The Doctrines of the New Church Briefly Explained/Chapter12
XII.—The Sacred Scripture.
One of the distinguishing features of the New Theology, and that which gives color to the entire system, is the kind and degree of inspiration which it attributes to the Sacred Scripture, and the alleged peculiarity in the style of its composition. The New Church maintains its plenary divine inspiration, declaring it to be strictly, and without qualification, the Word of God. Swedenborg says that the Bible was never meant to instruct mankind in natural science, or the laws of the material universe; but that it was given to teach us concerning spiritual things; such as the personality and character of God and our relation to Him; the reality and nature of the spiritual world; the capabilities and wants of the human soul, and the means by which its most perfect state and highest bliss are to be secured. Through the blinding influence of sin, man lost the knowledge of the things which it most deeply concerned him to know. He lost all knowledge of his inner and superior life—all perception of the laws, capabilities and undying needs of his own soul. It was this loss, therefore, which rendered a Divine Revelation necessary.
What else, then, but spiritual things—God, the soul, immortality, redemption, regeneration, retribution, sin, holiness, heaven and its blessedness, hell and its misery,—can the Bible, when rightly understood and interpreted, have been given to teach us? Yet we know that it treats or appears to treat much of natural and temporal things. We know that it abounds in the mention of times, places, persons, things and events belonging to this, natural world. But according to Swedenborg all these natural and temporal things are but symbols of something spiritual.[1] They all have a spiritual signification. So that, within or above the apparent sense of Scripture, called also the natural or literal sense, he recognizes a higher meaning which he calls the internal or spiritual. This higher or spiritual sense, is to that of the letter, as the soul is to the body: and it dwells in every part of the written Word as the soul dwells in every part of the body. As the body without the soul is dead, so the literal sense of the Word apart from the spiritual, is dead also. As the body derives all its life and strength from the in-dwelling soul, so the literal sense of the Word receives its vitality and power from the spiritual sense. And as the body is the normal outbirth of the soul, and corresponds to it as an effect corresponds to its producing cause, so the literal sense of the Word is the normal outbirth of the spiritual, and corresponds to it in like manner. And as body and soul are united by correspondence, the one being filled, pervaded, and animated by the other, so the literal and spiritual senses of the Word are united in like manner,—the former being the appropriate receptacle or Divine medium of the latter.
The idea of a spiritual sense in every part of the Scripture, was not original with Swedenborg. It was the generally received doctrine of the Primitive Church—believed and taught by Origen, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Jerome, Augustine, Pantænus, Tatian, Theophilus, Pamphilius, Clemens and Cyril of Alexandria, and nearly all the early Christian Fathers. And the same belief has been held by many eminent theologians ever since. Dr. Mosheim, speaking of the illustrious writers of the second century, says: "They all attributed a double sense to the words of Scripture; the one obvious and literal, the other hidden and mysterious, which lay concealed, as it were, under the veil of the outward letter." But the Fathers had no recognized rule for eliciting the spiritual sense. Each one's own fancy or spiritual perception was his only guide. A hundred different expositors, therefore, might give as many different expositions of the same text.
The Key for Opening the Scriptures.
But the Key to the deeper and heavenly meaning of Scripture has now been revealed (so it is believed and claimed), for the use of all who desire to see and to feast their souls on the abundant riches of God's Word. This Key is the science or doctrine of correspondence—the fixed and unalterable relation existing between the spiritual and the natural, or between the internal and external. This doctrine is not, as some suppose, a pretty conceit or mere human invention, but has its foundation in the very constitution of things, and is exact as the science of mathematics. This is the grand key for opening the spiritual and true meaning of the Bible. And every one who is sufficiently familiar with this key, may apply it for himself. A hundred different expositors, therefore, equally skilled in the use of the key, will arrive at substantially the same spiritual sense of any given text; just as a hundred different translators, equally versed in the original languages of the Bible, will give substantially the same rendering of the same text. So that there is little room for the play of one's fancy. Fancy may, indeed, provide the dress for the spiritual sense. It may array it in apparel more or less beautiful and attractive. But it has as little to do with the substance of that sense as it has with the rendering of Greek or Hebrew into English, or with the results of a chemical experiment.
According to the teaching of the New Church, then, the Scripture is divine throughout; divine to the very ultimates; divine in its structure as well as in its substance. It differs from all human productions in the style of its composition, as well as in the nature of its contents. It infinitely transcends them all, as the works of God infinitely transcend the works of man. And as in nature the greatest wonders are not obvious at first view—lie never upon the outside—but the farther we penetrate into the interior structure of God's works, the more wonderful and perfect do we find them, so precisely is it with the written Word.
