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.

69. It can be seen from this that spirit and life are present only in the Word, which makes possible a conjunction with the Lord and affiliation with angels. As the Lord teaches:

The words that I speak to you are spirit and life. (John 6:63)

The water that I shall give (you) will become...a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14)

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)

...labor...for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of man will give you.... (John 6:27)