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.

8940. And if thou make Me an altar of stones. That this signifies a representative of worship in general from truths, is evident from the signification of “an altar,” as being a representative of Divine worship in general (see n. 921, 2777, 2811, 4489); and from the signification of “stones,” as being truths (n. 643, 1298, 3720, 3769, 3771, 3773, 3789, 3798, 6426, 8609). There is worship of the Lord from good, and there is worship of Him from truth. The worship of the Lord from good was represented by an altar of ground, and the worship from truth by an altar of stone (as to both kinds of worship, see above, n. 8935). As an “altar of stone” signified worship from truth, it was therefore commanded that such an altar should be erected as soon as they passed over the Jordan and came into the land of Canaan, and upon it were to be written the commandments of the law, that is, truths Divine from heaven; for by the “ten commandments” are signified all truths Divine in sum total. Concerning this altar it is thus written in Moses:

When ye shall pass over Jordan, thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaster them with plaster; and then thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law. After, thou shalt build there an altar unto Jehovah thy God, an altar of stones, upon which thou shalt not strike iron. Thou shalt build the altar of Jehovah thy God of whole stones, and thou shalt cause to go up upon it burnt-offerings, and thank-offerings. And thou shalt write upon the stones of the altar the words of the law very plainly (Deuteronomy 27:1-8; Josh. 8:30-32).

[2] The reason why the words of the law were to be written upon the stones of the altar, was that by “stones” were signified truths, and by “an altar of stones,” worship from truths. This also was the reason why the ten commandments, which signified Divine truths in the complex, were written on tables of stone. That this was to be done as soon as they had passed over the Jordan, was because the Jordan, which was the first and the last boundary of the land of Canaan on the side of the wilderness, signified introduction into the church or heaven, which is effected by means of the knowledges of truth and good, thus by means of truths from the Word (n. 4255); for all the rivers which were boundaries of that land signified the first and the last things of the Lord’s kingdom (n. 4116, 4240). By the “stones of the altar” are signified the truths of faith also in Isaiah:

He shall take away sin when He maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are scattered (Isaiah 27:9);

speaking of the vastation of the church; “the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are scattered” denotes that so it shall be with the truths of faith which are of worship. As regards altars in general, they were of ground, of stones, of brass, of wood, and also of gold-of brass, wood, and gold, because these signified good. (Concerning an altar of brass, see Ezekiel 9:2; concerning an altar of wood, 41:22; and concerning an altar of gold, which was the altar of incense, see 1 Kings 6:22; 7:48; Revelation 8:3.) (That “brass” signifies good, see n. 425, 1551; that “wood” does so, n. 643, 2784, 2812, 3720, 8354; and likewise “gold,” see n. 113, 1551, 1552, 5658)