Few people understand how the Lord is the Word. People think that 263
the Lord is able to enlighten and teach us through the Word but that we
could not call him the Word on that account.
We need to realize that we are all our own will and our own intellect.
This is how one person is differentiated from another. Since the will is a
vessel for love and for all the forms of goodness that relate to that love,
and the intellect is a vessel for wisdom and for all the forms of truth that
relate to that wisdom, it follows that we are all our own love and our
own wisdom, or what is the same thing, our own goodness and our own
truth. Humans are not human on any other basis; and nothing else in us
is human.
In the Lord’s case, he is love itself and wisdom itself, and therefore
goodness itself and truth itself. He became all this through fulfilling all
the goodness and all the truth in the Word. Someone who thinks and
speaks only the truth becomes that truth. Someone who intends and does
only what is good becomes that goodness. Because the Lord fulfilled all
the divine truth and divine goodness that are in the Word—both the
truth and goodness in its earthly meaning and the truth and goodness in
its spiritual meaning—he became goodness itself and truth itself, and
therefore became the Word.
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Before the Word That Exists in the World Today,
There Was a Word That Has Been LostBefore the Word existed that was given through Moses and the prophets 264
among the Israelite nation, people knew a form of worship through sacri-
fices, and their prophets spoke the word of Jehovah. This is clear from
things mentioned in the books of Moses.
The following is evidence that people knew a form of worship through
sacrifices:The children of Israel were commanded to overturn the altars
of other nations, shatter their statues, and cut down their groves (Exodus
34 : 13 ; Deuteronomy 7 : 5 ; 12 : 3 ). “At Acacia, Israel began to commit har-
lotry with the daughters of Moab; they invited the people to sacrificesfor
their gods, and the people ate” (Numbers 25 : 1 , 2 , 3 ). Balaam, who was
from Syria, built altars and sacrificed oxen and sheep (Numbers 22 : 40 ;
§264 sacred scripture 331