2. Specifically, the Word meant here is the same Word that was given through Moses and the Prophets, and the Evangelists, as can be clearly seen from the fact that it embodies the very same Divine truth from which angels acquire all their wisdom, and from which people acquire their spiritual intelligence. For this same Word that people have in the world is also the one that angels have in heaven. Only the one people have in the world is natural, while in heaven it is spiritual.

So, because it embodies Divine truth, it embodies the emanating Divinity as well. And this Divinity not only emanates from the Lord, but also embodies the Lord Himself.

Because it embodies the Lord Himself, therefore He alone is the subject in each and every thing written in the Word. From Isaiah to Malachi not one thing is to be found that does not have to do with the Lord, or in an opposite sense, something opposed to Him.

[2] The reality of this is something no one has yet seen, but it is nevertheless possible for everyone to see it, provided he is aware of it, and when reading gives thought to it, and if he knows moreover that the Word contains not only a natural sense but also a spiritual one, and that the names of persons and places in the natural sense symbolize something connected with the Lord, and so something having to do with heaven and the church received from Him, or something opposed to them.

Since each and every thing in the Word has to do with the Lord, and the Word is the Lord because it embodies Divine truth, it is clear why we are told, “And the Word...became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.” Also why we are told, “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; whoever believes in Me does not abide in darkness.” The light is Divine truth, thus the Word.

As a result, everyone, even at this day, who turns to the Lord alone when he reads the Word, and prays to Him, is enlightened as regards it.

820. 19:11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. This symbolizes the spiritual sense of the Word revealed by the Lord and the deeper meaning of the Word thereby disclosed, which is the coming of the Lord.

Seeing heaven opened symbolizes a revelation by the Lord and a disclosure then, which we will take up below. A horse symbolizes an understanding of the Word, and a white horse a deeper understanding (no. 298). And because this is the symbolic meaning of a white horse, and a deeper understanding of the Word is an understanding of the spiritual sense, therefore that sense is here symbolized by the white horse.

This is the coming of the Lord, because that sense makes it clearly apparent that the Lord embodies the Word, that the Word deals with Him alone, that He is God of heaven and earth, and that the New Church originates from Him alone.

The Lord told His disciples that they would see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with glory and power (Matthew 17:5; 24:30; 26:64; Mark 14:61-62; Revelation 1:7; Acts of the Apostles 1:9, 11). And the Lord said this also when He spoke with His disciples about the culmination of the age, which is the final period of the church when a judgment takes place.

Everyone who does not think beyond the literal sense believes that when the Last Judgment arrives, the Lord will appear in clouds of the sky, accompanied by angels and the blowing of trumpets. But this is not the meaning. Rather it means that the Lord will appear in the Word, as can be seen from the exposition above in nos. 24 and 642, and He appears clearly in the Word's spiritual sense. He appears not only as being an embodiment of the Word, that is, of Divine truth itself, or as being inmostly present in the Word and in everything springing from it, but also as being a single God, having the Trinity in Him, thus as being the only God of heaven and earth. Moreover, it appears also that He came into the world to glorify His humanity, that is, to make it Divine.

[2] The humanity that the Lord glorified, that is, the humanity that He made Divine, was the natural humanity, which He could not glorify or make Divine except by taking on a humanity in a virgin in the natural world, to which He then united His Divinity which He had from eternity. This union was achieved by temptations suffered by the humanity He had taken on, the last of which was His suffering of the cross and at the same time His fulfilling all of the Word, not only by His fulfilling all of the Word in its natural sense, but also by His fulfilling all of the Word in its spiritual sense, and also in its celestial sense, which, as we said before, deals with Him alone.

But on this subject see what we disclosed in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, and in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture.

Now because the Lord embodies the Word, and the Word became flesh (John 1:1-2, 14), and the Word became flesh in order that He might fulfill it, it is apparent that the Lord's appearing on the clouds of heaven means His coming in the Word. That the clouds of heaven symbolize the Word in its literal sense may be seen in nos. 24 and 642 above.

It is apparent that it is the Lord's appearing in the Word that is meant, because the white horse symbolizes a deeper understanding of the Word, and we are told that the name of Him who sat on the horse is "The Word of God," and that His name is "King of kings and Lord of lords" (verses 13, 16).

[3] It is apparent from this now that John's seeing heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, symbolizes the spiritual sense of the Word revealed by the Lord and the deeper meaning of the Word thereby disclosed, which is the coming of the Lord.

That the Word's spiritual sense has at this day been revealed, which no one in the Christian world has previously known anything about, may be see in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), in which we expounded two of the books of Moses - Genesis and Exodus - in accordance with that sense. It may be seen also in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 5-26; in the short treatise, The White Horse, from beginning to end, and from the numbers collected there from Arcana Coelestia regarding the sacred scripture; and furthermore in this exposition of the book of Revelation, in which not even one little verse can be understood apart from its spiritual meaning.