Apocalypse Revealed #200
200. "'The beginning of the workmanship of God.'" This symbolically means the Word.
That the Word is the beginning of the workmanship of God is something not yet known in the church, because it has not understood these words in John:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men... He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, but the world did not know Him... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father... (John 1:1-14)
Someone who understands these words in respect to their inner meaning, and at the same time compares them with what we wrote in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, as well as with some sections in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, can see that the Word which was in the beginning with God, and which was God, means the underlying Divine truth in the Word that previously existed in this world (as reported in no. 11), and that which is present in the Word that we have today. It does not mean the Word viewed in respect to the words and letters of its languages, but viewed in terms of its essence and life which is inmostly present in the meanings of its words and letters. By this life the Word animates the will's affections of the person who reads it reverently, and by the light of this life it enlightens the thoughts of his intellect. Therefore we are told in John, "In the Word was life, and the life was the light of men." (John 1:4) The Word does this because the Word comes from the Lord and has the Lord as its subject and so is the Lord.
All thought, speech, or writing takes its essence and life from the one doing the thinking, speaking, or writing. It has the person in it, along with his character. And the Word has in it the Lord alone.
Still, no one senses or perceives the Divine life in the Word but one who, when reading it, is impelled by a spiritual affection for truth, for through the Word he is conjoined with the Lord. He experiences something inmostly affecting his heart and spirit, which flows with enlightenment into in his intellect and testifies.
[2] The following words in the first chapter of Genesis have a similar symbolic meaning to those in John:
In the beginning God created heaven and earth... And the spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3)
The spirit of God is Divine truth, and also light, the Divine truth being the Word; and therefore in John 1:4, 8-9 the Lord calls Himself the Word, and also the light.
A similar meaning is found in this declaration in the book of Psalms:
By the word of Jehovah the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. (Psalms 33:6)
In short, without the Divine truth of the Word, which in its essence is the Divine goodness of the Lord's Divine love and the Divine truth of His Divine wisdom, no mortal could have life. The Word is the means of the Lord's conjunction with a person, and of the person with the Lord, and through that conjunction comes life. There must be something from the Lord that a person can receive which makes possible that conjunction and so eternal life.
[3] It can be seen from this that "the beginning of the workmanship of God" means the Word, and if you would believe it, the Word such as it is in the sense of its letter, for this sense embraces the inner, holy levels, as we showed many times in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture.
Moreover, wonderful to say, the Word has been so written that it communicates with the whole of heaven, and every particular with some society there, as I have been given to know through personal experience, of which more elsewhere.
That the Word in its essence is such as described is still more apparent from these words of the Lord:
The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63)
Jude 1
1
Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:
2
Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.
3
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
4
For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
5
I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
6
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
7
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
8
Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
9
Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
10
But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
11
Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.
12
These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
13
Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
14
And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
15
To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
16
These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.
17
But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;
18
How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
19
These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
20
But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
21
Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
22
And of some have compassion, making a difference:
23
And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
24
Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
25
To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
