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.

19. That there are infinite elements in God is more clearly apparent to angels from the heavens in which they dwell. The whole of heaven, which consists of millions of angels, is in the entirety of its form as though a single person. So, too, every society in heaven, both greater and smaller. For that reason also every angel is a person, for an angel is a heaven in miniature form. (That this is the case may be seen in the book Heaven and Hell, nos. 51-87.)

Heaven in its entirety, in its component parts, and in its individual inhabitants exists in such a form because of the Divine character that angels receive; for in the measure of the Divine character he receives an angel is a person in perfect form. So it is that angels are said to be in God, and God in them, and that God is their all.

How many things exist in heaven cannot be described. And because the Divine is what forms heaven, and these inexpressibly many things are consequently from the Divine, it is clearly apparent that there are infinite elements in the supreme person who is God.