Doctrine of Holy Scripture - Swedenborg Foundation

DOCTRINE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE 239the Word might not perish, it has pleased the Lord at this presenttime to reveal the spiritual sense of the Word and make it plain thatthe Word in this sense, and from this in the natural sense, treats ofthe Lord and the church, and indeed of these alone, and to discovermany other things besides, by means of which the light of truthfrom the Word, now almost extinguished, may be restored. Thatthe light of truth would be almost extinguished at the end of thepresent church is foretold in many places in Revelation, and is alsowhat is meant by the following words of the Lord in Matthew:Immediately after the affliction of those days shall the sun be darkened, andthe moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and thepowers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then they shall see the son of mancoming in the clouds of heaven with glory and power (Matt. 24:29–30)The “sun” here means the Lord in respect to love; the “moon,” theLord in respect to faith; the “stars,” the Lord in respect to theknowledges of good and truth; the “son of man,” the Lord inrespect to the Word; a “cloud,” the sense of the letter of the Word;and “glory,” its spiritual sense and the shining through of this inthe sense of the letter.113. It has been given me to know by much experience that bymeans of the Word man has communication with heaven. While Iread the Word through from the first chapter of Isaiah to the last ofMalachi, and the psalms of David, I was permitted clearly toperceive that each verse communicated with some society ofheaven, and thus the whole Word with the universal heaven.14Without the Word no one would have knowledge of a God, ofheaven and hell, of a life after death, and still less of the Lord114. This follows as a general conclusion from what has beenalready said and shown; as that the Word is Divine truth itself (n.