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?"

606. Verse 5. And the angel whom I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth, signifies the Lord, to whom all things of heaven and the church are subject. This is evident from the signification of "the angel coming down from heaven," as being the Lord (See above, n. 593); and from the signification of "standing upon the sea and upon the earth," as being to whom all things of heaven and the church are subject (See also above, n. 600, since "standing upon them" signifies that they are subject to Him. Thus in David:

Thou madest Him to have dominion over the works ¹ of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under His feet (Psalms 8:6).

This is said of the Lord; His dominion over all things of heaven and the church is meant by "all things are put under His feet." And in Isaiah:

I will make the place of My feet honorable (Isaiah 60:13).

"The place of the Lord's feet" in a general sense means all things of heaven and the church, since the Lord as a sun is above the heavens; but in a particular sense "the place of His feet" signifies the church, for the Lord's church is with men in the natural world, and the natural is the lowest, into which the Divine closes, and upon which it as it were subsists. This is why the church on the earth is also called "the footstool of the Lord," as in the same:

The earth is My footstool (Isaiah 66:1; Matthew 5:35).

Also in Lamentations:

He hath cast down from the heavens unto the earth the splendor of Israel, and doth not remember His footstool (Lamentations 2:1).

And in David:

We will come into His tabernacles, we will bow down at His footstool (Psalms 132:7).

This is said of the Lord, and "His footstool" signifies the church on the earth.

[2] From this it can be seen that "to stand upon the sea and upon the earth" signifies in reference to the Lord that all things of heaven and the church are subject to Him. But "sea and earth upon which He set His feet," signify in particular the lowest heaven and the church on earth, as has just been said; for the higher parts of the body belonging to an angel signify the higher heavens, because they correspond to them; for the inmost heaven corresponds to the head, and the middle heaven to the breast down to the loins, and the ultimate heaven to the feet, but the church on the earth to the soles of the feet, consequently the church is meant by "His footstool." From this correspondence it can be concluded what the "angel (by whom is meant the Lord) standing upon the sea and upon the earth" represented in general and in particular, namely, that He represented the universal heaven; for the Lord is heaven, and His Divine Human forms heaven to an image of itself. This is why the whole heaven is in the sight of the Lord as one man, and corresponds to all things of man, therefore heaven also is called the Greatest Man. (Respecting this see what is said in the work on Heaven and Hell 59-102.)

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