Editorials
the simple truth
A cartoon in The New Yorker magazine years ago showed two attorneys
standing in front of a huge law library and one is saying to the other: “To think
that it all started with the Ten Commandments.”
Libraries and book shelves in legal offices are filled with countless laws
that govern our lives in a structure of order. It can all be overwhelming and
intimidating, but it all is rooted in the Ten Commandments.
We may feel the same way at times about the Word and that imposing row
of green books – the Writings – on many a shelf in New Church homes. Those
30 volumes of intricate and complex doctrine can seem overwhelming as well.
All of that doctrine is there for a reason – as are all of those laws. All those
teachings are provided to make our lives easier and advance us toward heaven.
But all of that doctrine comes back to simple fundamentals as well: The Ten
Commandments. The Two Great Commandments. The Golden Rule. Do what
is right. Shun evil. Love the Lord. Love the neighbor.
We are blessed to know that the complexity and depth of the Word and the
Writings are explained in the revealed spiritual sense and by correspondences.
We are told that angels delight in studying the Word – in which they see the
correspondences – to all eternity, growing ever closer to the Lord as they do so.
It’s impossible to get that just from reading the literal sense of the Word.
Consider something as seemingly meaningless and irrelevant as the tenth
chapter of Genesis – just a list of names and generations. We tend to skip over
that. But we are told that the contents of this chapter “include all the different
ways in which worship embodied charitable good and religious truth in the
ancient church. The chapter describes such differences as they existed not only
in the ancient church in general but in each individual church as well.”
This obscure and easily ignored chapter is really addressing qualities and
needs within each one of us. “In fact, it holds more information than anyone
could ever believe. That is the nature of the Lord’s Word.” (Secrets of Heaven
1264)
The Gospel of John opens with: “In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was God. And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness
comprehended it not.” That light illuminates the revelation offered in the
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