The number three in the Bible represents completeness. That's why Jesus rose on the third day after the Crucifixion -- his transformation was complete. It's why Elijah stretched himself on the dead child three times, why Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days, why the Lord called Samuel three times, and many more. It's also reflected in the fact that there are three levels of heaven, three levels of hell, three levels to human life and, ultimately, three aspects of the Lord Himself: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

608. It is important to know that there are three heavens and that they are divided up according to three levels of love and wisdom. As we progress in our regeneration we come into fellowship with angels from those three heavens. Because this is the case, the human mind, too, has three levels or areas just like the heavens. (For more on the three heavens and their division according to the three levels of love and wisdom, see Heaven and Hell 29 and following; see also the little work Soul-Body Interaction 16-17.)

Here the nature of the three levels into which the heavens are divided will be illustrated only by a comparison. They are like the head, the upper body, and the lower body in a person. The highest heaven constitutes the head; the middle heaven, the upper body; and the lowest heaven, the lower body. In fact, the whole of heaven in the Lord's sight is like one human being. The truth of this has been disclosed to me through firsthand experience: I was given permission to see an entire community of heaven, which consisted of tens of thousands of angels, as one human being. Why would the whole of heaven not appear that way before the Lord? For more on this living experience, see Heaven and Hell 59 and following.

[2] This also clarifies how we should understand the well-known saying in the Christian world that the church constitutes the body of Christ, and that Christ is the life within this body. It serves as well to illustrate the point that the Lord is everything to all heaven, since he is the life within that body. The Lord is also the life within the church that exists among people who acknowledge him alone as the God of heaven and earth and who believe in him. (He himself teaches, in Matthew 28:18, that he is the God of heaven and earth, and in John 3:15-16, 36; 6:40; 11:25-26, that we are to believe in him.)