When the Bible speaks of "Jehovah," it is representing love itself, the inmost love that is the essence of the Lord. That divine love is one, whole and complete in itself, and Jehovah also is one, a name applied only to the Lord. The divine love expresses itself in the form of wisdom. Love, then, is the essence of God -- His inmost. Wisdom -- the loving understanding of how to put love into action -- is slightly more external, giving love a way to express itself. Wisdom, however, is expressed in a great variety of thoughts and ideas, what the Writings collectively call divine truth. There are also many imaginary gods, and sometimes angels and people can be called gods (the Lord said Moses would be as a god to Aaron). So when the Bible calls the Lord "God," it is in most cases referring to divine truth. In other cases, "God" has reference to what is called the divine human. The case there is this: As human beings, we cannot engage the Lord directly as divine love. It is too powerful and too pure. Instead, we have to approach Him by understanding Him through divine truth. Divine truth, then, is the Lord in human form, a form we can approach and understand. Thus "God" is also used in reference to this human aspect, because it is an expression of truth.

82. Verse 1 And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

These words are used to mean that the individual has now become spiritual to the point of being the sixth day. 'Heaven' is his internal man, and 'earth' his external. 'The host of them' are love, faith, and cognitions of them, which previously were meant by 'the great lights and the stars'. That the internal man is called 'heaven' and the external 'earth' becomes clear from the quotations from the Word given in the previous chapter, to which the following from Isaiah may be added,

I will make man (vir) more rare than fine gold, and man (homo) than the precious gold of Ophir. Therefore I will strike the heavens with terror, and the earth will be shaken out of its place. Isaiah 13:12-13.

And elsewhere in Isaiah,

You will forget Jehovah your Maker, who stretches out the heavens and lays the foundations of the earth. But I will put My words in your mouth and hide you in the shadow of My hand, that I may stretch out heaven and lay the foundation of the earth. Isaiah 51:13, 16.

These quotations show that both heaven and earth have reference to man (homo). They refer, it is true, to the Most Ancient Church, but the more interior contents of the Word are such that whatever statement is made about the Church is a statement about the individual member of the Church. If he were not the Church, he could not be a part of the Church, just as anyone who is not a temple of the Lord cannot be that which is meant by a temple, namely the Church and heaven. This also is why the Most Ancient Church is called Man (a singular noun).