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.

5688. 'Is this your youngest brother, whom you said [something about] to me?' means born after all of them, as they well knew. This is clear from the meaning of 'youngest brother' as the one born after all of them, dealt with in what follows; and from the meaning of 'whom you said to me' as that which was perceived by them. For 'saying' means that which has been perceived, see immediately above in 5687, and so means what is well known. The reason Benjamin is called here, as he in fact was, their 'youngest brother' - that is, the one born after all of them, or the youngest by birth - is that in the spiritual sense the intermediary, which 'Benjamin' represents, is likewise the one that comes last. The intermediary in a person is born last of all; for when a person is undergoing spiritual birth - that is, when he is being born again - his rational, which is his inner man, is regenerated first by the Lord, then the natural after that, the rational being the means by which the Lord regenerates the natural, 3286, 3288, 3321, 3493, 4612. Now since the intermediary must be derived from both these - both from the spiritual rational or rational that has been made new, and from the natural - and since the intermediary cannot be derived from the natural unless this too has been made new, the intermediary is inevitably born at a later stage, and then only insofar as the natural is regenerated.

[2] Everything recorded in the Word regarding the sons of Jacob happened for a providential reason, which was that the Word might be written dealing with them and their descendants. This Word was to contain heavenly realities, and in the highest sense Divine ones, which those sons in actual fact represented. This was no less so in the case of Benjamin who, being the one born last of all, represented the intermediary between the internal and the external, that is, between the celestial of the spiritual which was the Lord's when He was in the world and the natural which was also the Lord's and which He was to make Divine.

[3] Everything recorded about Joseph and his brothers represents in the highest sense the glorification of the Lord's Human, that is, the way in which the Lord made the Human within Himself Divine. The reason this is what is represented in the inmost sense is so that in its inmost sense the Word may be completely holy. A further reason is that every detail recorded may contain within itself what can pass into angelic wisdom; for it is well known that angelic wisdom so surpasses man's wisdom that man can hardly begin to comprehend any of it. The actual happiness of the angels resides in the fact that every detail has to do with the Lord; for they abide in Him. Furthermore the glorification of the Lord's Human is the pattern for a person's regeneration, which is why a person's regeneration is also presented in the internal sense at the same time as the subject of the Lord's glorification is dealt with. A person's regeneration and the countless arcana associated with it also passes into angelic wisdom and brings the angels happiness insofar as they apply those arcana to useful services, which look to a person's reformation.