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.

1053. And the bow shall be in the cloud. That this signifies man’s state, is evident from what has been said and shown above concerning the bow in the cloud, namely, that a man or a soul in the other life is known among angels from his sphere, and that this sphere, whenever it pleases the Lord, is represented by colors, like those of the rainbow, in variety according to the state of each person relatively to faith in the Lord, thus relatively to the goods and truths of faith. In the other life colors are presented to view which from their brightness and resplendence immeasurably surpass the beauty of the colors seen on earth; and each color represents something celestial and spiritual. These colors are from the light of heaven, and from the variegation of spiritual light, as said above. For angels live in light so great that the light of the world is nothing in comparison. The light of heaven in which angels live, in comparison with the light of the world, is as the noonday light of the sun in comparison with candlelight, which is extinguished and becomes a nullity on the rising of the sun. In heaven there are both celestial light and spiritual light. Celestial light—to speak comparatively—is like the light of the sun, and spiritual light is like the light of the moon, but with every difference according to the state of the angel who receives the light. It is the same with the colors, because they are from the light. The Lord Himself is to the heaven of the celestial angels a Sun, and to the heaven of the spiritual angels, a Moon. These things will not be credited by those who have no conception of the life which souls live after death, and yet they are most true.