01. Introduction to John’s Gospel

READINGS

John Chapter 1:1-18
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (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. (6) There was a man sent from God; his name was John. (7) He came for a witness, that he might witness concerning the Light, that all might believe through Him. (8) He was not that Light, but that he might witness concerning the Light. (9) He was the true Light; He enlightens every man coming into the world. (10) He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, yet the world did not know Him. (11) He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. (12) But as many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become children of God, to the ones believing into His name, (13) who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were born of God. (14) And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. And we beheld His glory, glory as of an only begotten from the Father, full of grace and of truth. (15) John witnesses concerning Him, and has cried out, saying, This One was He of whom I said, He coming after me has been before me, for He was preceding me. (16) And out of His fullness we all received, and grace on top of grace. (17) For the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (18) No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, that One declares Him.

De Verbo #2 by Emanuel Swedenborg
When a person reads the Word and considers it holy, then its natural meaning becomes spiritual in the second heaven and celestial in the third. In this way its natural quality is progressively removed. This takes place because natural, spiritual and celestial things correspond to each other, and the Word was written solely in terms of things that correspond. The natural meaning of the Word is the sort found in the meaning of the letter, and everything of this becomes spiritual and then celestial in the heavens. When it becomes spiritual, it is then alive in that heaven from the light of truth there; and when it becomes celestial, it is alive from the flame of good there. The reason is that spiritual ideas among angels of the second heaven draw their life from the light in that heaven, which in its essence is Divine truth, while celestial ideas among angels of the third heaven draw their life from the flame of good, which in its essence is Divine good. For in the second heaven the light is bright white, and the angels there think from this; and in the third heaven the light is flaming, and the angels there think from that. The thoughts of angels are altogether different from the thoughts of people. Angels think by means of the kinds of light they have, bright white or flaming, and these are such that they cannot be described in natural terms.

It is apparent from this that the Word is inwardly full of life, consequently that it is not dead but alive in a person who reads it and thinks of it in a reverent way. Moreover, everything in the Word is made alive by the Lord, for with the Lord it becomes life, as the Lord also says in John:

The words that I speak to you are spirit, and are life. (John 6:63)

The life that flows in from the Lord through the Word is the light of truth that flows into the intellect and the love of good that flows into the will. This love and that light together make the life of heaven in a person, which is called eternal life. The Lord also teaches:

… the Word was God…. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1, 4)


SERMON

Today we begin a series in which we will look at what the Gospel of John teaches concerning the Lord and His movement in our life. The perspective Spiritual Christianity takes is that the Word is Divine revelation that unveils the operation of the Lord as Divine Love and Wisdom within the human mind. John’s gospel is well suited to this as its style lends itself to taking our thought beyond the historical framework of the gospel story, to draw us beyond the letter to an understanding of the living, dynamic, operation of the Word as the divine power that recreates our life into the image and form of heaven. If we open our hearts to what the Lord has to say to us from His Word then our journey through this gospel will be a journey of transformation as we come to see reflected in its text our relationship to the Lord as the Word and find there what it is we must do if we are to grow and progress in the things of the spirit and be delivered from the hell that is our selfishness.

The Gospel, as with every other book of the Word, is to be regarded as a spiritual rather than a historical text. This means its focus is on inner or spiritual things. These are those things to do with out mental life and it is through the gospel’s application to our inner mental life that will see us provided with spiritual benefits. So if we choose to engage with the text then we need to be open to being challenged by it as to our very life. The approach we will take is not overly concerned with the historical aspects or accuracy of the text, other than the ability of history to clothe and convey spiritual truths to our understanding and life. We believe that the Word was written through the agency of human beings, under Divine inspiration. So the things taken from history by those called to write the Word were collected and put together under the Lord’s Divine Providence working through these human agents in order that to present to the human race an understanding of spiritual truths for their ongoing spiritual growth and development. To this end were the particular events of a historical nature selected and recorded so that they could be used as a means of clothing and conveying deeper spiritual realities accommodated to finite human comprehension.

The historical accuracy, including the chronology, of the events themselves from the perspective of Spiritual Christianity are not held to be sacrosanct. In other words whether the events are recorded accurately or not it doesn’t have a bearing on the truth they seek to convey. This is clearly evident in the discrepencies found between the various Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. The Gospel of John orders events very differently to those found in the other Gospels. Many theories are given as to why this might be so, but they are usually natural theories that look to give a natural explanation for these differences. Most are unsatisfactory from a spiritual perspective. From our perspective these differences don’t present any difficulty at all, they are differences inspired by the Lord in His infinite wisdom for the purpose of the salvation of the human race.

So when we hold to a spiritual perspective we can see that there is a world of difference between what constitutes historical fact, and what constitutes spiritual truth. We see that the historical accuracy of the recorded events as secondary to the presentation of spiritual truths to our comprehension. It’s simply seeing things in their proper order. As far as the gospel events are concerned, from a spiritual perspective, history has been interpreted to serve eternal spiritual ends. This is why, not just John’s Gospel, but all the Gospels contain differences in the order and details of the events they record – for each has a Divine design laid down to create within our mind a foundation of natural truths for a new mental structure so that our sense of self might be transferred from its attachment to lower self orientated loves, the loves of self and the world and firmly grounded in the loves of heaven, love to the Lord and love towards our neighbour. When this happens then historical natural truths will have served their use as a foundation upon which we can enter into a genuine spiritual life.

