02. In the Beginning was the Word (Jn 1:1-5)

READINGS

John Chapter 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. (Gk. order of words = “God was the Word”) (2) He was in the beginning with God. (3) All things came into being through Him, and without Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. (4) In Him was life, and the life was the light of men; (5) and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

Apocalypse Explained #433 by Emanuel Swedenborg
…the Word signifies the Lord as to Divine truth proceeding from His Divine love. Hence it is that they who love the Divine truth which is in the Word, by doing it, are in the love of the Lord…

Apocalypse Explained #741
When man does good from the Word, that is, because it is commanded by the Lord in the Word, he does not then do it from Himself, but from the Lord, for the Lord is the Word…


SERMON

To understand the message of John’s gospel we need to have a clear understanding of the teaching set forth here in its opening verses. These opening few verses of John set the framework and reference point for understanding everything else in the gospel, and so what we take from here will have a direct bearing on how we perceive the things that are to come. Where Matthew and Luke open with the Lord’s birth into the world as an infant, and Mark begins with the Lord’s public ministry as an adult, John seeks to lift our vision, to behold the true nature of the Lord and so clarify for us the nature of the Divine’s contact with the human race. This he declares in the closing chapters of his gospel where he writes…

Joh 20:30-31 Then truly Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. (31) But these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

and of his own testimony he states…

Joh 21:24-25 This is the disciple witnessing concerning these things, and writing these things. And we know that his witness is true. (25) And there are also many things, whatever Jesus did, which if they were written singly, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books having been written. Amen.

And so we come with this purpose in mind, to behold the Lord, not as a historical figure but as the living Word ever present and working for our salvation. In declaring the Lord to be the Word, we are being directed towards the eternal truth that He is the Divine Truth itself and that genuine truth is not something abstract but constitutes what is truly human in its essence. Truth doesn’t exist outside or apart from the human mind, just as love cannot live apart from a heart able to give it expression.

Truth is the means by which love or goodness comes to be seen. This is why John challenges us to view the Lord as the Word, for in it we behold the Divine Humanity of the Lord, as the Word or Divine Truth, and so we are able to see what love in human form is really like. And having seen it we have the basis for reflecting on the state of our own lives and from the insights we gain through doing this can enter into our spiritual work with the Lord, a work focused on our spiritual growth and development or regeneration.

But the first principle we must have firmly grasped in our minds is this idea that the Lord is the Word, and that the Word is God. The word translated “beginning” here, is the Greek word arche – which can mean a beginning in time and this is how the natural mind takes this word, but from a spiritual perspective it can be more accurately translated as origin or source or the first principle from which all things that exist take their being – thus the Scripture teaches that the origin of the Word is God, and that God is the Word. How are we to understand this? Well when we see that the concept of “Word” is interchangeable with that of Divine Truth then we can read this as saying that the origin of Divine Truth (i.e. the Word) is the Divine Good or Love, which is what we are to understand by the term God here. This is clear for in his epistle John, in 1John 1:4:16, declares that “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.” And so from this we see that when he speaks of God he is speaking of his understanding of God as to His essential nature, love (see also TCR 39). Interestingly the order of the words “Word” and “God” in the Gk. translated “and the Word was God” is actually reversed, it should read, if we are to remain faithful to the text, “and God was the Word.” The difference is subtle but the original word order does suggest an important spiritual truth, for in placing the word God before Word we see that God or love is first, and that the Word or Divine Truth is from love.

We see then that all that is truly substantial as far as human existence is concerned takes its origin from the divine love and is given expression as divine truth or the Word. Why? Because we were designed to receive love into our hearts and truth into our understanding and to give this expression through our bodily actions in useful services to others. This is not only the proper order of life for human beings but is the essence of what we call spiritual life. But our hearts have become so resistant to the loves of heaven due to our self interest, that, as a race, we have lost any attraction to what is good for its own sake. And it is this the Lord seeks to re-establish in our lives. Our natural man is so dominant and so immersed in itself that without truth to teach us what love is we remain slaves to its desires and will only pursue what is good when motivated by self interest. The fact that we struggle to live from a love that has a genuine concern for the spiritual well being of others as its true focus shows how far we are from the ideal. So we can know just by reflecting on our own states and motivations in the light of what the Word teaches that human beings are born natural, and out of the order as far as that life intended by the Lord is concerned. This disorder is the source of all the evils and false perspectives or beliefs that keep us bound to the things of self and the world to maintain our sense of self and so robs us of our spiritual inheritance.

