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.

87. The difference between good without truth and truth coming from good can be clearly seen in the case of man. All his good is located in the will, and all his truth in the understanding; and the will cannot act to the slightest extent as a result of its good, except through the understanding. It cannot act, speak or feel. All its ability and power come through the understanding, consequently through truth, for the understanding is the container and dwelling-place of truth. It is like the way the heart and lungs work in the body. The heart unless accompanied by the breathing of the lungs cannot produce any movement or any sensation, but both of these are the product of the breathing of the lungs proceeding from the heart. This is evident in the loss of consciousness in cases of suffocation or drowning, when the breathing stops, though the systolic action of the heart continues. It is well known that in these cases there is neither movement nor sensation. It is the same with an embryo in the mother's womb. The reason is that the heart corresponds to the will and the various kinds of good it contains, the lungs to the understanding and the various kinds of truth it contains.

[2] The power of truth is very clearly to be seen in the spiritual world. An angel who possesses Divine truths from the Lord, even if physically as weak as a child, can still put to rout a crowd of spirits from hell, though they look like the Anakim and Nephilim, that is, like giants, and pursue them down to hell and force them into its caverns; and when they emerge from these they do not dare to approach the angel. Those who possess Divine truths from the Lord behave in that world like lions, though they have no more strength in their bodies than sheep. Likewise, human beings who possess Divine truths from the Lord have power against evils and falsities, and so they have against serried ranks of devils, who regarded as they are in essence are simply evils and falsities. The reason there is such strength in the Divine Truth is that God is Good itself and Truth itself, and He created the universe by means of the Divine Truth; and all the laws of order by which He preserves the universe are instances of truth. This is why it is said in John that 'all things were made through the Word, and without Him was nothing made that was made' (John 1:3, 10); and in the Psalms of David:

Through the Word of Jehovah the heavens were made, and through the breath of His mouth the whole company of the heavens, Psalms 33:6.