1. Teachings for the New Jerusalem on the Lord

The Entire Sacred Scripture Is about the Lord, and the Lord Is the Word

WE read in John,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and nothing that was made came about without him. In him there was life, and that life was the light for humankind. And the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness did not grasp it. And the Word became flesh and lived among us; and we saw his glory, glory like that of the only-begotten child of the Father. He was full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-3, 5, 14)

In the same Gospel,

Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)

And elsewhere in the same Gospel,

While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of the light. I have come into the world as a light so that anyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness. (John 12:36, 46)

We can see from this that the Lord is God from eternity and that he himself is that Lord who was born into the world. It actually says that the Word was with God and that the Word was God, as well as that nothing that was made came about without him, and then that the Word became flesh and that they saw him.

There is little understanding in the church of what it means to call the Lord “the Word.” He is called the Word because the Word means divine truth or divine wisdom and the Lord is divine truth itself or divine wisdom itself. That is why he is also called the light that is said to have come into the world.

Since divine wisdom and divine love are one with each other and have been one in the Lord from eternity, it also says “in him there was life, and that life was the light for humankind.” The life is divine love, and the light is divine wisdom.

This oneness is what is meant by saying both that “in the beginning the Word was with God” and that “the Word was God.” “With God” is in God, since wisdom is in love and love is in wisdom. This is like the statement elsewhere in John, “Glorify me, Father, together with yourself, with the glory I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). “With yourself” is “in yourself.” This is why it adds “and the Word was God.” It says elsewhere that the Lord is in the Father and the Father is in him [John 14:10], and that the Father and he are one [John 10:30].

Since the Word is the divine wisdom of the divine love, it follows that it is Jehovah himself and therefore the Lord, the one by whom all things were made that were made, since everything was created out of divine love by means of divine wisdom.

3798. That Jacob came near, and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth. That this signifies that the Lord from natural good uncovered the Word as to things interior, is evident from the representation of Jacob, as being the Lord’s Divine natural, as before shown, here, in respect to the good therein; and from the signification of “rolling the stone from the well’s mouth,” as being to uncover the Word in respect to its interiors (n. 3769, 3771, 3773, 3789). The reason why the supreme internal sense here is that the Lord from natural good uncovered the Word as to its interiors, is that Jacob here represents good in the natural; for Jacob puts on the representation of good, because now truth was to be adjoined thereto by means of the affection which Rachel represents (see just above, n. 3775, 3793); and because it is from good that the Word is uncovered in respect to its interiors (n. 3773).

[2] That it is from good that the Word is uncovered is very manifest, because it is from the love in which each man is that he sees the things which are of that love, and that which he sees he calls truths, because they are in agreement with that love. There is in each man’s love the light of his life, for love is like a flame from which light issues; such therefore as is the love or flame, such is the man’s light of truth. They who are in the love of good can see that which is of this love, consequently the truths that are in the Word, and this in accordance with the amount and the quality of their love of good; for in this case light or intelligence flows in from heaven, that is, through heaven from the Lord. For this reason it is that as before said no one can see and acknowledge the interiors of the Word unless he is in good as to life.