1. Sacred Scripture, or the Word, Is Divine Truth Itself

EVERYONE says that the Word that comes from God is divinely inspired, and is therefore holy, but thus far no one knows where in the Word this divine element is. This is because in the letter, the Word seems pedestrian, stylistically strange, not sublime or brilliant the way some literature of the present century is. That is why people who worship nature as God or who elevate nature over God and whose thinking therefore comes from themselves and their own interests rather than from heaven and the Lord can so readily slip into error concerning the Word and into contempt for it. When they read it they say to themselves, “What’s this? What’s that? Is this divine? Can a God of infinite wisdom say things like this? Where is its holiness, and where does its holiness come from except people’s religious bias and consequent credulity?”

76. The Existence of the Church Rests on the Word, and Its Quality Depends on the Quality of Its Understanding of the Word

THERE can be no doubt that the existence of the church rests on the Word, since the Word is divine truth itself (§§1-4), the teachings of the church come from the Word (§§50-61), and our union with the Lord comes through the Word (§§62-69). However, some may doubt that our understanding of the Word is what makes the church, if only because there are people who believe that they are part of the church solely by virtue of having the Word, reading it, or hearing it from the pulpit, and by thus having acquired some knowledge of its literal meaning. They do not know how to understand a single thing in the Word, though, and some of them do not even attach much importance to the Word at all. So at this point I need to show that it is not the Word that makes the church but the way the Word is understood, and that the quality of the church depends on the quality of the understanding of the Word among the people who are in the church. This is shown by the following.