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.

(Referências: 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.

(Referências: 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)

134. Heaven's warmth, like heaven's light, is different in different places. It has one nature in the heavenly kingdom and another in the spiritual kingdom. It also differs in each community, not only in intensity but in quality. It is more intense and pure in the Lord's heavenly kingdom because the angels there accept more divine good. It is less intense and pure in the Lord's spiritual kingdom because the angels there accept more divine truth. In each community, it varies depending on people's receptivity. There is also warmth in the hells, but it is unclean. ¹

The warmth in heaven is meant by sacred and heavenly fire, and the warmth of hell by profane fire and hellfire. Both refer to love: heavenly fire to love for the Lord and love for one's neighbor, and hellfire to love for oneself and love of the world and all the craving that is associated with these loves. ²

The fact that love is warmth of a spiritual origin can be seen from the way we grow warm in proportion to our love, even becoming inflamed and heated in proportion to its intensity and quality, with its full heat evident when we are attacked. This is why it is usual to talk about inflaming, heating up, burning, boiling, and kindling when we are talking about either the affections of a good love or the cravings of an evil love.

Notas de rodapé:

9409. 'And on the children of Israel who had been set apart' means those restricted to the outward sense, separated from the inward. This is clear from the representation of 'the children of Israel who had been set apart' - that is, those who had been separated from Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders, and about whom verse 2 above says 'they shall not come up' - as those restricted to the outward sense of the Word, separated from the inward, dealt with above in 9380. Something brief must be stated here about who exactly those people are, and what they are like, who are restricted to the outward sense of the Word, separated from the inward. They are those who draw no teachings about charity and faith from the Word but confine themselves to the sense of the letter. Teachings about charity and faith compose the inward substance of the Word, while the sense of the letter composes its outward form. The worship too of those restricted to the outward sense of the Word without the inward is something outward devoid of anything inward. They venerate outward things as being holy and Divine, and also believe that these things are in themselves holy and Divine, when in fact they are holy and Divine by virtue of inner realities. This was what the children of Jacob were like, see 3479, 4281, 4293, 4307, 4429, 4433, 4680, 4844, 4847, 4865, 4868, 4874, 4899, 4903, 4911, 4913, 6304, 8588, 8788, 8806, 8871.

[2] But let some examples serve to illustrate this matter. They believed that they were pure, free from all sin and all guilt, when they offered sacrifices and ate from them. For they thought that the sacrifices in their outward form alone, without the inward, were the most holy things of worship, that when used in those sacrifices the oxen, young bulls, lambs, she-goats, sheep, rams, and he-goats were holy, and that the altar was the most holy thing of all. And they thought of the bread of the minchahs and the wine of the drink-offerings in a similar way. They also believed that when they had washed their clothes and their bodies they were altogether clean, and in like manner that the perpetual fire on the altar and the fires in the lamps were in themselves holy, also the loaves of the presence, the anointing oil, and all else. This was what they believed because they rejected everything internal, so completely that they were unwilling even to hear about internal things, such as that they should love Jehovah for His sake and not their own, that is to say, not in order that they might be raised to important positions and wealth above all nations and peoples throughout the world. Nor therefore were they willing to hear that the Messiah was going to come for the sake of their eternal salvation and happiness, only for the sake of their pre-eminence over all in the world. Nor were they willing to hear about mutual love and charity towards the neighbour for the neighbour's sake and good, only for their own, so far as the neighbour was favourably disposed towards them. They thought nothing of entertaining feelings of enmity, harbouring hatred, taking vengeance, acting savagely, so long as they could lay hold of some reason.

[3] Their beliefs and actions would have been altogether different if they had been willing to accept teachings about love to and faith in the Lord and charity towards the neighbour. They would then have known and believed that burnt offerings, sacrifices, minchahs, drink-offerings, and feasting on sacrifices would not purify them from any guilt or sin, but that worship of God and heartfelt repentance would do so, Deuteronomy 33:19; Jeremiah 7:21-23; Micah 6:6-8; Hosea 6:6; Psalms 40:6, 8; 51:16-17; 1 Samuel 15:22. They would in a similar way have known that the washing of clothes and body rendered no one clean, only purification of the heart; and in like manner that the fire on the altar and fires in the lamps, also the loaves of the presence, and the anointing oil were not holy of themselves but by virtue of the inner realities which they were the signs of. They would have known too that when they were governed by those holy and inner realities they would be holy people, not on their own account, but on that of the Lord from whom everything holy springs. The children of Israel would have known these inner realities if they had received teachings about love and charity, because these declare what it is that outward things include within them. Those teachings also provide knowledge of the internal sense of the Word, because the internal sense of the Word constitutes true teachings about love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour. It is also what the Lord teaches, when He says that on both these commands all the Law and the Prophets depend, Matthew 22:36, 40.

[4] The situation is virtually the same today in the Christian world. Here people are restricted to outward things, without anything inward, because teachings about love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour are lacking, so much so that there is scarcely any knowledge of what celestial love is and what spiritual love is, which is charity. For the good of celestial and spiritual love, and consequently the truth of faith, constitute the inner level in a person. So it is that even at the present day the outward sense of the Word, without doctrinal teachings as regulator and guide, can be distorted as much as anyone likes. For teachings about faith without teachings about love and charity are like the darkness of night, whereas teachings about faith arising out of teachings about love and charity are like the light of day. For the good that belongs to love and charity is like the flame, while the truth of faith is like the light radiating from it.

[5] This being what people in the Christian world are like at the present day, that is to say, people restricted to outward things without anything inward, scarcely any have an affection for truth for its own sake. Here also is the reason why they are not even aware of what good, charity, or the neighbour is. They are not even aware of what the inner level in a person is, nor of what heaven is and hell is, nor of the fact that everyone is alive immediately after death. And those among them who keep to the teachings of their Church do not care whether those teachings are false or true. They learn them and endorse them not for the sake of exercising the good of charity from the heart, nor for the sake of the salvation of their soul and eternal happiness, but for the sake of getting on in the world, that is, to earn reputation, important positions, and wealth. For this reason they receive no enlightenment when they read the Word, and so will altogether deny the existence of anything inwardly present in the Word apart from what stands out in the letter. But more on this subject from experience will in the Lord's Divine mercy be stated elsewhere.