38. The Lord is called Jehovah. This is apparent from the following:

...thus said Jehovah, your Creator, O Jacob, and your Maker, O Israel: “...for I have redeemed you.... ...I am Jehovah your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” (Isaiah 43:1, 3)

I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. (Isaiah 43:15)

Thus said Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker.... (Isaiah 45:11, cf. 45:15)

...that all flesh may know that I, Jehovah, am your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. (Isaiah 49:26)

...that you may know that I, Jehovah, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. (Isaiah 60:16)

...Jehovah...your Maker from the womb.... (Isaiah 49:5)

...O Jehovah, my rock, and my Redeemer! (Psalms 19:14)

Thus said Jehovah, your Maker, and your Former from the womb.... Thus said Jehovah, the King of Israel, and its Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts.... (Isaiah 44:2, 6)

Our Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts is His name, the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 47:4)

“With everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you.” Thus said Jehovah, your Redeemer. (Isaiah 54:8)

Their Redeemer is strong; Jehovah of Hosts is His name. (Jeremiah 50:34)

Jehovah (God) is my rock, my fortress, and...the horn of my salvation..., my Savior.... (2 Samuel 22:2-3)

...said Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.... (Isaiah 43:14, 48:17)

Thus said Jehovah, the Redeemer of Israel, His Holy One...: “Kings shall see....” (Isaiah 49:7)

I...am Jehovah, and besides Me there is no Savior. (Isaiah 43:11)

Have not I, Jehovah? And there is no other God besides Me, (and)...a Savior, there is none besides Me. Look to Me, that you may be saved, all you ends of the earth! (Isaiah 45:21-22)

I am Jehovah your God..., and...there is no Savior besides Me. (Hosea 13:4)

You have redeemed me, O Jehovah, God of truth. (Psalms 31:5)

Let Israel hope in Jehovah; for with Jehovah there is mercy, ...with Him is abundant redemption. He shall redeem Israel from all its iniquities. (Psalms 130:7-8)

...Jehovah of Hosts is His name, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He shall be called God of the whole earth. (Isaiah 54:5)

In these passages Jehovah is called Redeemer and Savior, and because the Lord alone is the Redeemer and Savior, it is the Lord who is meant by Jehovah.

[2] That the Lord is Jehovah, or in other words, that Jehovah is the Lord, is apparent also from the following:

A Rod shall come forth from the stem of Jesse, and an Offshoot out of his roots shall bear fruit. The Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon Him.... (Isaiah 11:1-2)

It will be said in that day: “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him to save us. This is Jehovah, for whom we have waited; we will rejoice and be glad in His salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9)

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of Jehovah; make smoothe in the desert a highway for our God.... (For) the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it....” Behold, the Lord Jehovih is coming in strength, and His arm shall rule for Him. (Isaiah 40:3, 5, 10)

I, Jehovah...will...give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles.... I am Jehovah, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another.... (Isaiah 42:6-8)

Behold, the days are coming...when I will raise to David a righteous offshoot, (who) shall reign as king and prosper, and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.... And this is His name by which they will call Him: Jehovah Our Righteousness. (Jeremiah 23:5-6, cf. 33:15-16)

You, Bethlehem Ephrathah..., out of you shall come forth to Me One to be Ruler in Israel.... He shall stand and give pasture in the strength of Jehovah.... (Micah 5:2, 4)

...unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called...God, Hero, Father of Eternity...., upon the throne of David..., to establish it and found it with judgment and justice, from that time on and even to eternity. (Isaiah 9:6-7)

Jehovah will go forth and fight against the nations.... And...His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem.... (Zechariah 14:3-4)

Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you doors of the world, that the King of glory may come in! Who is this King of glory? Jehovah strong and a hero, Jehovah a hero of war. (Psalms 24:7-10)

In that day Jehovah of Hosts will become a crown of adornment and a miter of beauty to the remnant of His people. (Isaiah 28:5)

...I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great...day of Jehovah. (Malachi 4:5)

And so on elsewhere in places that mention the great and coming day of Jehovah, such as Ezekiel 30:3, Joel 2:11, Amos 5:18, 20, Zephaniah 1:7, 14-15, 18.

