The Writings offer a tremendous amount of material on angels. The book "Heaven and Hell" offers detailed discussions as it describes heaven; "Conjugial Love" has much to say about marriage and romantic love in heaven; "Divine Love and Wisdom" offers insight into how angels in their nature reflect the nature of the Lord. So we'll offer some basics here and recommend those books to those who want more detail.

(참조: Divine Love and Wisdom 231; Divine Providence 60-67)

Basically, the Writings say that if people in this life open themselves to the Lord, follow the Lord's teachings and let the Lord change their selfish desires into generous loves, they will go to heaven as angels after they die. If they don't, and instead embrace their selfishness, they will go to hell as evil spirits. The Writings also say that this is the only source of angels and evil spirits - they were all once people. There is no separately created race of angels, no fallen angel Lucifer who is now the Devil; that belief is based solely on a few lines of misinterpreted scripture.

This makes sense if you look at it logically. If the Lord could create beings that would live in love and harmony with him with no possibility of evil, why would He have bothered with us? Why not just make more of them? The fact is, such beings would not have any choice in their actions, making them no better than animals. And ultimately, if they were purely good then they would really just be extensions of the Lord, so in loving them He would be loving Himself. The reverse is true of the idea of Satan or "the" Devil. The Lord creates us from love so that he can love us, bring us to heaven and make us happy. For Satan to exist, the Lord would have had to create him, and it would be contrary to His essence to create something that was not intended for heaven, for joy, and for union with the Lord.

So angels were once people, who got to be angels by embracing the idea of being good and followed the Lord's teachings as best they could. The Writings make it clear these people can come from anywhere, from any religious background. Some churches may have doctrine that is closer to the truth than others, but the point of any religion is for people to desire to be good and try to be good using the tools they have.

When those people die, they go first to a place called the "world of spirits." There everyone who has recently died can learn about the Lord and spiritual life and prepare for heaven. There also, people's inner affections start showing on the surface; those who are ultimately evil start losing the ability to cover it up, and the love starts shining through for those who are ultimately good. As this continues and as people learn more, they naturally start congregating with others who have similar loves. This way evil people eventually take themselves to hell, where they can be with others who share their evil. Good people, on the other hand, can be prepared for heaven.

Two important things have to happen for us to truly enter fully into heaven. First, the Lord will push aside our remaining evil desires, so they cannot hurt us or tempt us anymore; angels are in a marvelous state of peace, with no active evil to trouble them. Second, we will each be led by the Lord to the perfect married partner, the one whose soul matches ours, the one we can love blissfully to eternity. All angels are married, because the marriage of a man and a woman represents the marriage of love and wisdom in the Lord, and also the marriage of the desire for good and understanding of truth in each of us. Because of this, we can only fully receive and return the Lord's love as married partners, and heaven is suffused with the sphere of marriage and the love of marriage.

The angelic couples will find their way to communities of other angels whose loves match their own, people with whom they can share the deepest friendships imaginable. They will have houses which reflect the character of their loves, and will be given work to do that springs from their loves and fills them with joy. Beyond that, their lives are much as life might be in this world, though free of sickness and aging and boredom and conflict. They have bodies that are human in form - no wings! - but a beauty in face and form that reflects the good loves they have inside. They eat and drink and laugh and sleep and have parties and games; all filled with the delight of mutual love.

The Writings tell us the work angels do is varied far beyond what we can imagine, though they only describe a few aspects. Among other things, angels care for people in this life, passing on to them true ideas and desires for good from the Lord. They also teach those in the World of Spirits, greet those who have just died, raise those who died as children, keep order in hell and do many other things.

We would finally note that there are three degrees of angelic life, based on the loves people embraced in this life. The first, lowest heaven, called the "natural heaven," is filled by those who are in the love of service. Angels there love to do what's right because they know it is right. The second, middle heaven, called the spiritual heaven, is filled by those who are in the love of the neighbor. Angels there love to engage their minds with spiritual questions to gain an ever-deeper understanding of how to be loving to one another. The third, highest heaven, known as celestial, is filled with those who are in love of the Lord Himself. From that love they have such innocence that they look like children, and they instantly perceive what is true, in all its variety, from the light of that love.

