777. It is plain from the following passage in John that the Lord is the Word:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and the Word became flesh, John 1:1, 14.
The Word in that passage is Divine truth, because Christians have no other source of Divine truth than the Word. It is the source from which all the churches named after Christ draw an abundance of living waters, and although they are as it were in a cloud containing its natural sense, yet they are in the glory and power which contain its spiritual and celestial senses. The Word contains three senses, the natural, the spiritual and the celestial, one inside the next, as was shown in the chapters on the Sacred Scripture and the Ten Commandments or Catechism [chapters 4-5]. From this it is obvious that the Word as used in John means Divine truth. John gives further evidence of this same fact in his First Epistle:
We know that the Son of God came and gave us understanding, so that we might know the truth; and we are in the truth, in his Son Jesus Christ. 1 John 5:20.
That too was why the Lord said so often 'Amen, I say to you'; Amen in Hebrew means truth. He is Himself the Amen (see Revelation 3:14) and truth (John 14:6).
If you ask the scholars of the present time what they understand by the Word in John 1:1, they say it is 'the Word in its pre-eminence'; and what else is the Word in its pre-eminence but Divine truth?
[2] From this it is clear that the Lord is even now about to appear in the Word. The reason why He will not appear in person is that after His ascension into heaven He is in His glorified Human; and in this He cannot appear to any person, unless He has first opened the eyes of his spirit. This is impossible with anyone who is in a state of evils and consequent falsities, and so with any of the goats, whom He has placed on the left. Therefore, when He showed Himself to the disciples, He first opened their eyes; for we read:
And their eyes were opened, and they recognised Him; but He became invisible to them, Luke 24:31.
Much the same happened with the women near the tomb after the resurrection. That is why then too they saw angels sitting in the tomb and speaking to them, something no one can see with his material eyes. Neither did the Apostles see the Lord with the eyes of their bodies before His resurrection in His glorified Human; but they saw Him in the spirit, something which seems like seeing in sleep after waking up. This is clear from His transfiguration in front of Peter, James and John, when we read that they were then heavy with sleep (Luke 9:32). It is futile therefore to believe that the Lord will appear in a cloud of heaven in person; but He will appear in the Word, which is from Him and which He is.
