What is the Word? We generally think of the the Word as a book that we commonly call the Bible. However, if we read scripture carefully we find a deeper more powerful way to understand what the Word is.

In scripture and again in the teachings for the New Chruch, we are reminded that the Word is equivalent to the term Lord. It describes that aspect of the Lord which becomes visible or available to us in our mental awareness. In other words, the Word is the Lord manifesting, or showing Himself to us as Divine Truth.

Since the Word comes from the Lord, and the Word is the Lord, there are two aspects present at the same time in the Word: the letter of text of the Word and the Spirit or inner life of the Word.

The letter of the Word is the Lord in a form that can be understood by our natural awareness. It serves as a body for the Spirit of the Word. Our natural understanding can only grasp things expressed in natural terms. But once the Word places itself within our mind, then more interior aspects of the Word can be brought forth. The inner life or spirit is brought forth as we work with it in self-examination coming to identify sins and then shun them as evils against the Lord.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

John 1:1-5

“Where the Lord is meant, there also is meant the Word, for the Lord is the Word.”

Doctrine of Sacred Scripture n.47 – Emanuel Swedenborg

Study Further: The Word is Divine & therefore the Lord - Here