189. Chapter 4: Sacred Scripture, the Word of the Lord{1}

Sacred Scripture, the Word, Is Divine Truth Itself

IT is on everyone's lips that the Word comes from God, is divinely inspired, and is therefore holy. Nonetheless, until now we have not known where the divinity is in the Word. At the literal level the Word seems like poor writing in a strange style, lacking the sublime and lucid quality that modern works seem to have.

There are people who can easily fall into the wrong perspective on the Word and into contempt for it - people who respect nature more than God or as God and who therefore think under the influence of themselves and their own identity rather than the influence of heaven from the Lord. When people like this read the Word they are prone to say to themselves, "What is this? What is that? Is this divine? Would a God who had infinite wisdom be capable of talking this way? Where is its holiness? Where else could the holiness come from except [the reader's] religious attitudes and convictions?"

Like "say," the word "speak" refers to thoughts and feelings moving from our more internal spiritual levels to our more external ones -- and ultimately from the Lord, who is in a sense the most internal spiritual level of all. This is generally called "influx" and "perception" in the Writings, meaning they are thoughts and feelings that flow in in a complete way from the Lord, rather than being things we have to think about and figure out. On a number of occasions "speak" and "say" are used together; in these cases "speak" refers more to intellectual instruction in matters of thought and "say" refers more to feelings and affections that flow in directly.