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:

10. The twenty-first chapter in the book of Revelation describes the holy Jerusalem in this way, that it had in it a light “like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, bright as crystal;” that it had “a great and high wall, and twelve gates, and over the gates twelve angels, with names written on them...of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel;” that it had a wall of “a hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that is, of an angel;” that the construction of its wall was of jasper, and its foundations of all kinds of precious stones — jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, and amethyst; that “the twelve gates were twelve pearls;” that the city was “pure gold, like transparent glass;” and that it was square, “its length, breadth, and height...equal, ” measuring “twelve thousand furlongs.” And so on.

All of these particulars must be understood spiritually, as can be seen from the fact that the holy Jerusalem symbolizes a new church to be established by the Lord, as we showed in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord 62-65. And because Jerusalem in this description symbolizes a church, it follows that everything said about it as a city — about its gates, its wall, the foundations of the wall, and about their measurements — contains a spiritual meaning. For matters having to do with the church are spiritual.

[2] We have explained the symbolic meanings of each of these particulars in The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine (London, 1758), no. 1. We therefore forgo any further explanation of them here. It is enough for it to be known from that book that there is a spiritual meaning present in each particular of the city’s description, like a soul in its body. Also, that apart from that meaning, nothing relating to the church would be understood in the depictions there, as that the city was of pure gold, with its gates of pearls, its wall of jasper, and the foundations of its wall of precious stones; that the wall was of a hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that is, of an angel; that the city itself was twelve thousand furlongs long, wide, and high; and so on.

Someone who has a knowledge of correspondences and knows from it the spiritual sense, understands the meanings of these things — as that the wall and its foundations symbolize doctrine drawn from the Word’s literal sense, and that the numbers 12,144, and 12,000 have similar symbolic meanings, namely all the truths and goods of the church in their entirety.

25. Everything good and true comes from the Lord. ¹ The Lord is goodness itself and truth itself: 2011, 4151, 10336, 10619. In both his divine and his human natures, the Lord is the divine goodness that results from divine love, and this goodness is the source of divine truth: 3704, 3712, 4180, 4577. Divine truth radiates from the Lord's divine goodness much the way light radiates from the sun: 3704, 3712, 4180, 4577. The divine truth that comes from the Lord takes the form of light in the heavens and is the source of all of heaven's light: 3195, 3222, 5400, 8694, 9399, 9548, 9684. Heaven's light, which is divine truth acting as one with divine goodness, enlightens both the sight and the understanding of angels and spirits: ² 2776, 3138. Heaven is bathed in light and warmth because it is devoted to what is true and good, since divine truth there is light and divine goodness there is warmth: 3643, 9399, 9400; and [see also] Heaven and Hell 126-140. The divine truth that comes from the Lord's divine goodness gives the angelic heaven its form and design: 3038, 9408, 9613, 10716, 10717. In heaven, the divine goodness that is one with the divine truth is referred to as divine truth: 10196.

[2] Divine truth coming from the Lord is the only thing that is real: 6880, 7004, 8200. Everything was made and created by means of divine truth: 2803, 2894, 5272, 7678. Divine truth has all power: 8200.

[3] On our own we cannot do one bit of good or think one bit of truth: 874, 875, 876. On its own, our rational ability cannot grasp divine truth: 2196, 2203, 2209. Any truths that do not come from the Lord come from our own selves and are not true even though they seem to be true: 8868.

[4] Everything that is good and true comes from the Lord, and none of it from us: 1614, 2016, 2904, 4151, 9981. Things that are good and true are good and true to the extent that they have the Lord in them: 2904, 3061, 8480. On divine truth that comes directly from the Lord and on divine truth that comes indirectly, through angels, and on how they flow in for us: 7055, 7056, 7058. The Lord flows into what is good in us, and through what is good into what is true: 10153. He flows through what is good into truths of all kinds, but especially into genuine truths: 2531, 2554. The Lord does not flow, though, into truths that are cut off from goodness, and such truths do not bring us into a parallel relationship with the Lord the way goodness does: 1831, 1832, 3514, 3564.

[5] Doing what is good and true for the sake of what is good and true is loving the Lord and loving our neighbor: 10336. When we are devoted to the deeper aspects of the Word, the church, and worship, we love to do what is good and true for the sake of what is good and true; but if our involvement is only on a superficial level, with no depth, then we love to do what is good and true only for our own sakes or for worldly reasons: 10683. What it is to do what is good and true for the sake of what is good and true: 10683 (which includes examples by way of illustration).

Footnotes: