From Swedenborg's Works

 

Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture #1

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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?”

  
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Thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Doctrine of the Lord #8

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8. The Statement That the Lord Fulfilled All of the Law Means That He Fulfilled All of the Word

Many people today believe that, when it is said of the Lord that He fulfilled the Law, it means that He fulfilled all the commandments of the Decalogue, and that in so doing He became righteousness and at the same time justified people in the world by that belief.

Nevertheless, that is not the meaning. Rather the meaning is that He fulfilled everything written about Him in the Law and the Prophets, that is, throughout Holy Scripture, because it has Him alone as its subject, as we said in the previous section.

The reason many people have believed otherwise is that they have not searched the scriptures and seen what is meant by the Law there.

In a strict sense the Law there means the ten commandments of the Decalogue. In a broader sense it means everything written by Moses in his five books. And in the broadest sense it means the whole of the Word.

That the Law in a strict sense means the Ten Commandments of the Decalogue is something people know.

  
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Published by the General Church of the New Jerusalem, 1100 Cathedral Road, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania 19009, U.S.A. A translation of Doctrina Novae Hierosolymae de Domino, by Emanuel Swedenborg, 1688-1772. Translated from the Original Latin by N. Bruce Rogers. ISBN 9780945003687, Library of Congress Control Number: 2013954074.