Time is an aspect of the physical world, but it is not an aspect of the spiritual world. The same is true of space: There is no space in heaven. This is hard for us to grasp or even visualize, because we live in physical bodies with physical senses that are filled with physical elements existing in time and space. Our minds are schooled and patterned in terms of time and space, and have no reference point to imagine a reality without them. Consider how you think for a second. In your mind you can immediately be in your past or in some speculative future; in your mind you can circle the globe seeing other lands and faraway friends, or even zoom instantly to the most distant stars. Such imaginings are insubstantial, of course, but if we could make them real we would be getting close to what spiritual reality is like. Indeed, the mind is like a spiritual organ, which may be why physicians and philosophers have had such a hard time juxtaposing its functions to those of the brain. What this means in the Bible is that descriptions of time -- hours, days, weeks, months, years and even simply the word "time" itself -- represent spiritual states, and the passing of time represents the change of spiritual states. Again, we can see this a little bit within our minds. If we imagine talking to one friend then talking to another, it feels like going from one place to another, even though we're not moving. The same is true if we picture a moment from childhood and then imagine something in the future; it feels like a movement through time even though it's instantaneous. Changing our state of mind feels like a physical change in space and time. The Bible simply reverses that, with marking points in space and time representing particular states of mind.

8029. From what has been mentioned several times already about a person's state after death it is clear that those who go straight to heaven when they enter the next life are few. Instead people stay for some time beneath heaven, in order that the defilements of earthly and bodily kinds of love, which they have brought with them from the world, may be wiped away, and in that way they may be prepared and enabled to be integrated among angels. This kind of experience is undergone by people belonging to all planets. That is to say, after death they are first below heaven among spirits; but subsequently, when they have undergone preparation, they become angels. I was allowed to see what happened when spirits belonging to that planet became angels. Bright horses as if of fire appeared, and these took them away in the same manner as Elijah was taken, the bright horses as if of fire serving to mean an enlightened understanding. In the Word horses mean the power of understanding, see 2760-2762, 3217, 5321, 6125, 6534; and 'the fiery horses' and 'the fiery chariots' that took Elijah away mean an understanding of the inner contents of the Word, 2761.