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.

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

The Word makes possible a conjunction with the Lord because the Word has the Lord as its only subject, and the Lord is as a consequence the totality of it, and is called the Word, as we showed in The Doctrine Regarding the Lord.

Conjunction lies in the literal sense because in that sense the Word is in its fullness, in its holiness, and in its power, as we showed in its own section above.

The conjunction is not apparent to a person, but it is present in his affection for truth and in his perception of truth, thus in the love of Divine truth and faith in that truth that he possesses.

53. 2. Doctrine must be drawn from the Word’s literal sense and verified by it. That is because there and nowhere else is the Lord present with a person so as to enlighten him and teach him the church’s truths. The Lord also never does anything except in fullness, and the Word is in its fullness in its literal sense, as we showed above. It is because of this that doctrine must be drawn from the literal sense.