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?”

39. It can be seen from this that the Word in its literal sense is the Word itself, inasmuch as that sense has within it spirit and life — the spiritual sense being its spirit, and the celestial sense its life.

It is as the Lord says: “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). The Lord spoke His words for the world’s comprehension, employing their natural meaning.

The spiritual and celestial senses are not the Word apart from the natural sense, the sense of the letter, as they would be like spirit and life without a body, and as said before in no. 33, like a palace lacking a foundation.

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

In its literal sense the Word is in its fullness, in its holiness, and in its power, because, as we said in no. 28 above, the two prior or interior senses, called spiritual and celestial, are present at the same time in the natural sense, which is the literal sense. But how they are present at the same time — this we must now briefly explain.