Sermon on John 1:1-5, 9-14 T. Pictairn

“In the beginning was the Word, and God was the Word. The same was in the beginning with God. The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not….That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came into His own, and His own received Him not.

But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-5; 9-14)

To understand the First Coming of the Lord to man it is necessary to have some understanding of the “Heaven of human internals,” concerning which we read: “Man’s internal is that from which he is a man, and by which he is distinguished from brute animals. By means of this internal he lives after death, and to eternity, a man, and by means of which he can be uplifted by the Lord among the angels. This internal is the very first form from which a man becomes and is man, and by means of it the Lord is united to man. The very Heaven that is nearest the Lord is composed of these human internals; but this is above even the inmost angelic Heaven, and these internals belong to the Lord Himself. By this means the whole human race is most present under the Lord’s eyes, for there is no distance in Heaven… These internals of men have no life in themselves, but are forms recipient of the Lord’s life. Insofar, therefore as a man is in evil, as well actual as hereditary so far he has been separated from this internal which is the Lord’s and with the Lord, and thereby so far he has been separated from the Lord; for although this internal has been adjoined to man, and is inseparable from Him, nevertheless so far as he recedes from the Lord, so far has he been, as it were separated from it. But the separation is not an absolute sundering from it, for then the men could no longer live after death; but it is a dissent and disagreement on the part of those faculties of his which arc below, that is, his rational and his external… But the Lord’s internal was Jehovah Himself.” (A.C. 1999)

Read the full sermon on John 1:1-5, 9-14 by T. Pitcairn

The subject of this sermon is, to a degree, continued in the Series of Sermons on the True Christian Religion №2