emanuel Swedenborg, (First published in 1763)

Translator’s Table of Contents:

The Sacred Scripture, or Word, Is Divine Truth Itself. 1

The Word Contains a Spiritual Meaning, One Previously Unknown. 4

1. What the spiritual meaning is. 5
2. The presence of the spiritual meaning in each and every particular of the Word. 9
3. The spiritual meaning is what causes the Word to be Divinely inspired and holy in every word. 18
4. The spiritual sense of the Word has been previously unknown. 20
5. The Word’s spiritual meaning is granted after this only to someone who possesses genuine truths from the Lord. 26

The Word’s Literal Sense Is the Foundation, Containing Vessel and Buttress of Its Spiritual and Celestial Meanings. 27

In the Word’s Literal Sense, Divine Truth Is Present in Its Fullness, in Its Holiness, and in Its Power. 37

Truths in the Word’s literal sense are meant by the foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21. 43

Truths and goods in the Word’s literal sense are meant by the Urim and Thummim. 44

Truths in the Word’s literal sense are meant by the precious stones in the Garden of Eden in which the King of Tyre is said in Ezekiel to have been. 45

The Word’s literal sense is symbolized by the curtains and veils of the Tabernacle. 46

The outer constituents of the Temple in Jerusalem represented the outer constituents of the Word, which are those of its literal sense. 47

When the Lord was transfigured, He represented the Word in its glory. 48

The Church’s Doctrine Must Be Drawn from the Word’s Literal Sense and Verified by It. 50

1. The Word is not understood apart from doctrine. 51
2. Doctrine must be drawn from the Word’s literal sense. 53
3. Genuine truth, of which doctrine ought to consist, is apparent in the Word’s literal sense only to people who are enlightened by the Lord. 57

The Word’s Literal Sense Makes Possible a Conjunction with the Lord and Affiliation with Angels. 62

The Word Exists in All of the Heavens, and Is the Source of the Angels’ Wisdom. 70

The Church Is Formed by the Word, and Its Character Is Such as Its Understanding of the Word. 76

Every Single Constituent of the Word Contains a Marriage of the Lord and the Church, and So a Marriage of Goodness and Truth. 80

Heresies May Be Seized On from the Word’s Literal Sense, But It Is Harmful to Affirm Them. 91

The Lord Came into the World to Fulfill Everything in the Word, and to Become as a Consequence Divine Truth, or the Word, Also in Outmost Expressions. 98

Before the Current Word in the World Today, There Was a Word That Has Been Lost. 101

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

Without the Word No One Would Have Any Knowledge of God, of Heaven and Hell, of Life after Death, and Still Less of the Lord. 114

Translator's Notes or Footnotes:

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?”

61. All of what we have said about the Lord has now for the first time been published, because it was foretold in the book of Revelation, chapters 21 and 22, that at the end of the former church the Lord would establish a new church, in which this doctrine would be primary.

This new church is the one meant in that book by the New Jerusalem, which no one can enter unless he acknowledges the Lord alone to be God of heaven and earth. I can also report that the whole of heaven acknowledges the Lord alone, and that anyone who does not acknowledge Him is not admitted into heaven. For heaven is heaven owing to the Lord. That very acknowledgment out of love and faith causes the inhabitants there to be in the Lord and to have the Lord in them. As the Lord Himself teaches in John:

At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. (John 14:20)

And again in John:

Abide in Me, and I in you.... I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out.... (John 15:4-6; see also 17:22-23)

[2] This has not previously been seen in the Word because if it had been seen before, it would still not have been accepted. For the Last Judgment had not yet been accomplished, and prior to that the power of hell prevailed over the power of heaven; and since people exist in between heaven and hell, if they had seen it then, the devil, that is, hell, would have snatched it from their hearts, and moreover profaned it.

This exercise of power by hell was completely broken by the Last Judgment, which has now been accomplished. Since then — thus at the present time — every person who wishes to be enlightened and become wise, can be.

For more on this subject, see what we wrote in the book Heaven and Hell 589-596, and nos. 597– 603; and in the short work The Last Judgment 73, 74.