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.

586. 'The imagination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the day long' means that there was no perception of good and truth, the reason being, as has been stated and shown, that they immersed doctrinal matters concerning faith in their filthy desires. Once this had happened all perception perished, its place being taken by dreadful persuasion, that is, firmly fixed and lethal delusions, which also brought about their extinction and suffocation. Such deadly persuasion is here meant by 'the imagination of the thoughts of his heart'. But when 'the imagination of the heart' stands alone without the expression 'of the thoughts' the evil which belongs to self-love or to evil desires is meant, as in Chapter 8 below where, after Noah had offered burnt offerings, Jehovah said,

I will curse the ground no more on account of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his childhood. Genesis 8:21.

[2] 'Imagination' is that which a person fashions for himself and of which he persuades himself, as in Habakkuk,

What profit is a graven image since its image-worker has graven it, a metal image and a teacher of lies, since the image-worker trusts in his own imagination to make dumb idols? Habakkuk 2:18.

'A graven image' means false persuasions resulting from ideas conceived and hatched by self. 'An image-worker' is someone who persuades himself, to whom 'imagination' has reference. In Isaiah,

O your perversity! Surely the potter will not be regarded as the clay, that the thing made will say to its maker, He did not make me? Or that the work of his imagination will say to its image-worker, He had no understanding? Isaiah 29:16.

'Imagination' here stands for thought originating in the proprium and for resulting false persuasion. In general 'imagination' is that which a person conceives from the heart or will, and also from his thinking or persuasion, as in David,

Jehovah knows our imagination, and remembers that we are dust. Psalms 103:14.

In Moses,

I know his imagination which he is performing this day, before I bring him into the land. Deuteronomy 31:21.

586[a] Verse 6 And Jehovah repented ¹ that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

'He repented' means mercy; 'He was grieved in heart' has a similar meaning. 'Repenting' has regard to wisdom, 'grieving in heart' to love.

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