According to this teaching, therefore, God's Word is literally what the apostle declares all inspired Scripture to be—theopneustos—God-breathed. It is so constructed that the Divine can dwell in it in all fulness, as in seeds and germs and all things else in the realms of Nature. It is this, pre-eminently, which stamps it with the impress of Divinity. It is this which makes it God's Word, and a Divine medium of man's conjunction with his Maker. It is this which gives it its quickening and transforming power—a power over the human heart which no uninspired word, no utterance of human wit or wisdom however exalted, ever had or ever can have.
Illustrations and Confirmations.
But although the Word is spiritual in its nature, being given exclusively for man's spiritual edification—although it contains a spiritual sense throughout, the New Church does not believe or teach that only those who accept this doctrine and who understand the science of correspondence, can receive spiritual instruction from the Word. Swedenborg teaches nothing of this sort. On the contrary, he teaches that the spiritual meaning of many parts of the Word—and these the most essential parts—is sufficiently obvious to all minds. The cloud of the letter in many places is so thin, that the light of the spiritual sense shines through. Thus he says:
Thus all have an intuitive perception of the correspondence and spiritual signification of many things. Consequently all have a perception of the spiritual meaning of many portions of the Divine Word.
For example: When our Saviour says: "I am the light of the World," Christians generally do not think of natural light, but of that to which the natural corresponds—the light of divine truth. When He says: "I am that bread of life," most Christians perceive that He is speaking of spiritual bread and spiritual life—the correspondents of the natural. When He says: "He that eateth me, even he shall live by me," few understand Him to speak of natural eating or living, but nearly every one thinks of the spiritual things to which such natural acts correspond. When He says: "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink," what Christian thinks of natural thirst or natural drinking, or of any movement of the body through natural space? Nearly every one thinks of the soul's thirst for the water of life, which only He can slake who is the Fountain of living waters,—the very thing signified, according to the revealed law of correspondence. When He says: "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him," probably very few think of material flesh and blood, or of natural eating and drinking, but of the Lord's own truth and love—his divine-human virtues and graces, and their reception or incorporation into the spirit's life. When He says: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," do not all Christians perceive that He refers to a spiritual birth, a spiritual kingdom, and spiritual seeing? Yes—and that He means by man, not the material and perishable, but the substantial and immortal part—the soul or spirit which is the real man? And when (as in the Apocalypse) the Holy City New Jerusalem is spoken of as "coming down from God out of heaven", probably not many Christians nowadays think of the descent through actual space of any such city as is described in the literal sense. Most persons perceive that something spiritual and heavenly is there referred to, though they may not see precisely what it is.
All, therefore, have a pretty clear perception of the correspondence of some things, and consequently have some perception of the spiritual sense of God's Word. And the measure of that perception with each one will depend on the purity of his heart and the innocence of his life, or on the sincerity and strength of his desire to know, and his purpose to do, the will of the Heavenly Father.[2]
- ↑ The doctrine, so much insisted on by Swedenborg, that the Bible is a book of Divine symbols, is recognized by many Biblical scholars and pious Christian authors. In an interesting article on "Symbols of Thought," by the late Rev. E. E. Adams, D. D., we meet with such passages as the following:
"The Bible is a book of symbols,—not word-symbols only, but types, scenes, visions, and life-symbols. As a whole it expresses the love and wisdom and purpose of God." "The Tabernacle was a symbol of God's presence and dwelling-place. The Temple, with all its varied, spacious, rich apartments, and its furniture, was a sublime symbol of heaven and its worship. The bondage of Israel, their release, their march through the Red Sea, their wanderings, their miraculous supply of manna from heaven, and of Water from the smitten rock, their passage over Jordan and entrance into Canaan, prefigured, symbolized a grand spiritual history—the rise, progress and completeness of the Christian Church. Even the men of that age were living symbols of the God-man." "The poetry of the Bible, indeed all poetry, is symbolic. Nature is made to express, by her fields, her forests, her mountains, seas, and rivers, sublime religious truths." "The promise of Christ's dominion over the nation is another of these divine symbols that embodies the history of ages."—"The prophetic symbols of the Bible are, perhaps, most beautiful, sublime, and mysterious." "The great Teacher employed symbols, because He could thereby more fully convey his thoughts to men. . . The apostles do not, in their epistles, imitate our Lord, but they do expound and apply the Old Testament symbols"—Presbyterian Quarterly Review for April, 1862.
- ↑ For evidence, both rational and Scriptural, of the truth of the New Church doctrine, briefly outlined here, the reader is referred to an exhaustive treatise on "The Science of Correspondences elucidated," by Rev. Edward Madeley; also to "The Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures," by Rev. S. Noble: "The Bible: its true character and spiritual meaning," by Rev. L. P. Mercer (being No. 4 of this series); and to Lectures iv., v., vi. and vii. of Barrett's "Lectures on the New Dispensation."