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.

201. The Lord's spiritual crises. Beyond all others, the Lord suffered the fiercest, most severe spiritual crises; they are barely touched on in the literal sense of the Word but are described extensively in its inner meaning: 1663, 1668, 1787, 2776, 2786, 2795, 2816, 9528. The Lord fought out of his divine love for the whole human race: 1690, 1691, 1812, 1813, 1820. The Lord's love was a love for the salvation of the human race: 1820. The Lord fought from his own power: 1692, 1813, 9937. Through spiritual crises and victories from his own power, the Lord alone became righteousness and merit: 1813, 2025, 2026, 2027, 9715, 9809, 10178. Through crises of the spirit, the Lord united his divine nature, which was within him from conception, to his human nature, and made this latter divine, just as he makes us spiritual through our crises of the spirit: 1725, 1729, 1733, 1737, 3318, 3381, 3382, 4286. The Lord's spiritual crises included despair at the end: 1787. Through the spiritual crises he allowed himself to undergo, the Lord gained control over the hells and brought everything there and in the heavens into proper order; and at the same time he glorified his human nature: 1737, 4287, 9528, 9715, 9937. The Lord alone fought against all the hells: 8273. This is why he allowed himself to undergo spiritual crises: 2816, 4295.

The Lord's divine nature could not have undergone spiritual crises, because the hells cannot attack anything divine. That is why the Lord took on a human nature from his mother, a nature that can undergo spiritual crises: 1414, 1444, 1573, 5041, 5157, 7193, 9315. Through his spiritual crises and victories he drove out everything he had inherited from his mother and divested himself of the human nature he had received from her, even to the point that he was no longer her son: 2159, 2574, 2649, 3036, 10830. Jehovah, ¹ who was in him from conception, nevertheless seemed to be absent during his spiritual crises: 1815. This was his state of being humbled: ² 1785, 1999, 2159, 6866. His last spiritual crisis and final victory was in Gethsemane and on the cross, through which he completely overcame the hells and made his human nature divine: 2776, 2813, 2814, 10655, 10659, 10828.

Not eating bread and not drinking water for forty days [Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 9:9] means an entire state of spiritual crisis: 10686. Forty years, forty months, or forty days means a full state of spiritual crisis from beginning to end, and this state is meant by the forty-day duration of the Flood [Genesis 7:4, 17], by Moses' sojourn on Mount Sinai for forty days [Exodus 24:18; 34:28], by the Israelites' sojourn in the wilderness for forty years, ³ and by the forty-day-long crisis the Lord experienced in the wilderness [Matthew 4:2; Mark 1:13; Luke 4:2]: 730, 862, 2272, 2273, 8098.

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