From Swedenborg's Works

 

Doctrine of the Lord #1

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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.

  
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Published by the General Church of the New Jerusalem, 1100 Cathedral Road, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania 19009, U.S.A. A translation of Doctrina Novae Hierosolymae de Domino, by Emanuel Swedenborg, 1688-1772. Translated from the Original Latin by N. Bruce Rogers. ISBN 9780945003687, Library of Congress Control Number: 2013954074.

The Bible

 

John 1:1-5

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1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 The same was in the beginning with God.

3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

  

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #31

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31. "The Almighty." This symbolically means, who exists, lives, and has power of Himself, and who directs all things from the first of them through the last.

Since all things originate from the Lord, created from their first elements that emanate from Him, and since nothing exists that does not spring from that origin, as we showed many times in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, it follows that He is the Almighty or omnipotent.

Postulate a single entity from which all others spring. Are they not all connected with that single entity, on which they depend one after another, like the links of a chain on the one at the head? Or like the blood vessels throughout the body on the heart? Or like every single constituent of the whole of creation on the sun - thus on the Lord, who is the sun of the spiritual world, from whom springs all the essence, life and power which exist among those who are under that sun? In short, from Him we have our being, live, and move (Acts of the Apostles 17:28). That is Divine omnipotence.

That the Lord directs all things from the first of them through the last is an arcanum not previously revealed, but which has been explained in many places in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord and Regarding the Sacred Scripture, and also in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence 124, and Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom 221.

People know that the Divine, being infinite, does not fall within the scope of anyone's mental conceptions, nor those of any angel, because those conceptions are finite, and a finite person is incapable of perceiving infinity. Nevertheless, in order that it may be perceived in some way, it has pleased the Lord to describe His infinity with these words, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. Consequently these words include everything that an angel or person could ever conceive of, spiritually and naturally, regarding the Divine, concepts which in general are those universally that we have cited above.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.