137. It says in John,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word: all things were made by means of him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of humankind. He was in the world, and the world was made by means of him. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory. (John 1:1, 3-4, 10, 14)

It is clear that the Lord is the one who is meant by "the Word," since it says that the Word was made flesh. Precisely what is meant by "the Word," though, is not yet known and must therefore be stated. The Word in this passage is the divine truth that is in the Lord and from the Lord, ¹ so here it is also called the light, which is divine truth, as has been shown earlier in this chapter. Now we need to explain the statement that all things were made and created by means of divine truth.

[2] In heaven, it is divine truth that possesses all power, and apart from it there is no power whatever. ² All angels are called "powers" because of divine truth, and are powers to the extent that they are recipients or vessels of it. Through it they prevail over the hells and over all who oppose them. A thousand enemies there cannot bear one ray of heavenly light, which is divine truth. Since angels are angels because of their acceptance of divine truth, it follows that all heaven is from this source and no other, since heaven is made up of angels.

[3] People cannot believe that this kind of power is inherent in divine truth if the only concept of truth they have has to do with thought or speech, which have no power in them except to the extent that other people concede it by being obedient. There is an intrinsic power within divine truth, though, power of such nature that by means of it heaven, the world, and everything in them was created.

We can illustrate the fact that this kind of power is inherent in divine truth by two comparisons - by the power of what is true and good in us, and by the power of light and warmth from the sun in our world.

By the power of what is true and good in us: Everything we do, we do out of our discernment and intent. Out of our intent, we act by means of what is good, and out of our discernment by means of what is true. In fact, all the elements of our volition are related to what is good, and all the elements of our discernment are related to what is true. ³ On this basis, then, we set our whole body in motion and a thousand things there rush to do our bidding of their own accord. We can see from this that our whole body is formed for obedience to what is good and true and therefore from what is good and true.

[4] By the power of light and warmth from the sun in our world: Everything that grows in our world - things like trees, shrubs, flowers, grasses, fruits, and seeds - arises only by means of the warmth and light of the sun. So we can see what kind of productive power is inherent in that warmth and light. What about the divine light that is divine truth, then, and the divine warmth that is divine good, the source from which heaven comes into being and consequently the world as well, since as we have shown above, it is through heaven that the world comes into being?

This enables us to determine how to understand the statement that all things were made by means of the Word, and that without him nothing was made that was made, and further that the world was made by means of him, namely that this was accomplished by means of divine truth from the Lord. ⁴

This is also why in the book of creation it first mentions light and then the things that arise from light (Genesis 1:3-4). It is also why everything in all heaven and earth has to do with what is good and true and to their union if it is to be anything at all. ⁵

അടിക്കുറിപ്പുകൾ:

2795. 'And return to you' means conjunction after that. This too becomes clear without explanation. The subject of this chapter being the Lord's severest and inmost temptations, all the states are described which He assumed when undergoing those temptations. The first state is described in verse 3, the second state in the present verse, the third state in the verse that follows next and in all the rest after that. But these states cannot possibly be explained to the ordinary mind unless many other things are known first, not only about the Lord's Divine which is represented here by 'Abraham' but also about His Divine Human which is represented by 'Isaac', and about the state - when He went into and underwent the conflicts brought about by temptations - of this Rational, meant here by 'the boy'. In addition to this one has to know what the first rational was, and the nature of it, as well as the natural that went with that rational, and also the nature of the state when one was joined to the other, and the nature of the state when they were more or less separated. What is more, one needs to know many things regarding temptations, such as what exterior and interior temptations are, and from this what were the inmost and severest temptations that were the Lord's, which are the subject in this chapter. As long as all these matters remain unknown the things within this verse cannot possibly be described intelligibly. And if they were described, even in the clearest possible manner, they would still appear obscure. To angels, since they dwell in the light of heaven flowing from the Lord, all these matters are plain and clear, and indeed blessed because these matters are supremely heavenly.

[2] This alone need be said here, that the Lord could not possibly be tempted when He was one with the Divine itself, for the Divine is infinitely above all temptation. But He could experience temptation as to His human. This is the reason why, when He was to undergo the severest and inmost temptations, He joined the first human to Himself, that is to say, the rational and the natural degrees of it, as described in verse 3, and after that separated Himself from them, as stated in the present verse, though still retaining certain traits through which He could be tempted. It is for this reason that here Isaac is not spoken of as 'my son' but as 'the boy', an expression used to mean the Divine Rational in that particular state, that is to say, in a state of truth, equipped for the severest and inmost conflicts brought about by temptations, see 2793. The truth that neither the Divine itself nor the Divine Human could be tempted may become clear to anyone merely from the fact that not even angels can approach the Divine, still less the spirits who bring temptations about, and least of all the hells. From all this it is evident why the Lord came into the world and took on the human state of being with all its weakness, for by doing so He was able to be tempted as regards the human and by means of temptations to suppress the hells. He was able to restore every single thing to obedience and to order, and to save the human race which had removed itself so far away from the Supreme Divine.