71. Conjugial love makes man be love

Man is created to be love and consequently wisdom, since the Lord is Divine Love and Divine Wisdom. It is by creation that man is an image and likeness of the Lord,Genesis 1:26-27; and this could not happen without true conjugial love. By this man's all can be turned into love, for in marriage either may love from the heart the body too, and thus dispose the soul and consequently everything to the form of love. This is not otherwise possible; the inmost and the outermost there make one and bring about that form, which is the form of heaven.

Used several times in the Bible, the phrase “both small and great” (or “both the small and the great”) represents various levels or degrees of involvement in a spiritual state. For instance, when the angels strike men with blindness, “both small and great,” in Genesis 19:11, it means removing all concepts of truth, both general ideas and specifics based on those ideas. When reward is promised to “those who fear Your name, small and great” in Revelation 11:18, it means people who love things having to do with the Lord in a lesser degree and in a greater degree.

(References: Apocalypse Revealed 527, 604, 810, 832; Arcana Coelestia 2384; The Apocalypse Explained 514 [11])