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Doctrine of the Lord #2

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Yiya esigabeni / 65  
  

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.

  
Yiya esigabeni / 65  
  

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.

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John 1:5

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

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Apocalypse Explained #43

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Yiya esigabeni / 1232  
  

43. The Almighty. That this signifies from Himself, is evident from the fact that no one has any power in the heavens but the Lord alone; therefore the angels are powerful, or have as much power as they have receptivity of power from the Lord, and their receptivity is according to the degree in which they are in Divine good united with Divine truth; for this is the Lord in heaven. It is therefore evident that the Lord alone is powerful, and no one in heaven is ever powerful but from the Lord; the reason being that the Divine of the Lord is the All in all in heaven; for this makes heaven in general, and with each one in particular. By Him also were all things created which were created, thus heaven and earth, as He Himself also teaches in John:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (1:1, 2, 3, 14).

By the Word is meant the Divine truth in the heavens, from which all things there exist. That the same is the Lord as to the Divine Human is evident, because it is said, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." And because all the life of the angels is also from Him, and all light in the heavens, it is said, "In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (All these things may be seen more fully illustrated in the work, Heaven and Hell, viz., that the Divine of the Lord makes heaven, n. 7-12. That this is His Divine Human, n. 78-86. That all the life of angels is therefrom, n. 9; and also all the light of heaven, n. 126-140. That all the power the angels have is from the Lord, and none at all from themselves, n. 228-233.) From these considerations it is evident that "Almighty" denotes to be, to live, and to have power from Himself. That the Divine Human of the Lord is, lives, and has power from Itself, equally as His Divine in Himself, which is called the Father, the Lord also teaches:

"As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself" (John 5:26)

and that no other has life in himself, is plain from the words of Jesus,

"Without me ye can do nothing" (John 15:5).

  
Yiya esigabeni / 1232  
  

Translation by Isaiah Tansley. Many thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.