65. "The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches." This symbolizes a new church in the heavens, which is the New Heaven.

The church exists in heaven as well as on earth, for the Word exists in heaven as on the earth, and people there draw doctrines from it, and preach sermons from it (on which subject see The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 70-75 and 104-113). This church is the new heaven that we said something about in the Preface.

The church in the heavens or New Heaven is meant by the seven stars, because we are told that the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and an angel symbolizes a heavenly society.

The sky in the spiritual world appears filled with stars as in the natural world, and this appearance is owing to the angelic societies in heaven. Every society there shines like a star in the eyes of inhabitants who dwell below. Because of this they know there where the angelic societies are situated.

To be shown that seven symbolically does not mean seven, but all who are constituents of the church there, according to each one's state of reception, see nos. 10, 14, and 41 above. Thus the angels of the seven churches mean the whole church in the heavens, thus the New Heaven in its entirety.