1. Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence

Divine Providence Is the Form of Government Exercised by the Lord's Divine Love and Wisdom

To understand what divine providence is--that it is the way the Lord's divine love and wisdom govern us--it is important to be aware of the following things, which were presented in my book on the subject.

In the Lord, divine love is a property of divine wisdom and divine wisdom is a property of divine love (Divine Love and Wisdom 34-39).

Divine love and wisdom cannot fail to be and to be manifested in others that it has created (Divine Love and Wisdom 47-51).

Everything in the universe was created by divine love and wisdom (Divine Love and Wisdom 52, 53, 151-156).

Everything in the created universe is a vessel of divine love and wisdom (54-60 [55-60]).

The Lord looks like the sun to angels; its radiating warmth is love and its radiating light is wisdom (Divine Love and Wisdom 83-88, 89-92, 93-98, 296-301).

The divine love and wisdom that emanate from the Lord constitute a single whole (Divine Love and Wisdom 99-102).

The Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, created the universe and everything in it from himself and not from nothing (Divine Love and Wisdom 282-284, 290-295). These propositions may be found in the work titled Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom.

290. The Lord from eternity, or Jehovah, brought forth the sun of the spiritual world out of himself, and created the universe and all its contents from it. Part 2 of the present work dealt with the sun of the spiritual world, and the following points were made there. In the spiritual world, divine love and wisdom look like a sun (83-88). Spiritual warmth and spiritual light emanate from that sun (89-92). That sun is not God. Rather, it is an emanation from the divine love and wisdom of the Divine-Human One. The same is true of warmth and light from that sun (93-98). The sun of the spiritual world is seen at a middle elevation, as far from angels as the physical world's sun is from us (103-107). The east in the spiritual world is where the Lord is seen as the sun, and the other directions follow from that (119-124 [119-123], 125-128 [124-128]). Angels always face the Lord as the sun (129-134, 135-139). The Lord created the universe and everything in it by means of that sun that is the first emanation of divine love and wisdom (151-156). The physical world's sun is nothing but fire and is therefore dead; and since nature has its origin in that sun, it is dead. Further, the physical world's sun was created so that the work of creation could be finished off and completed (157-162). There would be no creation if it were not for this pair of suns, one living and one dead (163-166).

129. Angels always face the Lord as the sun, so south is on their right, north on their left, and west behind them. All these statements about angels and the way they face the Lord as the sun should also be understood as applying to us spiritually, since we are spirits as to our minds, and angels if we are engaged in love and wisdom. So after death, when we shed the outer forms we have derived from the physical world, we become spirits or angels. Since angels do constantly face the sunrise (the Lord), we say of people who are engaged in love and wisdom from the Lord that they see God, that they look to God, and that they have God before their eyes, meaning that they are living like angels. We say these things in this world both because that is what is really happening in heaven and because that is what is actually happening in our spirits. Do we not all look straight ahead at God when we pray, no matter which way we are facing?