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.

(Препратки: 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.

(Препратки: 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.

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3488. The fact that these words spoken by the Lord and recorded in the gospel describe the second state of the perversion of the Church is evident from their internal sense, which is as follows,

All these are the beginning of sorrows means the things that have already happened, that is to say, the things that belong to the first state of the perversion of the Church, which, as has been stated, takes place when people cease to know any longer what goodness is and what truth is and start to argue with one another about them, with the result that falsities, and consequently heresies arise. The fact that such things perverted the Church before very many centuries had gone by is evident from the consideration that the Church in the Christian world became divided, and that its divisions were the result of opinions concerning goodness and truth; so that the Church began to be perverted a long way back in the past.

[2] At that time they will deliver you up to affliction, and will kill you means that goodness and truth will perish, at first through 'affliction'- that is, through perversion - and then through men 'killing' them, that is, through denial. For 'killing', when used in reference to goodness and truth, means that these are not being accepted, and thus that people deny them, see 3387, 3395. 'You' - the apostles - means all things of faith in their entirety, and so means the good of faith as well as the truth of faith; for the twelve apostles meant those things, see 577, 2089, 2129, 2130 (end), 3272, 3354. Here it is quite evident that they have that meaning, for the subject is not the preaching of the apostles but the close of the age.

[3] And you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake means contempt for and loathing of everything to do with goodness and truth. 'Hating' is holding in contempt and loathing, for these are manifestations of hatred. 'By all nations' means by persons under the influence of evil, for 'nations' refers to these, see 1259, 1260, 1849, 1868, 2588 (end). 'For My name's sake' is for the Lord's sake, and so for the sake of everything that comes from Him - 'the Lord's name' being everything in its entirety by which He is worshipped, and so everything belonging to His Church, see 2724, 3006.

[4] At that time many will stumble, and betray one another, and hate one another means hostility on account of those things. 'Many will stumble' means the hostility in itself - the Lord's Human being that against which the hostility is directed. That this will be a cause of offence or a stumbling-block is foretold in various places in the Word. 'Betray one another' is hostility towards one another arising out of falsity conflicting with truth. 'And hate one another' is hostility towards one another arising out of evil conflicting with good.

[5] And many false prophets will arise and will lead many astray means declarations of falsity - 'false prophets' meaning teachers of falsities, thus false doctrine, see 2534. 'And will lead many astray' means that there will be things that are the issue of that doctrine.

[6] And because iniquity is multiplied the charity of many will grow cold means charity together with faith breathing its last. 'Because iniquity is multiplied' means in keeping with falsities of faith. 'The charity of many will grow cold' means charity breathing its last; for the two - charity and faith - go together side by side. Where there is no faith there is no charity; and where there is no charity there is no faith. Charity however is that which receives faith, and the absence of charity is that which rejects faith. This is the origin of all falsity and of all evil.

[7] But he who endures to the end will be saved means the salvation of those who have charity. 'He who endures to the end' is the person who does not allow himself to be led astray, and so does not yield in times of temptation.

[8] And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole inhabited earth as a testimony to all nations means that the Christian world will be the first to come to know it. 'Will be preached' means that it will come to be known. 'This gospel of the kingdom' is this truth, that it really is so - 'gospel' being pronouncement, 'the kingdom' truth, for 'the kingdom' means truth, see 1672, 2547. 'In the whole inhabited earth' is the Christian world, 'the earth' being that region where the Church, and so the Christian world, is, see 662, 1066, 1068, 1262, 1733, 1850, 2117, 2118, 2928, 3355. Here the Church is called 'the inhabited earth' from the life of faith, that is, from the good that dwells in truth, for 'inhabiting' in the internal sense is living, and 'inhabitants' are the goods that dwell in truth, 1293, 2268, 2451, 2712, 3384. 'As a testimony' means to ensure that they know, and to prevent them pretending that they do not know. 'To all nations' means to the evil, 1259, 1260, 1849, 1868, 2588. For when people are under the influence of falsity and evil they no longer know what truth is or what good is; indeed they believe that falsity is truth, that evil is good, and vice versa. When the Church reaches this state, at that point the end will come. The words that follow next, to be explained in the Lord's Divine mercy in the preliminary section of the next chapter of Genesis, deal with that state of the Church which is called 'the abomination of desolation', which is the third state.