78. To continue, the Lord is present with us and united to us through the Word because the Lord is the Word and is virtually talking with us in it. There is also the fact that the Lord is divine truth itself, and that is what the Word is.

We can see from this that the extent to which we understand the Word determines the extent to which the Lord is present with us and at the same time united to us. This is because our understanding of the Word determines the truth we possess, as well as the faith that arises from that truth. Similarly, our understanding of the Word determines the love we have, as well as the way in which we live, which arises from that love. The Lord is present with us when we read the Word; but he is united to us only when we understand what is true from the Word and only in proportion to that understanding; and to the extent that the Lord is united to us the church is within us.

And the church is indeed something within us. The church that is outside us is the church of the many who have the church within them. This is the meaning of what the Lord said to the Pharisees when they asked him when the kingdom of God was coming-“The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Here the kingdom of God means the Lord, and the church from him.

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.

37. The Lord Is God Himself, the Origin of and Subject of the Word

In the first section we began to demonstrate that the Holy Scripture throughout has the Lord as its subject, and that the Lord embodies the Word. Here we will demonstrate it further from passages in the Word in which the Lord is called Jehovah, the God of Israel and of Jacob, the Holy One of Israel, the Lord and God, as well as King, the Anointed of Jehovah, and David.

I may relate to begin with that I have been granted to go through the Prophets and the Psalms of David and to examine each verse and see what the subject is there, and I saw that the subjects were nothing else than the church established by the Lord and the church to be established, the Lord’s advent, His battles, His glorification, redemption and salvation, and the heaven established by Him and to be established, and at the same time their opposites.

Because these are all works of the Lord, it was apparent that the Holy Scripture throughout has the Lord as its subject, and that the Lord therefore embodies the Word.

[2] However, this can only be seen by people who are enlightened by the Lord and who are acquainted as well with the spiritual sense of the Word. Angels in heaven all possess this sense. Consequently, when a person reads the Word, that is the only meaning the angels comprehend. For a person has spirits and angels with him continually, and because they are spiritual, they understand spiritually everything that the person understands naturally.

That the Holy Scripture throughout has the Lord as its subject can be seen dimly, and as though through a screen, from the passages presented from the Word in the first section above, nos. 1-6, and from those we will present now regarding the Lord, showing how often He is called the Lord and God. This may make clear that it is the Lord who spoke through the prophets, in whose books we find everywhere the declarations, “Jehovah spoke, ” “Jehovah said, ” and “the saying of Jehovah.”

[3] That the Lord existed prior to His advent into the world is apparent from the following:

(John the Baptist said of the Lord:) “It is He who, coming after me, is before me, whose shoelace I am not worthy to loosen.... This is He of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who was before me, and who was of prior standing to me.’ ” (John 1:27, 30)

In the book of Revelation:

...they...fell (before the throne on which the Lord sat), saying: “We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, who are and who were and who are to come....” (Revelation 11:16-17)

And in Micah:

You, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, out of you shall come forth to Me One to be Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from the days of eternity. (Micah 5:2)

It is apparent in addition from the Lord’s words in the Gospels that He was before Abraham, that He had glory with the Father before the foundation of the world, that He came forth from the Father, and that the Word was from the beginning with God, that God was the Word, and that this became flesh.

That the Lord is called Jehovah, the God of Israel and of Jacob, the Holy One of Israel, God and the Lord, as well as King, the Anointed of Jehovah, and David, can be seen from what follows next.