137. It says in John,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word: all things were made by means of him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of humankind. He was in the world, and the world was made by means of him. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory. (John 1:1, 3-4, 10, 14)

It is clear that the Lord is the one who is meant by "the Word," since it says that the Word was made flesh. Precisely what is meant by "the Word," though, is not yet known and must therefore be stated. The Word in this passage is the divine truth that is in the Lord and from the Lord, ¹ so here it is also called the light, which is divine truth, as has been shown earlier in this chapter. Now we need to explain the statement that all things were made and created by means of divine truth.

[2] In heaven, it is divine truth that possesses all power, and apart from it there is no power whatever. ² All angels are called "powers" because of divine truth, and are powers to the extent that they are recipients or vessels of it. Through it they prevail over the hells and over all who oppose them. A thousand enemies there cannot bear one ray of heavenly light, which is divine truth. Since angels are angels because of their acceptance of divine truth, it follows that all heaven is from this source and no other, since heaven is made up of angels.

[3] People cannot believe that this kind of power is inherent in divine truth if the only concept of truth they have has to do with thought or speech, which have no power in them except to the extent that other people concede it by being obedient. There is an intrinsic power within divine truth, though, power of such nature that by means of it heaven, the world, and everything in them was created.

We can illustrate the fact that this kind of power is inherent in divine truth by two comparisons - by the power of what is true and good in us, and by the power of light and warmth from the sun in our world.

By the power of what is true and good in us: Everything we do, we do out of our discernment and intent. Out of our intent, we act by means of what is good, and out of our discernment by means of what is true. In fact, all the elements of our volition are related to what is good, and all the elements of our discernment are related to what is true. ³ On this basis, then, we set our whole body in motion and a thousand things there rush to do our bidding of their own accord. We can see from this that our whole body is formed for obedience to what is good and true and therefore from what is good and true.

[4] By the power of light and warmth from the sun in our world: Everything that grows in our world - things like trees, shrubs, flowers, grasses, fruits, and seeds - arises only by means of the warmth and light of the sun. So we can see what kind of productive power is inherent in that warmth and light. What about the divine light that is divine truth, then, and the divine warmth that is divine good, the source from which heaven comes into being and consequently the world as well, since as we have shown above, it is through heaven that the world comes into being?

This enables us to determine how to understand the statement that all things were made by means of the Word, and that without him nothing was made that was made, and further that the world was made by means of him, namely that this was accomplished by means of divine truth from the Lord. ⁴

This is also why in the book of creation it first mentions light and then the things that arise from light (Genesis 1:3-4). It is also why everything in all heaven and earth has to do with what is good and true and to their union if it is to be anything at all. ⁵

Poznámky pod čarou:

5688. 'Is this your youngest brother, whom you said [something about] to me?' means born after all of them, as they well knew. This is clear from the meaning of 'youngest brother' as the one born after all of them, dealt with in what follows; and from the meaning of 'whom you said to me' as that which was perceived by them. For 'saying' means that which has been perceived, see immediately above in 5687, and so means what is well known. The reason Benjamin is called here, as he in fact was, their 'youngest brother' - that is, the one born after all of them, or the youngest by birth - is that in the spiritual sense the intermediary, which 'Benjamin' represents, is likewise the one that comes last. The intermediary in a person is born last of all; for when a person is undergoing spiritual birth - that is, when he is being born again - his rational, which is his inner man, is regenerated first by the Lord, then the natural after that, the rational being the means by which the Lord regenerates the natural, 3286, 3288, 3321, 3493, 4612. Now since the intermediary must be derived from both these - both from the spiritual rational or rational that has been made new, and from the natural - and since the intermediary cannot be derived from the natural unless this too has been made new, the intermediary is inevitably born at a later stage, and then only insofar as the natural is regenerated.

[2] Everything recorded in the Word regarding the sons of Jacob happened for a providential reason, which was that the Word might be written dealing with them and their descendants. This Word was to contain heavenly realities, and in the highest sense Divine ones, which those sons in actual fact represented. This was no less so in the case of Benjamin who, being the one born last of all, represented the intermediary between the internal and the external, that is, between the celestial of the spiritual which was the Lord's when He was in the world and the natural which was also the Lord's and which He was to make Divine.

[3] Everything recorded about Joseph and his brothers represents in the highest sense the glorification of the Lord's Human, that is, the way in which the Lord made the Human within Himself Divine. The reason this is what is represented in the inmost sense is so that in its inmost sense the Word may be completely holy. A further reason is that every detail recorded may contain within itself what can pass into angelic wisdom; for it is well known that angelic wisdom so surpasses man's wisdom that man can hardly begin to comprehend any of it. The actual happiness of the angels resides in the fact that every detail has to do with the Lord; for they abide in Him. Furthermore the glorification of the Lord's Human is the pattern for a person's regeneration, which is why a person's regeneration is also presented in the internal sense at the same time as the subject of the Lord's glorification is dealt with. A person's regeneration and the countless arcana associated with it also passes into angelic wisdom and brings the angels happiness insofar as they apply those arcana to useful services, which look to a person's reformation.