231. We can tell that there are these three levels in us from the way human minds are raised all the way into those levels of love and wisdom that angels of the second and third heaven enjoy. All those angels were born human; and in regard to the inner reaches of our minds, each of us is a miniature form of heaven. Count the number of heavens and you have the number of vertical levels within each of us, from our creation. Each of us is an image and likeness of God; so these three levels are written into us because they are in the Divine-Human One--that is, in the Lord.

We can tell that these levels in the Lord are infinite and uncreated while ours are finite and created on the basis of what I presented in part 1, for example from the principle that the Lord is intrinsic love and wisdom, that we are recipients of love and wisdom from the Lord, that only what is infinite can be attributed to the Lord, and that only what is finite can be attributed to us.

818. 19:10 And I fell at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, "See that you do not do this! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God!" This symbolically means that angels in heaven are not to be worshiped or invoked, because they have nothing Divine in them, but are associated, as brethren with brethren, with those people who worship the Lord, and therefore the Lord alone is to be worshiped in association with them.

John's falling at the angel's feet to worship him, and the angel's saying to him, "See that you do not do this," means symbolically that no angel in heaven is to be worshiped or invoked, but the Lord only. "I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren" means symbolically that there is no Divinity in any angel, but that an angel is associated with a person as a brother with a brother. Having the testimony of Jesus means symbolically that a person is in the same way conjoined with the Lord, by an acknowledgment of the Divinity in the Lord's humanity, and by living in accordance with His commandments. That having the testimony of Jesus has this symbolic meaning will be seen in the following number.

Angels in heaven are not superior to people, but are their equals, and therefore they are the Lord's servants the same as people; and the reason is that all angels were once people, born in the world, and none were created angels directly, as can be seen from what we wrote and showed in the book Heaven and Hell (London, 1758). Angels excel people in wisdom indeed, but that is because they are in a spiritual state and so live in the light of heaven, and are not in a natural state and so do not live in the light of the world as people on earth do. But the more an angel excels in wisdom, the more he acknowledges that he is not better than people, but like them. Consequently people are not conjoined with angels, but are associated with them. Only with the Lord is conjunction possible.

But how conjunction with the Lord and association with angels are achieved through the Word may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 62-69.