The Last Judgement #20
20. Anyone who has learned about God's order can also understand that man was created so as to become an angel, because in him order reaches its ultimate stage (see 9 above). In this stage something of the wisdom of heaven and the angels can be formed, and it can be reconstituted and multiplied. God's order never stops half-way, and forms anything there without the ultimate stage; for it is not in its fullness and perfection unless it goes to the ultimate. But when it is there, then it takes shape and uses the means at its disposal there to reconstitute and extend itself, which it does by reproduction. The ultimate is therefore the seed-bed of heaven.
This too is what is meant by the description of man and his creation in the first chapter of Genesis:
God said, Let us make 1 man in our image, according to our likeness. And God created man in His image, in the image of God did He create him. Male and female He created them; and God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply. Genesis 1:26-28.
Creating in the image of God and in the likeness of God means conferring on him the whole of God's order from first to last, and so making him an angel as regards the interiors of his mind.
Footnotes:
1. [Reading faciamus as AC for faciemus (We shall make).]
Exodus 39:10-15
10
They set in it four rows of stones. A row of ruby, topaz, and beryl was the first row;
11
and the second row, a turquoise, a sapphire, and an emerald;
12
and the third row, a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst;
13
and the fourth row, a chrysolite, an onyx, and a jasper. They were enclosed in gold settings.
14
The stones were according to the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names; like the engravings of a signet, everyone according to his name, for the twelve tribes.
15
They made on the breastplate chains like cords, of braided work of pure gold.
