67. Next, since we are by creation heavens in smallest form and therefore images of the Lord, and since heaven is made up of as many desires as there are angels, each of which is a person as to its form, it follows that the constant effort in divine providence is for each of us to become a heaven in form and therefore an image of the Lord. Further, since this is accomplished by means of the desire for what is good and true, it is for us to become that desire. This, then, is the constant effort in divine providence.

The very heart of providence, though, is that we should be in some particular place in heaven or in some particular place in the divine heavenly person and therefore in the Lord. This is what happens for people whom the Lord can lead to heaven. Since the Lord foresees this, he also constantly provides for it, with the result that all of us who are allowing ourselves to be led to heaven are being prepared for our own places in heaven.

4621. 'And Esau and Jacob his sons buried him' means that it rose again within the good of the Natural and within the good of truth in the Natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'being buried' as resurrection, dealt with in 2916, 2917, and as the state of representation that has been raised up in someone else, 3256; from the representation of 'Esau' as the Lord's Divine Natural as regards good, dealt with in 3302, 3576, 4241; and from the representation of 'Jacob' as the Lord's Divine Natural as regards the good of truth, dealt with in 4273, 4337, 4538. From these considerations and those stated above in 4618 it is evident that 'Esau and Jacob his sons buried him' means that it rose again within the good of the Natural and within the good of truth in the Natural. The reason 'being buried' in the internal sense means rising again is that once the body has died the soul rises again. Consequently when burial is referred to in the Word angels do not think of the body which is cast aside but of the soul which rises again; for angels possess spiritual ideas, and so ones that are ideas of life. Therefore anything to do with death in the natural world means something to do with life in the spiritual world.