Selection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
As there are three senses in the Word - the natural, the spiritual, and the celestial - and as its natural sense, which is the sense of the letter, is a containant of the two senses - the spiritual and the celestial - it follows that the sense of the letter of the Word is the basis of those senses.As the angels of the three heavens receive their wisdom from the Lord through the Word with them, and as their Words make one with our Word by correspondences, it also follows that the sense of the letter of our Word is the basis, support, and foundation of the wisdom of the angels of heaven. For the heavens rest upon the human race as a house rests upon its foundation — so the wisdom of the angels of heaven rests in like manner upon the knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom of men from the sense of the letter of the Word, for as has been said [in previous articles], communication and conjunction with the heavens are effected through the sense of the letter of the Word.
Thence it is, that of the Lord's Divine Providence it has come to pass, that the Word as to the sense of the letter from its first revelation has not been mutilated, not even as to an expression and letter in the original text, for every expression is a support, and in some measure the letters.
From all this it is clear what a profanation it is to falsify the truths and adulterate the goods of the Word, and how infernal it is to deny or to weaken its holiness. As soon as that is done, for that man of the church, heaven is closed.The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which cannot be forgiven, is the blasphemy of the Word by those who deny its holiness. Since the Word is the basis of the heavens, and since the Word has been wholly falsified and adulterated by the Jewish nation by traditions and by applications of the sense of the letter to favor their evil loves, lest the heavens should be endangered and the wisdom of the angels there should become foolishness, it has pleased the Lord to come down from heaven and to put on the Human and to become the Word, as is evident from John 1:14: -
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.and thus to restore the state of heaven.
(to be continued)
(Apocalypse Explained 1085:2)