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.

322. There is very solid ground for believing that there is a human image to the universe of the other world in the fact that everything listed in 321 is happening concretely around angels and around angelic communities. It is as though these things were being brought forth or created by them. They persist around them without fading away. You can tell that they are apparently brought forth or created by the angels because when an angel goes away or when a community relocates, these things are no longer visible. Then too, when other angels arrive to take their place, the appearance of everything around them changes. The trees and fruits of the parks change, the blossoms and seeds of the flower beds change, the herbs and grasses of the fields change, and so do the kinds of animals and birds.

The reason things occur and change like this is that everything occurs in response to the angels' feelings and consequent thoughts. They are responsive entities, and because the things that respond are integral aspects of that to which they respond, they are their visual images.

The actual image is not visible when the focus is on the forms of anything, but it is visible when the focus is on their functions. I have been allowed to see that when angels' eyes have been opened by the Lord so that they see these things as they answer to functions, the angels recognize and see themselves in their surroundings.