39. It can be seen from this that the Word in its literal sense is the Word itself, inasmuch as that sense has within it spirit and life — the spiritual sense being its spirit, and the celestial sense its life.

It is as the Lord says: “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). The Lord spoke His words for the world’s comprehension, employing their natural meaning.

The spiritual and celestial senses are not the Word apart from the natural sense, the sense of the letter, as they would be like spirit and life without a body, and as said before in no. 33, like a palace lacking a foundation.