This verse reinforces points in the first verse: that the divine truth was not created by or created after the divine love which it expresses. The two are one: Love has to express itself as truth to have form; truth has to express love to have substance. Love without truth is not really love at all; it’s just a feeling and a potential. Truth without love is not really truth; it’s just a concept with no goal, no use, no purpose.

"God" here represents the Lord’s desire for good; this verse then reinforces that perfect truth and perfect good were together from the beginning.

It’s also worth noting that along with the ultimate "beginning," there are also "beginnings" for each of us, marking the moments when we choose to turn away from evil and open ourselves to the Lord. This verse, then, reassures us that when we make such a beginning, the Lord’s love and the Lord’s truth will be there for us. And it also tells us that if we want to make a real beginning, we need to find that truth and cling to it as the best way to receive the Lord’s love.

98. The sole reason why the Christian world has fallen into a faith which has put away from itself all the truths and goods of heaven and the Church, even to the separation of itself from them, is that the leaders of the Church have divided God into three, and have not believed the Lord God, the Saviour, to be one with God the Father, and thus have not approached Him directly; when, nevertheless, He alone as to His Human is Divine Truth itself, which is "the Word," which "was God, with God," and the "true Light which enlightens every man," and which "was made flesh," John 1:1-2, 9, 14. That He is Truth itself, and thus Light itself, is also testified in other places; for He says:

I am the light of the world. John 8:12; 9:5.

And in another place He says,

While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may be sons of light . . . I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness. John 12:36, 46.

In the Revelation we read:

I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. . . and the bright and morning Star. Revelation 22:13, 16.

And in Matthew it is written:

When Jesus was transfigured . . . His face shone as the sun, and His raiment became as the light. Matthew 17:2.

Hence it is clear from what cause this imaginary faith came into the world; manifestly, because men have not approached the Lord. Now, from all my experience, and thence by testimony from heaven, I can declare for certain that it is impossible to derive a single theological truth, which is genuine, from any other source than from the Lord; alone and that to derive such truth from any other source is as impossible as it is to sail from England or Holland to the Pleiades, or to ride on horseback from Germany to Orion in the sky.