III.  The Lord’s Words Spirit and Life

That the Word is holy and Divine from inmosts to outermosts is not evident to the man who leads himself, but is evident to the man whom the Lord leads.  For the man who leads himself sees only the external of the Word, and forms his opinion of it from its style; but the man whom the Lord leads forms his opinion of the external of the Word from the holiness that is in it.

The Word is like a garden, that may be called a heavenly paradise, in which are delicacies and charms of every kind, delicacies from the fruits, and charms from the flowers; and in the middle of it trees of life, and near them fountains of living water, and round about trees of the forest, and near them rivers.  The man who leads himself forms his opinion of that paradise, which is the Word, from its circumference, where the trees of the forest are; but the man whom the Lord leads forms his opinion of it from the middle of it, where the trees of life are.  The man whom the Lord leads is actually in the middle of it, and looks to the Lord; but the man who leads himself actually sits down at the circumference, and looks away from it to the world.

Again, the Word is like fruit within which there is a nutritious pulp, and in the middle of it seed vessels, in which inmostly is a living germ that germinates in good soil.  Again, the Word is also like a most beautiful infant, about which, except the face, there are wrappings upon wrappings; the infant itself is in the inmost heaven, the wrappings are in the lower heavens, and the general covering of the wrappings is on the earth.  As the Word is such it is holy and Divine from inmosts to outermosts. (A.E., n. 1072.)

The Word is such because in its origin it is the Divine itself that goes forth from the Lord, and is called Divine truth; and when this descended to men in the world it passed through the heavens in their order according to their degrees, which are three; and in each heaven it was recorded in accommodation to the wisdom and intelligence of the angels there.  Finally it was brought down from the Lord through the heavens to men, and there it was recorded and made known in adaptation to man’s understanding and apprehension.  This, therefore, is the sense of its letter, and in this lies Divine truth such as it is in the three heavens, stored up in distinct order.

From this it is clear that the entire wisdom of the angels in the three heavens has been imparted by the Lord to our Word, and in its inmost there is the wisdom of the angels of the third heaven, which is incomprehensible and ineffable to man, because full of mysteries and treasures of Divine verities.  These lie stored up in each particular and in all the particulars of our Word.  And as Divine truth is the Lord in the heavens, so the Lord Himself is present, and may be said to dwell in all the particulars and each particular of His Word, as He does in His heavens; and in the same way as He has said of the ark of the covenant, in which were deposited only the Ten Commandments written on the two tables, the first-fruits of the Word, for He said that He would speak there with Moses and Aaron, that He would be present there, that He would dwell there, and that it was His holy of holies, and His dwelling place as in heaven. (A.E., n., 1073.)