God, therefore, reveals Himself to us as truth and appeals to human reason, or presents love in a form that is reasonable. In simple terms His appeal can be summarise as, resist evil, do good, live by the commandments. He gives us an understanding that evil living brings unhappiness into our lives, whereas a life lived for good produces a meaningful and fulfilled life. These are of course generalisations but as general principles they stand as true. While we may not want to, or feel like doing what is right, we can certainly understand that living a good life is preferable to living an evil life. We can see this, and so we can come to understand what genuine love is, which then enables us to freely choose to act from the truth we see, despite how we feel. In appealing to our understanding faculty by means of truth, the Lord gives us the ability to see what is evil in our motivations and affections, those things contrary to the Divine Life within our natural man, so that in examining our motives we can resist our evils and choose what is higher as the basis for our lives.

This is the only way we can be regenerated and saved, because it’s the only way that our sense of self, which is intimately related to our sense of freedom, can remain active in spiritual matters. To ensure this possibility for our salvation the Lord is with us as the Word. We are under no compulsion whatsoever to come to the Word and learn from it. No one can force us to learn spiritual truths and principles from the teachings that make up the Heavenly Doctrines of Spiritual Christianity. If we want to grow we must be prepared to work, spiritually speaking. We can only work spiritually, when we do so in freedom from our understanding of the Word. Without doing this we risk remaining in our sins. So John tells us that our God is the Word, and if we want to be saved from the destructive evils that make up a self centred life then we need to come to the Word, learn of the Lord there, and live from the truths it offers us.

Ultimately the Word is the source of everything lasting and eternal; in fact it is the only source of what is truly lasting and eternal. This is what is meant by verse 3….

Joh 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and without Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being.

The natural man reads this and thinks materially. It can’t go beyond a gross material understanding of truth. But when we give a more literal translation of the verse we shall see that the material things of the external world are not what are being focussed on here. This is also clear from the wider context of what this chapter is dealing with. For when it speaks of all things coming into being through it, it is speaking, not of the material world and its objects, but of the coming into being or spiritual rebirth of what is truly human within us. Literally this verse reads as follows…

All came into being through it (the Word or Divine Truth) and apart from it not even one came into being that has come into being…

Notice that the word “things” has been removed. This word is added to the original text by the translators. In the Greek it is not “All things came into being…” but “All came into being…” Similarly it is not, “not even one thing came into being that has come into being…” but, “not even one came into being that has come into being…” The very next verse makes it clear that the context has nothing to do with the material creation but is a comment on those principles that govern the spiritual creation or regeneration of the human mind, for it states that,

In it (notice that the personal pronoun is not used because it’s not in the Gk text. It’s been added by the translators which misleads us from what the text is seeking to achieve. This passage is seeking to draw our focus away from the historicals attached to a natural understanding of the gospel onto the spiritual reality of the Word as Divine Truth) so the Gk actually reads…

In it (that is in Divine Truth or the Word) is life (i.e. true life or spiritual life or love), and the life was the light of men, or spiritual loves are what enlighten and bring into view what is truly human.)

What this is saying is that all who have true existence, that is spiritual life, have come into being by means of the Word or Divine Truth; truth that they have freely chosen to live from and make a matter of life. And that no one can come into being, or become spiritual who hasn’t used truth to resist the evils of their selfish attachments in the promotion of spiritual goodness.

Surely we can all see that the light that shines in the darkness is the light of truth that breaks into the intellect of the natural man darkened by its selfish tendencies and lusts…and that when it says that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it…that this refers to the work of Divine Truth or the Word in our minds. When we take truths and live from them in an effort to deal with the things we find within ourselves, that stand opposed to the spiritual life, then the light we receive is such that it can’t be extinguished. We are brought into being for the first time, born anew from above as we awaken to the spiritual life.

In the beginning was the Word…the very first principle of spiritual life. The true beginning or arche for every person is when they see that God is the Divine Truth or the Word – this is the source of all light for our life and so when lived from is in fact, the everlasting life belonging to the spiritual man or what is genuinely human in us all.

Amen

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