50. What the Most Ancient Church understood by 'the image of the Lord' exceeds everything one can say about it. Man is totally unaware of the fact that the Lord is governing him by means of angels and spirits, and that at least two spirits and two angels are present with everyone. By means of the spirits he is in communication with the world of spirits, and by means of the angels with heaven. Without this communication with the world of spirits by means of the spirits, and with heaven by means of the angels, and so by means of heaven with the Lord, a person cannot exist at all. His entire life depends upon that link, and if the spirits and angels were to withdraw he would perish instantly.

[2] As long as a person remains unregenerate he is governed in an entirely different way from when he is regenerate. As long as he is unregenerate, evil spirits reside with him, who have such dominion over him that angels, though present, can accomplish little more than simply distract him from plunging into utter evil and so divert him towards something good. Indeed they use his own unregenerate desires to divert him towards good, and his illusions of the senses to do so towards truth. At that point he is in communication with the world of spirits by means of the spirits who reside with him, but not in the same way with heaven, for the reason that evil spirits have dominion and angels simply forestall them.

[3] When however he is regenerate it is the angels who then have dominion, and they breathe into him every kind of good and truth, as well as a horror and dread of evils and falsifies. Angels do indeed lead, yet they are but servants, for it is the Lord alone who, by means of angels and spirits, governs a person. Now because this is done through the ministry of angels, it is said here, in the plural first of all, 'Let Us make man in Our image'. Yet because it is still He alone who rules and disposes, it is said in the following verse, in the singular, 'God created him in His image'. This the Lord also states plainly in Isaiah,

Thus said Jehovah, your Redeemer, He who formed you from the womb, I Jehovah make all things, stretching out the heavens Alone, spreading out the earth by Myself. Isaiah 44:24.

Angels themselves also profess that no power at all resides with themselves but that they act from the Lord alone.

10295. '[These] sweet ones' means affections springing from spiritual good. This is clear from the meaning of 'sweet-smelling spices' as affections for truth springing from good, dealt with above in 10291. As regards their springing from spiritual good, see 10254, 10290, 10293(end). The reason why the incense was made from the spices that mean kinds of truth springing from spiritual good, or what amounts to the same thing, why the kinds of truth that are meant by those spices belong to the spiritual group, is that the worship of God accomplished by means of truths springing from that good is meant by 'incense'. For acts of thanksgiving, adoration, prayer, and the like are what are meant specifically by 'incense', see 9475. Such acts of worship are emanations from the heart expressed through thoughts and speech. The fact that spiritual truths are the means by which such worship is accomplished may be recognized from the ideas a person has in mind while engaged in that worship. For the person's ideas then pass from his memory into his understanding and come forth from there; and anything emanating from there is called spiritual. As regards the worship of God springing from celestial good, such as takes place among those who are in the Lord's celestial kingdom, this is not accomplished by means of acts of thanksgiving, adoration, and prayer, as is the worship among those who are in the spiritual kingdom, thus not by truths coming from the memory but by truths coming from the heart, which act as one with the actual love that governs those people. For the truths that exist with them have been inscribed on their love, and therefore when moved by love to do what is commanded they are at the same time moved to do so by truths, without any thought about them based on what they have been taught, thus without any recollection of them from their memory. The fact that the state of those who are in the Lord's celestial kingdom is such as this may be recognized from what has been shown regarding that kingdom and the spiritual kingdom in the places referred to in 9277. As regards 'incense', that it means acts of thanksgiving, adoration, and prayer, which emanate from the thoughts of the heart through the mouth, see 9475, 10177, 10198.