1. Teachings for the New Jerusalem on the Lord

The Entire Sacred Scripture Is about the Lord, and the Lord Is the Word

WE read in John,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and nothing that was made came about without him. In him there was life, and that life was the light for humankind. And the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness did not grasp it. And the Word became flesh and lived among us; and we saw his glory, glory like that of the only-begotten child of the Father. He was full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-3, 5, 14)

In the same Gospel,

Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)

And elsewhere in the same Gospel,

While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of the light. I have come into the world as a light so that anyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness. (John 12:36, 46)

We can see from this that the Lord is God from eternity and that he himself is that Lord who was born into the world. It actually says that the Word was with God and that the Word was God, as well as that nothing that was made came about without him, and then that the Word became flesh and that they saw him.

There is little understanding in the church of what it means to call the Lord “the Word.” He is called the Word because the Word means divine truth or divine wisdom and the Lord is divine truth itself or divine wisdom itself. That is why he is also called the light that is said to have come into the world.

Since divine wisdom and divine love are one with each other and have been one in the Lord from eternity, it also says “in him there was life, and that life was the light for humankind.” The life is divine love, and the light is divine wisdom.

This oneness is what is meant by saying both that “in the beginning the Word was with God” and that “the Word was God.” “With God” is in God, since wisdom is in love and love is in wisdom. This is like the statement elsewhere in John, “Glorify me, Father, together with yourself, with the glory I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). “With yourself” is “in yourself.” This is why it adds “and the Word was God.” It says elsewhere that the Lord is in the Father and the Father is in him [John 14:10], and that the Father and he are one [John 10:30].

Since the Word is the divine wisdom of the divine love, it follows that it is Jehovah himself and therefore the Lord, the one by whom all things were made that were made, since everything was created out of divine love by means of divine wisdom.

4502. 'And they took Dinah from Shechem's house, and went away' means that they took away the affection for truth. This is clear from the representation of 'Dinah' as the affection for truth, dealt with above in 4498. The meaning according to the internal proximate sense is that they took away the affection for truth from those who were part of the remnants of the Most Ancient Church, for the phrase 'from Shechem's house' is used and by 'Shechem's house' is meant the good of truth of that Church. But as the subject here is the utter destruction of truth and good among those descended from Jacob, who are meant here by Jacob's sons, and as every detail mentioned has a specific application to the particular subject that is under discussion, 'Shechem's house' therefore means here simply the good of truth, like that which had existed with the member of the Most Ancient Church. Thus the meaning is that this good was wiped out among the nation descended from Jacob. For in the internal sense of the Word every expression or name means some aspect of the subject to which it belongs. At the same time the extinction of good and truth among Hamor and Shechem and his family is meant, because they accepted external usages, as shown in 4493.

[2] The truth of what has been explained so far regarding Simeon and Levi becomes clear from the prophetical utterances of Jacob before he died, where the following occurs,

Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments of violence are their swords. Into their secret place let my soul not come; in their congregation let not my glory be united; for in their anger they killed a man, in their pleasure they hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their fury, for it is severe. I will divide them in Jacob, and will scatter them in Israel. Genesis 49:5-7.

'Simeon and Levi' means the truth of faith which among the descendants of Jacob was turned into falsity, and the good of charity into evil, as above in 4499, 4500. They are called 'brothers' because good is the brother of truth, or charity is the brother of faith, 4498. 'Instruments of violence are their swords' means that falsities and evils did violence to truths and goods, 4499. 'Into their secret place let my soul not come, in their congregation let not my glory be united' means severance as regards life and doctrine, for in the Word 'soul' is used to refer to life, 1000, 1040, 1742, 3299, and 'glory' to doctrine. 'For in their anger they killed a man, in their pleasure they hamstrung an ox' means that with evil intent they annihilated the truth of the Church and the good of the Church, 'a man' meaning the truth of the Church, 3134, and 'an ox' its good, 2180, 2566, 2781. 'Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their fury, for it is severe' means the punishment incurred for turning away from truth and good - 'cursing' meaning turning oneself away and also being punished on that account, 245, 379, 1423, 3530, 3584, while anger means the departure from good, and 'fury' the departure from truth, 357, 3614. 'I will divide them in Jacob, and will scatter them in Israel' means that goods and truths will exist no longer within either the external or the internal aspect of their Church - 'dividing' and 'scattering' meaning separating and completely removing from them, 4424, 'Jacob' being the external aspect of the Church and 'Israel' the internal, 4286.

[3] These things are said about Simeon and Levi in this prophetical utterance because those two mean in general the truth and good of the Church, and when these cease to exist, and more so when falsities and evils take their place, the Church has been wiped out. Nothing other than this is contained in these prophetical words, as may be seen from the fact that neither the tribe of Simeon nor the tribe of Levi was cursed more than any other tribe. For the tribe of Levi was selected for the priesthood, and the tribe of Simeon existed as one of the rest of the tribes of Israel.