Page:The Other Life.djvu/173

 whole company that the person appearing in the sun was the identical God-Man. Jesus Christ, whom they had known on earth.

The last means or medium by which the Lord is present in the spiritual world is through his written Word. This is astonishing to those who do not believe in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and to those also who suppose them to be nothing but a literal message from God to man like the written or printed laws by which a king may govern his subjects.

Swedenborg asserts that the Word is absolutely divine; that it is not only the crown of revelation, but "the plenitude of God." Its inmost is the Divine Truth or the Divine Mind itself.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."

This conception of the true nature of the Bible, vastly exceeds any thought of its inspiration or holiness ever before promulgated. In its inmost it is God himself; absolute divine truth, incommunicable to finite creatures. It descended through the minds of the celestial angels and was presented outwardly to them by special dictation as a grand