1. The Holy Scripture Throughout Has the Lord As Its Subject, and the Lord Embodies the Word

We read in John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of people. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.... And the Word moreover became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as though of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-5, 14)

Again in the same Gospel:

...the light came into the world, but people loved darkness more than light, for their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)

And elsewhere in it:

While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may be children of light.... I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. (John 12:36, 46)

It is apparent from this that the Lord is, from eternity, God, and that God Himself is the Lord who was born in the world. For we are told that the Word was with God, and that the Word was God. Also that without Him nothing was made that was made. And later we are told that the Word became flesh, and people beheld Him.

[2] Why the Lord is called the Word is little understood in the church. However, He is called the Word because the term “Word” symbolizes Divine truth itself or Divine wisdom itself, and the Lord embodies Divine truth itself or Divine wisdom itself. That, too, is why He is called the light, which is also said to have come into the world.

Because Divine wisdom and Divine love are united, and were united in the Lord from eternity, therefore we are told as well that “In Him was life, and the life was the light of people.” Life means Divine love, and light Divine wisdom.

This is the union meant by the statement that the Word was in the beginning with God and that God was the Word. With God means in God, for wisdom is present in love, and love in wisdom.

So, too, we find elsewhere in John:

...Father, glorify Me with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. (John 17:5)

“With Yourself” means in Yourself. That, too, is why we are told, “And God was the Word.” And elsewhere that the Lord is in the Father, and the Father in Him, and that He and the Father are one.

Now because the Word is the Divine wisdom accompanying Divine love, it follows that it is Jehovah Himself, thus the Lord, by whom all things were made that were made, inasmuch as they were all created out of Divine love by means of Divine wisdom.

172. I explained in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture that the Lord is the Word and that all the teaching of the church should be based on the Word. Since the Lord is the Word, then, it follows that when we are being taught by the Word we are being taught by the Lord alone. However, since this is hard to grasp, I need to make it clear in the following sequence. (a) The Lord is the Word because it comes from him and is about him. (b) [The Lord is the Word] also because it is divine truth coming from divine good. (c) Being taught from the Word is therefore being taught from him. (d) It does not reduce the immediacy that this happens indirectly, through sermons.

[2] (a) The Lord is the Word because it comes from him and is about him. No one in the church denies that the Word comes from the Lord, but even though no one denies that the Word is about no one but the Lord, no one really knows this. I have, however, explained it in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem respecting the Lord 1-7, 37-44; and Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 62-69, 80-90, 98-100. Since the Word comes from the Lord alone and is about the Lord alone, it follows that when we are being taught from the Word we are being taught from the Lord. The Word is actually divine. Who is able to communicate something divine and instill it into our hearts except Divinity itself, the source and the subject? This is why when the Lord talks with his disciples about their union with him he talks about their abiding in him and his words abiding in them (John 15:7), about his words being spirit and life (John 6:63), and about making his dwelling with people who keep his words (John 14:20-24). This means that thinking from the Lord is thinking from the Word, to all appearances thinking by means of the Word.

I have explained throughout Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture, from beginning to end, that everything in the Word is in touch with heaven; and since the Lord is heaven, this means that everything in the Word is in touch with the Lord himself. Heaven's angels do have access to heaven, but this too is from the Lord.

[3] (b) The Lord is the Word also because it is divine truth coming from divine good. The Lord teaches that he is the Word in John by saying, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14). Because until now this has been understood only as saying that the Lord teaches us through the Word, it has been taken as hyperbole with the implication that the Lord is not really the Word. This is because people have not realized that "the Word" means what is divine and true coming from what is divine and good, or in other words, divine wisdom from divine love. I explained that these are the Lord himself in part 1 of Divine Love and Wisdom, and explained that they are the Word in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 1-86 [Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 1-26].

[4] Now I need to explain briefly how the Lord is what is divine and true from what is divine and good. We are not human because of our faces and bodies but because of the goodness of our love and the truths of our wisdom; and since this is what makes us human, we are also whatever is true and good about us, our own love and our own wisdom. Apart from these, we are not human. The Lord, though, is what is essentially true and essentially good, or love itself and wisdom itself; and these are the Word that was in the beginning with God, that was God, and that was made flesh.

[5] (c) Being taught from the Word is therefore being taught by the Lord himself because it is being taught from what is essentially good and essentially true, or from the love itself and wisdom itself that are the Word, as just stated. Still, we all learn within the limits of the comprehension of our love. Anything beyond that is transient.

People who are taught by the Lord in the Word learn a few truths in this world, but they learn a great many when they become angels. The deeper levels of the Word, the divine spiritual and divine heavenly contents, are being instilled at the same time. However, these are not opened up until after our death, in heaven, where we come into an angelic wisdom that in comparison to our earlier human wisdom is simply indescribable. You may see in Teachings for the New Jerusalem on Sacred Scripture 5-26 that the divine spiritual and divine heavenly contents that constitute the wisdom of angels are present throughout the Word, in its every detail.

[6] (d) It does not reduce the immediacy that this happens indirectly, through sermons. The only way the Word can be taught is indirectly, through our parents, teachers, preachers, and books, and especially by our reading it. Still, these are not our teachers: the Lord is, using them as means. This is derived from what preachers know, too. They say that they are not talking from their own resources but from the spirit of God and that everything true, like everything good, comes from God. They can talk and can convey things to the minds of many, but not to anyone's heart; and anything that does not enter the heart dies in the mind. "The heart" means our love.

We can see from this that we are led and taught by the Lord alone and that this happens directly from him when it happens from the Word. This is a most treasured secret of angelic wisdom.