The Lord's presence and the conjunction of heaven with people on earth is everywhere effected by means of the Word because in the Lord's sight all of heaven is like a single person, and so, too, is the church. Moreover, each also actually is a person, since the Lord is heaven, and the Lord is the church. In this person, the church where the Word is read and where the Lord is therefore known is like the heart and the lungs; and just as in the human body all the rest of the organs and parts draw their subsistence and life from these two wellsprings of life, so likewise do all they in the world who have any sort of religion in which one God is worshiped, and who form the organs and parts of that grand person which is heaven and the church. For these others have life from the Lord through heaven by means of the Word in the church, even if it exists with comparatively few, just as the organs and parts of the rest of the body draw their life from the heart and the lungs. There is also a similar communication.

This, too, is why Christians among whom the Word is read form the breast of that grand person. They are also at the center of all. Around them are Roman Catholics. Around these are Muslims, who acknowledge the Lord as the greatest prophet and as the son of God. After these, then, come Africans. And the outmost periphery is composed of nations and peoples from Asia and the Indies. All those who are in that person also face toward the middle. Moreover, the greatest light, too, is found in the middle, where, as said, are Christians who possess the Word, because the light in heaven is Divine truth emanating from the Lord as its sun. From there as from its center, the light radiates out to all the peripheral areas and gives them light. This is the source of the enlightenment of nations and peoples not in the church-which also comes by means of the Word. For all light of truth in a person comes from the Lord through heaven.

[2] What is true of heaven as a whole is also true of every society in heaven, for every society of heaven is a heaven in smaller form, and it likewise appears in the Lord's sight as a single person (on which subject, see the book Heaven and Hell, nos. 41-87). In each society, too, those who are at the center similarly resemble the heart and the lungs, and they possess the greatest light. This light, with a resulting perception of truth, radiates out from that center in all directions toward those on the peripheries and gives them their spiritual life. I have been shown, moreover, that when those who were in the middle, who formed the region of the heart and lungs and who therefore possessed the greatest light, were removed, those who lived round about were left in comparative darkness, and that they then had such a weak perception of truth as to have scarcely any. But as soon as the others returned, their light reappeared as before, and they recovered their former perception of truth.

[3] It can be seen from this that the Word as it exists in the church with Protestants gives light to all nations and peoples by a spiritual communication such as has been described. Also that the Lord provides that there always be on this earth a church where the Word is read. That is why, when the Word was almost cast aside by Roman Catholics, of the Lord's Divine providence the Reformation took place in which the Word was again received. At the same time it was also provided that the Word be held holy by a noble nation* among the Catholic countries.

[4] Since without the Word there is no concept of the Lord, consequently no salvation, therefore when the Word in possession of the Jewish nation was completely adulterated and falsified and thus virtually nullified, it pleased the Lord to come into the world and not only fulfill the Word, but also renew and restore it and so give light once again to the inhabitants of this earth-according to the Lord's words in John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light appears in darkness.... He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world. (John 1:1, 4, 5, 9)

Again in John:

(Jesus said,) "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life." (John 8:12)

And in Matthew:

The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. Upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has arisen. (Matthew 4:16)

[5] It was foretold that at the end of the present church, darkness would again arise in consequence of its failure to recognize and acknowledge the Lord as God of heaven and earth, and in consequence of its separating faith from charity, by which a proper understanding of the Word perished. Because of this, it has therefore now pleased the Lord to reveal the spiritual meaning of the Word, and to make known that the Word in its spiritual meaning speaks of the Lord and the church, indeed of the Lord and the church only, and to disclose many other things by which to restore the light of truth that was almost extinguished.

The extinction of the light of truth at the end of the present church is meant by the Lord's words in Matthew:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then ... they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with ... glory and power. (Matthew 24:29, 30)

By the sun there is meant the Lord in respect to His Divine love, by the moon the Lord in relation to faith, by the stars the Lord in relation to concepts of good and truth, by the clouds the literal meaning of the Word, and by glory its spiritual meaning-the Son of Man referring to the Lord in relation to the Word. * Almost certainly a reference to the French nation. See Divine Providence, no. 257:4, and elsewhere.