The reason why the Word is a means of linking the Lord with a person and a person with the Lord is that it is in essence Divine truth combined with Divine good, and Divine good combined with Divine truth. Their union is in every single detail of the Word in its celestial and spiritual senses (see THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED 373, 483, 689, 881). From this it follows that the Word is a perfect marriage of good and truth. Since this is from the Lord, and what is from Him is the Lord, the consequence is that, when a person reads the Word and takes truths from it, the Lord gives him good in addition. For the person does not see the kinds of good which affect him, because he uses his intellect to read it, and the intellect can only gather from it its own kind of thing, namely, truths. The intellect can feel the addition of good by the Lord from the pleasure which floods in when it is being enlightened. But this only happens inwardly in the case of those who read the Word with the object of being wise; this is the object of those who want to learn more truths there and use these to form the church in themselves.

If some, however, read it only to be able to boast of their learning, and also if they hold the opinion that merely reading or hearing it injects faith and helps to salvation, these do not receive any good from the Lord, because their object is to achieve salvation simply from its words, which contain no part of truth. The other group's object is to be renowned for learning, an object which has no link with any spiritual good, but only with the natural pleasure which comes from worldly fame. It is because the Word is a means of linking that it is called the Old and the New Covenant, and a covenant means a link.