122. In addition to the reasons already noted, the inhabitants and spirits of our world answer in the Grand Man to the natural and external sense. This sense is the ultimate point at which the interiors of life come to an end, and in which they come to rest as on their common base. Divine truth in the letter, which we call the Word, is similar; and it was for this reason that it was given in this world and not in another. ¹ And because the Lord is the Word, and its First and Last, it was so that everything should come into being in proper order that He chose to be born in this world, and to become the Word. This is in agreement with John's words:

In the beginning there 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 His means, and nothing that was made was made without Him. And the Word was made flesh, and lived among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as of the only son of the Father. No one has ever seen God, but the only son, who is in the Father's bosom, He has explained Him. John 1:1-4, 14, 18.

The Word is the Lord in respect of Divine truth, and so Divine truth coming from the Lord. ² But this is a mystery which few can understand.

Fusnotat:

5075. 'After these words' means after the things prior to this. This is clear from the meaning of 'words' in the original language, in which the same expression also means things. This therefore is why 'after these words' here means after these things, and so after those that happened prior to this. The reason words ¹ in the original language also means things is that in the internal sense 'words' means the truths of doctrine, on account of which all Divine Truth in general is called the Word; and in the highest sense the Lord Himself, the source of all Divine Truth, is the Word, 1288. A further reason is that no thing which comes into being anywhere in the world has any existence, that is, any reality, unless it has been created by Divine Good acting through Divine Truth. It explains why in Hebrew the same expression is used for things as for words. The truth that no thing anywhere in the world has any existence, that is, any reality, unless it has been created by Divine Good acting through Divine Truth, that is, through the Word, is evident in John,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. John 1:1, 3.

[2] The interior meanings that words possess have their origin for the most part in the interior man, which dwells with spirits and angels. For as to his spirit, that is, as to his true self which lives after the death of his body, everyone lives in communion with angels and spirits, though the external man is not conscious of this. Living in communion with them he is also among those who use a universal language and so use that which is the origin of verbal expressions. It is for this reason that words have many spiritual meanings attached to them which to outward appearance seem to be out of keeping with them; but inwardly they are in keeping, as with the meaning of 'words' here as things. The same is true of very many other expressions, as when for instance a person's understanding is called his inner sight and is said to possess light, or as when his apprehension of and obedience to something is called hearing and listening, or as when his detection of something is called smelling, and so on.