78. To continue, the Lord is present with us and united to us through the Word because the Lord is the Word and is virtually talking with us in it. There is also the fact that the Lord is divine truth itself, and that is what the Word is.

We can see from this that the extent to which we understand the Word determines the extent to which the Lord is present with us and at the same time united to us. This is because our understanding of the Word determines the truth we possess, as well as the faith that arises from that truth. Similarly, our understanding of the Word determines the love we have, as well as the way in which we live, which arises from that love. The Lord is present with us when we read the Word; but he is united to us only when we understand what is true from the Word and only in proportion to that understanding; and to the extent that the Lord is united to us the church is within us.

And the church is indeed something within us. The church that is outside us is the church of the many who have the church within them. This is the meaning of what the Lord said to the Pharisees when they asked him when the kingdom of God was coming-“The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Here the kingdom of God means the Lord, and the church from him.

173. I explained in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 104-113 that people who are outside the church and do not have the Word also receive light by means of the Word. Since light comes to us through the Word, and since we derive from that light a discernment (which both evil and good people possess), it follows that from its source light comes into those derivative forms that are our sensations and thoughts about whatever concerns us. The Lord said that we can do nothing apart from him (John 15:5), that we can acquire nothing unless it is given us from heaven (John 3:27), and that the Father in heaven makes his sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45). Here as elsewhere in the Word, the sun in its spiritual sense means the divine good of divine love, and the rain means the divine truth of divine wisdom. These are given to evil people and good people, to just people and unjust people, because otherwise no one would have either sensation or thought.

I have already explained [157] that there is only one life that is the source of life for us all; and sensation and thought are functions of life, so we get sensation and thought from the same source as life. I have also presented ample evidence that all the light that constitutes our discernment comes from the sun of the spiritual world, which is the Lord.