12. Enlightenment by the Word
Every person who possesses a spiritual affection for truth, that is, who loves real truth because it is true, is enlightened by the Lord when he reads the Word. Not so, however, one who reads the Word solely out of a natural affection for truth, which is called curiosity. Such a person sees only what accords with his love, or with his philosophic opinions, either that he has conceived for himself, or that he has adopted from others through hearing and reading. It shall be briefly told, therefore, what sort of person receives enlightenment through the Word, and why.
The person who receives enlightenment is one who refrains from evils because they are sins, and because they are against the Lord and are endeavors opposed to His Divine laws. In such a one and in no other the spiritual mind opens, and in the measure that it opens, in the same measure the light of heaven enters (all enlightenment in the Word being from the light of heaven). The reason is that the person then has a will for good. When this will is directed to that useful end [namely, to reading the Word], it produces in the intellect first an affection for truth, then a perception of truth, afterward with the help of rational sight, thought of truth, consequently a determination and conclusion; and as soon as this enters from the intellect into the memory, it enters also into the life and so remains.
This is the way all enlightenment in the Word proceeds, and likewise a person's reformation and regeneration. But first there must be in the memory concepts of both spiritual and natural things; for these concepts are the receptacles into which the Lord operates through the light of heaven. The fuller they are and the freer of falsities that have been affirmed, the more enlightened the perception and the surer the conclusion. The Divine operation simply does not descend into an empty-headed and witless person. Take, for example, someone who does not know that the Lord is pure love and pure mercy, being goodness itself and truth itself, and that love itself and goodness itself by its very nature cannot do anyone any evil or be angry and take vengeance, and who does not know that the literal meaning of the Word in many places has been written in accordance with appearances. A person like that cannot be enlightened by the Word where it says that Jehovah becomes wrathful and angry, and attributes to Him fire and fury-as, for instance, in Deuteronomy, where it says that His anger burns to the lowest hell;* in Amos 3:6, that there is no evil in a city which Jehovah has not done; in Deuteronomy 28:63, that He rejoices to do evil as He rejoiced to do good; in the Lord's Prayer, that He leads into temptations;** and so on in other places. * Deuteronomy 32:22. ** Matthew 6:13, Luke 11:4.