THE SACRED SCRIPTURES

One of Swedenborg's greatest contributions to religious thought is the new light which his revelations shed upon the Sacred Scriptures. Chapter IV of True Christian Religion is devoted to this subject. What is it that makes the Bible the greatest book in the world? The average reader believes the Bible contains the Will and Wisdom of God. It tells of God's dealings with his people.

Also it reveals to us what people thought about God in past ages. Most important of all it contains the record of the incarnation and of the redemption of the human race wrought by the Lord. It sets before the human race the Christian ideals of the Gospel. That is the average person's idea of the Bible. All this is, of course, perfectly true. But for the most part it only expresses the traditional idea of the Sacred Book.

We believe it because our parents and teachers told us it was true. Comparatively few people examine the matter for themselves. Swedenborg includes this traditional view in his teaching; but he has so much more to tell us of the nature of the Divine Word that the Bible becomes a new and living book to us. He tells us that the Sacred Scriptures have a threefold meaning, celestial, spiritual and natural.

To understand what this means we need first to grasp Swedenborg's idea of the heavens. He tells us, in his book Heaven and Hell that the spiritual world is all around us; that every person enters that world at death and in accordance with his or her character becomes an angel of light or a spirit of darkness. But angels are not all on the same plane.

They are distinguished into those who love good, those who love truth, and those who love a simple obedience. These three distinctions of character produce three planes in the heavens: celestial, spiritual and natural. The Word of God is as necessary to the angels as it is to people. They do not need it, as we do, for conquest over evil (that they have already accomplished), but one of the chief delights of angelic life is the pursuit of Divine Wisdom.

And Divine Wisdom is found in the revealed Word of God. Tb this end the angels possess the Word. Each one receives and understands it on the plane of his or her own spiritual development. Not even an angel can understand the thoughts of the Infinite, so Divine Wisdom must be accommodated to angelic and human intelligence. And here is the method of its descent: the thoughts of God Divine Wisdom in relation to the church and to the redemption and regeneration of people enter into the minds of the celestial angels clothed in imagery they can understand.

The wisdom in itself remains unchanged. It is the Logos, the Word that was made flesh. Clothed with another imagery it descends to the spiritual plane, and is understood, studied and revered by spiritual angels. Even in that form, however, it is incomprehensible to the lowest angels and to us. It must be clothed with more material forms. This is the source of the human writer's inspiration.

Under the guidance of the Lord certain men have written the Word of God as we have it today. History, poetry, myth, prophecy and gospel, each writer has contributed his quota. And in every instance he has believed that he has written under the direction and inspiration of the Most High. “Thus saith the Lord,” is the confident note of the prophet. “And God said” is the calm assurance of the historian,, The words, terms, phrases, stories and histories used by the writer are just those things which were in his mind.

They may be only appearances of truth, .they may not always be scientifically accurate, but they are all so used (under the providential care and guidance of the Lord) as to be symbolic and representative of the Word of God as it exists in the heavens. They are earthly symbols of Divine and heavenly realities. lb understand this more fully we need to bear in mind the great truth that all things in this world are symbols and expressions of spiritual principles. Earth's “outer forms are correspondences to the inward realities” of spirit.

As Mrs. Browning truly says: “Not a natural flower can grow on earth, Without a flower on the spiritual side, Substantial, archetypal, all a-glow With blossoming causes—not so far away, That we whose spirit-sense is somewhat cleared May not catch something of the bloom and breath.” On the harmony and relationship existing between the spiritual and natural realms of life, the whole structure of the literal sense of Scripture is based. In a word, spiritual truth is presented to us clothed in natural symbols.

In the use of these there is nothing of the accidental or haphazard. When the Lord says,'' I am the bread of life,” he does so not merely that we may know our need of his saving help, but because bread is actually the symbol of the Divine Good wherewith the soul of every angel in heaven and very person on earth is nourished and sustained. And by means of the external symbol we may be led to a knowledge and reception of the divine reality.

The Word of God is thus from beginning to end a book of divine parables. In it we have not only what the poet calls himself by whom the Word was given. In this manner our hearts and minds are kept open for the inflowing of heavenly influences. In this way “the whole round earth is bound by gold chains about the feet of God” Further than this, Swedenborg tells us, “In part the truths of the sense of the letter of the Word are not naked truths, but are appearances of truth...accommodated and adapted to the capacity of the simple and also of children.”

But these appearances of truth are the clothing of things that are divinely true. The Mosaic account of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis—the story of the Flood, the tower of Babel and the countless other things are not literally true. They are the outer garments of imperishable truths. Like the rough shell of the oyster they enshrine pearls of great price. It is only an appearance of truth that the world will some day come to an end in flames.

Armed with the science of correspondence we can find the heavenly truth enshrined in every hard saying of the Word of God. We find that the difficulties and apparent contradictions of the Word all disappear, and the whole revelation becomes luminous with heavenly light. Time does not allow me to convey to you a tenth of what Swedenborg has written concerning the Word of God. “Truth embodied in a tale,” but truth expressed for us by systematic and harmonious correspondence between the things of heaven and those of earth.

Swedenborg makes a strong point of the fact that Divine Revelation is necessary for salvation. All natural or scientific knowledge may be acquired by observation, experiment and search. With the intelligence given by God, people may explore the whole realm of nature, may learn her laws and discover her secrets. From the infinitely great to the miraculously small may be learned the things of the created universe. But no scientific search can discover the existence of God nor demonstrate the existence of the human soul.

All knowledge of divine and spiritual things must come by revelation received from the Lord. That we might know God and heaven and human destiny, the progressive revelation which we know as the Divine Word or the Sacred Scriptures was given to us. In it the Lord reveals his purposes and his loving kindness towards his earthly children.

The Sacred Scriptures, says Swedenborg, are not only a guide to life, but they also bind us to God and to heaven. When we read the Word in its literal sense we are brought into association with the angels of heaven who are reading its spiritual sense, and we are also united with the Lord. But this one thing every student may learn, namely that the Word is a living book. It is not merely the history of bygone days.

It is the Divine Wisdom for yesterday, today and forever. I conclude with a direct quotation from Swedenborg: “In the Word of the celestial kingdom goods of love are expressed and the marks are affections of the love; while in the Word of the spiritual kingdom truths of wisdom are expressed, and the marks are interior perceptions of truth. From all this one may conclude what kind of wisdom lies concealed in the Word which is in the world; for in it all angelic wisdom, which is ineffable, is concealed; and the person, who from the Lord through the Word becomes an angel, enters into that wisdom after death.”

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