The Word
Consider the beautiful but cryptic statements of John 1:1:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
God's love has always been and will always be infinite and perfect. That means the expression of God's love -- His truth -- has also always been and will always be infinite and perfect.
The Lord has shared this truth with us in various ways since the beginning of humanity. The earliest people received truth directly, flowing into the inner parts of their minds from heaven. Later, people understood it through nature seeing the Lord's love expressed in mountains, trees, rivers, and the sun, moon and stars. By using natural language as a container for spiritual language, the Lord expressed truth within the Bible inside its stories, laws and prophecies. When humanity reached its lowest point, God took on a human form and walked among us as Jesus. In this way, the Lord brought us Divine truths in an accessible and tangible way. By accepting and loving the Lord as Jesus we can open ourselves to His love.
Finally, the Heavenly Doctrine received through the pen of Emanuel Swedenborg are themselves a container for Divine Truth, both in speaking plainly about heaven and by unlocking the truth as it is contained in the Bible.
The Word itself is Divine Truth; the Lord's expression of love has and never will change.
True Christian Religion # 158
158. ADDITIONAL NOTE
Since this chapter has dealt with the Holy Spirit, it is of importance to note that the Holy Spirit is nowhere named in the Old Testament Word, but only 'the Spirit of holiness' in three passages, one in the Psalms of David (Psalms 51:11), and two in Isaiah (Isaiah 63:10-11). But there are frequent references in the New Testament Word, as much in the Gospels as in the Acts of the Apostles and in their Epistles. The reason is that the Holy Spirit first existed when the Lord came into the world, for it came out of Him from the Father; for 'the Lord alone is holy' (Revelation 15:4). For this reason too the angel Gabriel speaking to Mary the mother of Jesus said 'the holy thing which will be born of you' (Luke 1:35). The reason why we read 'The Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified' (John 7:39), although it was said earlier that the Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth (Luke 1:41) and Zechariah (Luke 1:67), as well as Simeon (Luke 2:25), was that it was the spirit of Jehovah the Father which filled them; and it was called the Holy Spirit because the Lord was already at that time in the world.
This is why nowhere in the Old Testament Word does it say that the Prophets spoke from the Holy Spirit, but from Jehovah. For everywhere we read 'Jehovah spoke to me', 'The Word from Jehovah came to me', 'Jehovah said', 'The saying of Jehovah.'
To remove all possibility of doubt I propose to quote the passages solely in Jeremiah where these expressions occur:
Jeremiah 1:4, 7, 11-14, 19;
9:3, 7, 9, 13, 15, 17, 22, 24-25;
11:1, 3, 6, 9, 11, 17-18, 21-22;
20:4;
22:2, 5-6, 11, 16, 18, 24, 29-30;
23:2, 5, 7, 12, 15, 24, 29, 31, 38;
27:1-2, 4, 8, 11, 16, 19, 21-22;
29:4, 8-9, 16, 19-21, 25, 30-32;
31:1-2, 7, 10, 15-17, 23, 27-28, 31-38;
32:1, 6, 14-15, 25-26, 28, 30, 36, 42, 44;
33:1-2, 4, 10-13, 17, 19-20, 23, 25;
40:1;
47:1;
48:1, 8, 12, 30, 35, 38, 40, 43-44, 47;
49:2, 5-7, 12-13, 16, 18, 26, 28, 30, 32, 35, 37-39;
50:1, 4, 10, 18, 20-21, 30-31, 33, 35, 40;
These are solely from Jeremiah. There are similar expressions in all the other Prophets, but it is never said that the Holy Spirit spoke, nor that Jehovah spoke to them by means of the Holy Spirit.
