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?”

25. The Lord has disclosed the Word’s spiritual sense at the present day because a doctrine of genuine truth has now been revealed. And this doctrine, and no other, accords with the Word’s spiritual sense.

This sense is moreover symbolized by the Lord’s appearing on the clouds of heaven with glory and power (Matthew 24:30-31), in a chapter dealing with the end of the age, meaning the ultimate end of the church.

An opening of the Word in respect to its spiritual sense was also promised in the book of Revelation. This sense is there meant by the white horse, and by the great supper to which all are summoned (Revelation 19:11-18).

The spiritual sense will for a long time not be acknowledged, and that solely because of people caught up in doctrinal falsities, especially falsities regarding the Lord, who therefore do not give entrance to truths. That is meant in the book of Revelation by the beast and the kings of the earth that were gathered to make war against Him who sat on the white horse (Revelation 19:19). The beast means Roman Catholics, as in chapter 17:3 there, and the kings of the earth mean those Protestant Reformed who are caught up in doctrinal falsities.

15. To show that the prophetic portion of the Word in the Old Testament is in many places not understood apart from the spiritual sense, I would like to cite only some of those places. As for example the following in Isaiah:

Then Jehovah...will stir up a scourge (against Asshur), like the smiting of Midian at the rock of Oreb, and as His rod upon the sea which He wielded on the road from Egypt. And it shall come to pass in that day that his burden will fall from upon your shoulder, and his yoke from upon your neck.... He will come against Aiath, He will pass over into Migron. Against Michmash he will command his weaponry; they will pass through Mebara. Gibeah will be our lodging place. Ramah will tremble; Saul’s Gibeah will flee. Wail loudly, daughter of Gallim! Hearken, Laish! Take pity, Anathoth! Madmenah will be a wanderer, the inhabitants of Gebim will huddle together. Is there yet time in Nob to make a stand? The mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem, will shake her fist. ...Jehovah...will cut away the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon will fall by His majesty. (Isaiah 10:24-34)

Here we find merely names, nothing of which can be comprehended without the aid of the spiritual sense, in which names occurring in the Word all symbolize things having to do with heaven and the church. One puts together from this sense that the words symbolically mean that the entire church has been ruined by empirical knowledge used to pervert every truth and confirm falsity.

[2] Elsewhere in Isaiah:

(In that day) the envy of Ephraim shall depart, and the enemies of Judah be cut off; Ephraim shall not vie with Judah, and Judah shall not trouble Ephraim. But they shall fly upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west; together they shall plunder the people of the east; they shall lay their hand on Edom and Moab.... Jehovah will utter a curse against the tongue of the Egyptian sea; He will shake His fist over the river with the force of His spirit, and strike it into seven streams, so as to enable people to cross over dry-shod. Then there will be a highway for the remnant of its people which will be left from Assyria.... (Isaiah 11:13-16)

Here, too, no one is going to see anything Divine without knowing what each of the names in this passage means, even though the subject is the Lord’s advent and what will take place then, as is clearly apparent from verses 1-10 in that same chapter.

Without the aid of the spiritual sense, who then is going to see that the predictions in succession symbolically mean that people who are caught up in falsities out of ignorance, and have not permitted themselves to be led astray by evils, will turn to the Lord; that the church will understand the Word then; and that falsities will then no longer do them harm?

[3] The case is the same in places without names. As for example in Ezekiel:...thus said the Lord Jehovih, “(Son of man, ) speak to every sort of bird and to every beast of the field: ‘Assemble yourselves and come, gather together from all around to My sacrificial meal which I am sacrificing for you, a great sacrificial meal upon the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth.... You shall eat fat till you are full, and drink blood till you are drunk, at My sacrificial meal which I am sacrificing for you. You shall be filled at My table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war....’ ” Thus will I set My glory among the nations. (Ezekiel 39:17-21)

Whoever does not know from the spiritual sense the symbolic meanings of a sacrificial meal, of flesh and blood, of horses, chariots, mighty men and men of war, will know no other than that people are to eat and drink such things. But the spiritual sense tells us that eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the sacrificial meal which the Lord Jehovih will provide on the mountains of Israel means, symbolically, an assimilation into oneself of Divine goodness and Divine truth from the Word. For the subject there is a summoning of all people to the Lord’s kingdom, and in particular the Lord’s establishing the church among gentiles.

Who cannot see that flesh there does not mean flesh, and that blood there does not mean blood? As though people should drink blood till they are drunk, and be filled with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war.

The case is the same in a thousand other places in the Prophets.