(참조: Apocalypse Revealed 818; Arcana Coelestia 228-233, 454, 1802, 2551, 2572 [3-4], 5470, 6872 [2-3], 8747, 9503 [1-3], 9814 [2], 10604 [2-4]; Conjugial Love 44 [6-10], 52; Divine Love and Wisdom 19, 63, 71, 115, 116, 202, Divine Love and Wisdom 321, 322, 334; Heaven and Hell 75, 133, 266, 267, 304, 311, 415)

414. People in heaven are continually progressing toward the springtime of life. The more thousands of years they live, the more pleasant and happy is their springtime. This continues forever, increasing according to the growth and level of their love, thoughtfulness, and faith.

As the years pass, elderly women who have died of old age - women who have lived in faith in the Lord, thoughtfulness toward their neighbor, and in contented marriage love with their husbands - come more and more into the flower of growing youth and into a beauty that surpasses any notion of beauty accessible to our sight. Their goodness and thoughtfulness is what gives them their form and gives them its own likeness, making the pleasure and beauty of thoughtfulness radiate from every least corner of their faces so that they become actual forms of thoughtfulness. Some people have seen them and have been stunned. The form of thoughtfulness that is open to view in heaven is like this because it is thoughtfulness itself that both gives and is given visible form. In fact, it does this in such a way that the whole angel, especially her face, is virtually thoughtfulness itself appearing to open perception. When people look at this form, its beauty is unutterable, affecting the very inmost life of the mind with thoughtfulness. In a word, to grow old in heaven is to grow young. People who have lived in love for the Lord and in thoughtfulness toward their neighbor are forms like this, or beauties like this, in the other life. All angels are forms like this, in infinite variety. This is what makes heaven.

1032. That 'and I will establish My covenant with you' means the Lord's presence with all people who have charity, and refers to 'those going out of the ark' and to 'every wild animal of the earth', that is, to people inside the Church and to those outside of it, is clear from what has been stated just above. With regard to the Lord also entering into a covenant with, that is, joining Himself by means of charity to people outside of the Church who are called gentiles, the position is this: The member of the Church imagines that all outside of the Church who are called gentiles cannot be saved because they do not possess any cognitions of faith and do not therefore know the Lord at all. Churchmen say that without faith and without knowledge of the Lord there is no salvation, and so all who are outside of the Church stand condemned. Indeed many such persons possessing some doctrine, even those embracing heresy, imagine that all outside of the Church, that is, all who do not feel as they do, are not saved. But the reality is altogether different. The Lord has mercy towards the whole human race, and wishes to save and draw to Himself all people throughout the universe.

[2] The Lord's mercy is infinite and will not let itself be limited to the few who are inside the Church. Instead it reaches out to all in the whole wide world. No one can be blamed because he has been born outside of the Church and so has no knowledge of matters of faith. Nor is anybody in any way condemned for having no faith in the Lord because he does not know Him. What right-thinking person is ever going to say that the greater part of the human race will perish in eternal death just because they have not been born in Europe whose inhabitants are relatively few? And what right-thinking person is going to say that the Lord would allow such a large number of people to be born so as to perish in eternal death? That would be contrary to the Divine and contrary to mercy. And in any case people outside of the Church, called gentiles, lead a far more upright life than those inside the Church do, and they embrace far more readily that which true faith teaches. This matter becomes clearer still from souls in the next life.

[3] From the so-called Christian world come the worst people of all, those in whom deadly hatred of the neighbour and deadly hatred of the Lord prevail. More than anybody else in the whole world they are adulterers. But this is not true of all other parts of the world; for a large number of those who have worshipped idols have an attitude of mind that finds hatred and adultery abhorrent, and they fear Christians for being such and for wishing to subject everybody else to torture. Indeed gentiles are such that when taught by angels about truths of faith and that the Lord rules over all, they have no difficulty in listening and have no difficulty in being endued with faith, and so casting aside their idols. Consequently those gentiles who have led an upright life, and have done so in mutual charity and in innocence, are regenerated in the next life. While they are living in the world the Lord is present with them in their charity and innocence, for no charity or innocence exists at all except that which comes from the Lord. The Lord also confers on them, according to the religion they have, a conscience for what is right and good, and instills innocence and charity into that conscience. And when innocence and charity exist in conscience they allow themselves without difficulty to be endued with the truth of faith deriving from good. The Lord Himself has said all this in Luke,

Someone said to Jesus, Lord, are those who are saved few? He said to them, You will see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrust out. On the other hand men will come from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God. And, behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last. Luke 13:23, 28-30.

'Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' here are used to mean all who dwell in love, as shown already.