When Jesus was being tested in the wilderness, He quoted Scripture to push away temptation. When He rode a donkey’s colt into Jerusalem, He did it to fulfill prophecy. When He offered the Two Great Commandments, he said that on them "hang all the Law and the Prophets." And in Luke 24, after His death and rising, he appeared to the disciples and "expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." He did not cast aside the Word as it then existed, to be replaced by the new things He was teaching. He opened it up to show the true meaning inside – a meaning in full accord with the things He was teaching.

That is illustrated in this verse. John the Baptist represents the external, literal meaning of the Old Testament; to "witness" means to confirm that something is good by looking at things we know to be true. And the Old Testament did confirm Jesus as the Lord! In fact, the Writings tell us that at its deepest level the Old Testament is entirely an unveiling of the Lord’s loving nature, which puts "this was He of whom I spake" in a brilliant and beautiful light. The Word had been telling people about the Lord all along, if only they had understood.

The statement that Jesus came "before" John seems odd. We know that John was about six months older, and that he was preaching before Jesus; how was Jesus "before" him? The answer is that Jesus was the embodiment of the Lord’s divine truth, the pure expression of the Lord’s love. The Lord’s love is from eternity to eternity, unchanging, and so its expression – divine truth – is also from eternity to eternity, unchanging. Jesus was a new form for that truth, a new way of sharing it with humanity, but His essence had always been and would always be. The Old Testament – represented by John -- was created from that divine truth as a container, so the divine truth certainly came before it.

4738. 'So that he might therefore rescue him out of their hands, to return him to his father' means so that it might lay claim to it for the Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'rescuing out of their hands' as delivering, as above in 4732, and from the meaning of 'returning to his father' as laying claim to it for the Church; for Jacob, to whom 'father' refers here, represents the Jewish religion which sprang from the Ancient Church, as above in 4700, 4701. What was laid claim to for the Church was the Divine Truth concerning the Lord's Divine Human, for, as stated already, 'Joseph' means that truth specifically.

[2] To know more regarding this truth, it should be recognized that the Ancient Church acknowledged it, as also did the Primitive Christian Church. But there came a time when the papacy so extended its authority that it had control over every human soul; it exalted itself in the way the king of Babel is said to have done, in Isaiah,

You said in your heart. I will go up into the heavens, above the stars of God ¹ I will raise my throne, and I will sit on the mount of assembly, I will go up above the heights of the clouds, and I will make myself like the Most High. Isaiah 14:13-14.

Then - at that time - Divinity was taken away from the Lord's Human, that is, His Divine was made distinct and separate from His Human.

[3] The way in which this distinction was decreed in a certain council ² has also been revealed to me. I saw some people appear on the right in front of me, some distance away on a level with the sole of my foot. They were talking among themselves, but I did not hear what about. I was told that they were some of those who had come together in the council when the decree was made regarding the Lord's two Natures - His Divine one and His Human one. Shortly after that I was allowed to talk to them. They said that those who had the greatest influence in the council and who held higher positions and had higher authority than the rest met together. They did so in a room that was dark, where they decided that both Divinity and Humanity should be attributed to the Lord, the main reason for their decision being that otherwise the papacy could not have remained in being. For if they had acknowledged that the Lord was one with the Father, as He Himself says, no one could then have been acknowledged as His vicar on earth. Schisms were developing at that time, which would have toppled and destroyed the power of the papacy, had they not made that distinction. To strengthen it they also assembled proof texts from the Word and swayed the rest of the council.

[4] Those who spoke to me added that by doing this they were able to have control in heaven and on earth. They knew from the Word that all power in heaven and on earth had been given to the Lord, and this power could not have been granted to any vicar [of Christ] if the Human too were acknowledged to be Divine. For they knew that no one was allowed to make himself equal to God and that that power existed essentially in the Divine, not in the Human unless it was granted to it as it was also subsequently granted to Peter. They said that by doing what they did they were then able to keep the schismatics quiet who were most astute, and were also able to strengthen the power of the papacy. From this it is clear that they invented the distinction they made purely for the sake of having control, and that therefore they had no wish to know that the gift of power to the Lord's Human in heaven and on earth demonstrates that His Human too is Divine. It is also clear that 'Peter', to whom the Lord gave the keys of heaven, does not mean the man Peter but faith rooted in charity, which is received from the Lord alone and is therefore a power that belongs to the Lord alone - see Preface to Genesis 22.

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