A useful way of thinking about the historical aspects concerning the Lord’s life in the world is to draw a parallel with the written text of the Word. What we have before us in its most basic material form are impressions of ink on paper. All of the letters and words are symbols that have meaning for those who can understand them. But this meaning isn’t in the ink and paper. If I was to give my collection of ink and paper to someone who couldn’t speak or read a word of English it would have no meaning whatsoever. It simply appears as nothing more than ink markings on paper. Such a person may draw from the knowledge and experience they have of their own language in its written form and conclude that while these particular symbols mean nothing to them, they could well mean something to someone else who can read English and so draw some form of coherent meaning out of the marks that symbolically represent the English language on the page.

The point is that the meaning is not in the ink and paper itself – it’s in the understanding of the symbols that a person is able to bring to the symbols. That meaning is in their understanding, so the meaning belongs to their thought processes and so is tied to what is an internal mental phenomenon. The meaning of the words is not in the ink symbols on paper you see before you. It is within you, in your understanding of the Word; it’s in your understanding of spiritual things, which is your doctrine. We’ll come back to this a little later but for now let’s look at the parallel we find in creation and the events of history.

Creation is often regarded in spiritual thought as a book that reveals the mind of its creator. So where creation can be likened to the paper of a book, historical events can be likened to the ink symbols written onto it. In and of themselves these events have no meaning; they are simply dead historical facts, meaningless symbols on the pages of human history. Symbols that only begin to have meaning when they are taken up, thought about, put together and given meaning in the minds of people who are “reading” them. A historical event is a stamp on the page of creation. It happened, but its impact or effect on peoples lives is different for different people and depends on the meaning or understanding they bring to it. For example the events of colonisation are viewed very differently and carry very different meanings for the different groups of peoples involved. The same events are framed very differently in accordance with differing world views, beliefs and values. Some of the explanations of these events will contradict each other because of these differences, but that doesn’t mean that one account is truer than another, rather each account serves a different end and can only be understood in the light of the purpose it serves.

The meaning is found in the interpretation not in the historical facts themselves, just as the meaning of the gospel account will be found in the understanding we bring to the symbols of letters and words that make up its text. The added dimension Spiritual Christianity offers to understanding the sacred text is the understanding we are able to bring concerning Biblical imagery due to the provision of the Heavenly Doctrines. What we term correspondences. When we read the Bible account of the Lord’s life we are not viewing the actual historical events themselves but a written record of them. That record is written in symbols to which we bring our sense of what it all means for us. This is why it can mean so many different things to so many different people. If I view the Gospel as a human invention, perhaps nothing more than some writer’s interpretation of certain events, then I will interpret the differences I find in one Gospel over another as the result of human fallibility, and I will find all I need there to confirm the rightness of my view. On the other hand if I regard the Gospel as the divinely inspired Word of God then the differences will be seen to be deliberate in their design according to the infinite wisdom of the Lord to achieve spiritual ends in the minds of those who approach the Word with an open heart. Regarded as a merely human invention the gospel story leads me nowhere – it has little value other than historical. Regarded as something spiritual however, its meaning is transformed in my understanding and it becomes something that can impact on my life for good.

The first view is a natural view that doesn’t anything particularly special to the Bible. The second view can be either a natural or a spiritual view. For those who don’t know or reject the idea that the Word contains a deeper symbolic or spiritual meaning it remains a natural view. This view is still locked into the dead letter and its focus is such that it places undue importance on the historical accuracy of the text as its test of being true. This is done to the point where spiritual interpretations appear threatening because those who hold to this natural view of Scripture can’t separate their idea of what constitutes truth from factual accuracy. In other words its is believed that for something to be true it has to be factually accurate.

But this creates difficulties when working with the Bible. We know for a fact that the different gospels give different accounts of the facts surrounding the Lord’s life in the world. A natural view that is positive in its acceptance of the inspired nature of the text when confronted with these difficulties is not really equipped to reconcile them or find solutions. On some points of difference it’s a case of falling back on natural theories that scholars offer up, like the idea that different eyewitness accounts lead to the different accounting for the facts – but the basic message remains the same. Another approach is to simply not deal with the things that can’t be reconciled, and say that these things must be taken “on faith.” Both responses are unsatisfactory for a person who is seeking truth and from that an understanding of spiritual things. There is a more satisfying approach and it lies in holding a positive view of the text as something spiritually living.

When we see the text in this way then all these kinds of difficulties and questions tied to its historicity become insignificant, or even irrelevant, for then we see that the Word is not, nor was it ever intended to be, a history text, but that it is a spiritual text within which lies a deeper spiritual meaning. The teachings of Spiritual Christianity offer us an understanding of the Word that can open this up for us. The Word when viewed in this way becomes something living, relevant, and powerful, something able to transform our lives. What are contradictions and difficulties in the text for the naturally minded person become invitations to the spiritual minded person to enter deeper into the text to draw from the well living water that can quench the spiritual thirst of every genuine seeker of truth.

So what is the connection between the historical events written in the book of creation, their record in text form, the meaning we bring to this, and the Lord’s presence in our life by means of the Word? Each of these elements is intimately related and dependent on the other. Without the manifestation of the Divine in human form within space and time there would be no foundation from which the text could take its ultimate form. Without the text in this form we would have nothing from which our understanding of spiritual things can be drawn forth and developed as a basis for a conscious sense of the Lord’s presence in our life. All these elements taken together are the Word, and they are all from the Divine as the means by which He interacts with human minds to make Himself known to us in His Divine Human. As we explore the wonder of John’s gospel in the coming months may the eyes of our understanding be opened that we might come to see more clearly the Lord as He is in His Word.

Amen

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