172. I explained in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture that the Lord is the Word and that all the teaching of the church should be based on the Word. Since the Lord is the Word, then, it follows that when we are being taught by the Word we are being taught by the Lord alone. However, since this is hard to grasp, I need to make it clear in the following sequence. (a) The Lord is the Word because it comes from him and is about him. (b) [The Lord is the Word] also because it is divine truth coming from divine good. (c) Being taught from the Word is therefore being taught from him. (d) It does not reduce the immediacy that this happens indirectly, through sermons.

[2] (a) The Lord is the Word because it comes from him and is about him. No one in the church denies that the Word comes from the Lord, but even though no one denies that the Word is about no one but the Lord, no one really knows this. I have, however, explained it in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem respecting the Lord 1-7, 37-44; and Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 62-69, 80-90, 98-100. Since the Word comes from the Lord alone and is about the Lord alone, it follows that when we are being taught from the Word we are being taught from the Lord. The Word is actually divine. Who is able to communicate something divine and instill it into our hearts except Divinity itself, the source and the subject? This is why when the Lord talks with his disciples about their union with him he talks about their abiding in him and his words abiding in them (John 15:7), about his words being spirit and life (John 6:63), and about making his dwelling with people who keep his words (John 14:20-24). This means that thinking from the Lord is thinking from the Word, to all appearances thinking by means of the Word.

I have explained throughout Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture, from beginning to end, that everything in the Word is in touch with heaven; and since the Lord is heaven, this means that everything in the Word is in touch with the Lord himself. Heaven's angels do have access to heaven, but this too is from the Lord.

[3] (b) The Lord is the Word also because it is divine truth coming from divine good. The Lord teaches that he is the Word in John by saying, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14). Because until now this has been understood only as saying that the Lord teaches us through the Word, it has been taken as hyperbole with the implication that the Lord is not really the Word. This is because people have not realized that "the Word" means what is divine and true coming from what is divine and good, or in other words, divine wisdom from divine love. I explained that these are the Lord himself in part 1 of Divine Love and Wisdom, and explained that they are the Word in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 1-86 [Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 1-26].

[4] Now I need to explain briefly how the Lord is what is divine and true from what is divine and good. We are not human because of our faces and bodies but because of the goodness of our love and the truths of our wisdom; and since this is what makes us human, we are also whatever is true and good about us, our own love and our own wisdom. Apart from these, we are not human. The Lord, though, is what is essentially true and essentially good, or love itself and wisdom itself; and these are the Word that was in the beginning with God, that was God, and that was made flesh.

[5] (c) Being taught from the Word is therefore being taught by the Lord himself because it is being taught from what is essentially good and essentially true, or from the love itself and wisdom itself that are the Word, as just stated. Still, we all learn within the limits of the comprehension of our love. Anything beyond that is transient.

People who are taught by the Lord in the Word learn a few truths in this world, but they learn a great many when they become angels. The deeper levels of the Word, the divine spiritual and divine heavenly contents, are being instilled at the same time. However, these are not opened up until after our death, in heaven, where we come into an angelic wisdom that in comparison to our earlier human wisdom is simply indescribable. You may see in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 5-26 that the divine spiritual and divine heavenly contents that constitute the wisdom of angels are present throughout the Word, in its every detail.

[6] (d) It does not reduce the immediacy that this happens indirectly, through sermons. The only way the Word can be taught is indirectly, through our parents, teachers, preachers, and books, and especially by our reading it. Still, these are not our teachers: the Lord is, using them as means. This is derived from what preachers know, too. They say that they are not talking from their own resources but from the spirit of God and that everything true, like everything good, comes from God. They can talk and can convey things to the minds of many, but not to anyone's heart; and anything that does not enter the heart dies in the mind. "The heart" means our love.

We can see from this that we are led and taught by the Lord alone and that this happens directly from him when it happens from the Word. This is a most treasured secret of angelic wisdom.