The beginning of John 1 illustrated how divine truth – which is the ultimate expression of the Lord’s love – is the actual creative force of the universe and of reality itself. That idea is reinforced here: "him" refers to Jesus, who was the physical embodiment of divine truth, which indeed made the world.

This verse offers another level, though. "World" represents the church, which is defined in the Writings as "where the Lord is known and where the Word is." By that definition a "church" can be as small as one person, or as large as billions of people worshiping through a wide variety of denominations. And the Writings tell us that the Lord has made sure that such a church always existed, from prehistoric times when the Lord offered "the Word" – His truth – to people directly up through today, when we have the Word in the form of the Bible.

But the world did not know him. At the time the Lord came among us as Jesus, people had turned away from the deeper meanings of the Word (which they then had in the form of the Old Testament), and had little to no concern for knowing the Lord. His church – the church among the Children of Israel – had turned away.

This might seem like a merely historic idea, something that happened then but has little to do with us now. But each one of us is a "church," and each one of us can know the Lord and the Word, or turn away. We all go through states when we are like the church at the time the Lord was born, and He can rebuild us now even as He rebuilt the church then. For that to happen, though, we need to turn to the Word – the Bible – and know the Lord.

(Notae: Apocalypse Explained 1093; Canons of the New Church 9; The Apocalypse Explained 294 [16])

4226. Spirits recently arrived there who have been inwardly evil during their life in the world but who outwardly have tried to acquire an appearance of good by means of works which they had done to others for selfish and worldly reasons, have sometimes complained about not being allowed into heaven. For they had no other concept of heaven than of being allowed in 'by grace'. They have been told in reply sometimes that heaven is not denied to anyone and if they so desire they will be let in. Some of them have indeed been let into the heavenly communities situated nearest the entrance; but having entered those spirits realized that their breathing had stopped, in the way described above, and that they were seized with a hell-like pain and torment, all of which was due to the contrary and antagonistic nature of their life. So they reeled back from there, saying finally that to them heaven was hell, and that they would never have believed that heaven was what they now saw it to be like.