It is by Derivation from the Lord’s Divine Humanity that Heaven both in General and in Particular is in the Human Form(78-86)

[p034]   

78.   That it is by derivation form the Lord’s Divine Humanity that heaven both in general and in particular is in the human form follows as a conclusion from all that has been said in the preceding chapters; for we have shown: — 1. That the Lord is the God of heaven.  2. That the Divine Sphere of the Lord constitutes heaven.  3. That heaven consists of innumerable societies, and that each society is a heaven on a smaller scale, and each angel is a heaven in miniature.  4. That the universal heaven, viewed collectively, is in the human form.  5. That every society in the heavens is also in the human form.  6. That hence every angel is in a perfect human form.  These propositions point to the conclusion that the Divine Being who makes heaven is human in form.

79.   That such is the fact has been made evident to me by much experience, part of which shall now be related.  No angel in all the heavens ever has a perception of the Divine Being in any other than the human form; and wonderful to relate, those who are in the higher heavens cannot think of the Divine Being in any other way.  The necessity of so thinking comes from the Divine Sphere itself which flows into their minds, and also from the form of heaven, in accordance with which their thoughts are diffused around; for every thought of the angels diffuses itself in heaven around them, and they enjoy intelligence and wisdom in proportion to this diffusion.  This is why all in heaven acknowledge the Lord, for there is no Divine Humanity except in Him.  These things have not only been told to me by angels but it has also been granted me to perceive them myself when I have been raised into the inner sphere of heaven.  Hence it is evident that the wiser the angels are, the more clearly do they perceive this truth; and it is this that enables them to see the Lord; for the Lord appears in a Divine angelic form, which is the human form, to those who acknowledge and believe in a visible Divine Being; but not to those who worship an invisible Divinity, because the former can see their God but the latter cannot see theirs.

[p035]    

80.   Since the angels have no perception of an invisible and therefore, as they say, formless Divinity, but perceive a visible Divine Being in a human form, they are accustomed to say that the Lord alone is man and that they are men by derivation from Him; and that every one is a man so far as he receives Him.  By receiving the Lord they mean receiving good and truth from Him, since the Lord is in His own good and His own truth.  They also call this wisdom and intelligence, and say that intelligence and wisdom are what make man and not the face without these.  This truth is clear from the appearance of the angels of the interior heavens who live in good and truth from the Lord and therefore in wisdom and intelligence; for they are in a most beautiful and perfect human form, whilst the angels of the lower heavens are in a form less perfect and beautiful.  But in hell the case is reversed.  Its inhabitants when seen in the light of heaven scarcely appear as men but as monsters; for they do not live in good and truth but in evil and falsity, and consequently in the opposites of intelligence and wisdom.  For this reason, also, their life is not called life but spiritual death.

81.   Since heaven, both in general and in particular, is in the human form by derivation from the Lord’s Divine Humanity, therefore angels say that they are in the Lord; and some that they are in His Body; by which they mean that they are in the good of His love, as the Lord Himself also teaches, where He says, “Abide in Me and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in Me; for without Me ye can do nothing.  Continue ye in my love.  If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love” (John 15. 4-10).  

82.   Such being the perception in heaven concerning the Divine Being, it is consequently inherent in every man whose mind is at all under heavenly influence, to think of God in the human form.  Thus thought the ancients, and thus also do the moderns think, both without the church and within it.  The simple see Him in thought as an aged man encompassed with brightness.  But this inherent perception has been extinguished by all who have cut themselves off from the influence of heaven by relying on their own intelligence and by a life of evil.  Those who have extinguished it by self-centred intelligence will have none but an invisible God; and those who have extinguished it by a life of evil, no God at all.  Neither class is aware that any such inherent perception exists, since it no longer exists with them; yet this is the very divine heavenly truth which primarily flows from heaven into man, because man is born for heaven and no one enters heaven without a just idea of the Divine Being.

[p036]    

83.   Hence it is that he who does not share the heavenly idea concerning the Divine Being from whom heaven exists, cannot be raised to the lowest threshold of heaven.  As soon as he approaches it he perceives a resistance and a strong repulsion, because his inner mind which should be open for the reception of heaven, is not in the form of heaven and is consequently closed; and it is closed the more tightly as he approaches heaven.  Such is the lot of those within the church who deny the Lord and of those who, like the Socinians, deny His Divinity.  But the lot of those who are born outside the church and who, not having the Word, know nothing of the Lord, will be seen in the following pages.

84.   It is clear that the ancients had an idea of the Divine Being as human, from his appearances to Abraham, Lot, Joshua, Gideon, Manoah, his wife and others who, although they saw God as a man, still adored Him as the God of the universe, calling Him the God of heaven and earth, and Jehovah. That it was the Lord who was seen by Abraham He Himself teaches in John (8. 56); and that it was He, also, who was seen by the others is evident from the Lord’s words, “No one hath seen the Father, nor heard His voice nor seen His form” (John 1. 18, 5. 37).

[p036-f3]    85.   But that God is a man can with difficulty be understood by those who judge all things from the sensuous ideas of the external man.  For a sensuous man can think of the Divine Being only as he thinks of the world and the things which are in it; and therefore he cannot think otherwise of a Divine and Spiritual Man than as of a corporeal and natural man; hence he concludes that, if God were a man, He would be the size of the universe; and that if He ruled heaven and earth He would do it by means of many officers, after the manner of kings in the world.  If he were told that in heaven there is no extension of space as in the world, he would not understand it; for he who thinks solely from nature and its light thinks only of such space as exists before his eyes; but it is a very great mistake to think in this manner concerning heaven.  Space in heaven is not like space in the world, for space in the world is fixed, and therefore measurable; but in heaven it is not fixed and therefore cannot be measured.  We shall say more concerning this, when we come to treat of space and time in the spiritual world.

[p037]

    Besides, every one knows how far the sight of the eyes extends, even to the sun and stars which are at so great a distance.  He, too, who thinks more deeply knows that the internal sight, which is that of the thought, reaches still farther and hence that a still more interior sight must have a still wider range.  What then can be beyond the reach of Divine sight which is the inmost and highest of all?  It is because thoughts is capable of such a wide range that all things of heaven are communicated to every inhabitant there, as are all things of the Divine Sphere which makes heaven and fills it, as has been shown above.

86.   The inhabitants of heaven are astonished that men should imagine themselves intelligent who, when they think of God, think of what is invisible, that is, incomprehensible under any form; and that they should call those who think otherwise unintelligent and simple when the contrary is the truth.  The angels say, “Let those who imagine themselves in this way to be intelligent ask themselves whether they do not look upon nature as God; some of them, nature as evident to the sight and some of them nature in her invisible recesses.  Are they not so blind as not to know what God is, what an angel is, what a spirit, what their own soul which is to live after death and what the life of heaven with man?  And are they not equally ignorant on many other intellectual matters?  Yet those whom they call simple know all these things in their own way.  They have an idea of their God, that He is a Divine Being in a human form; of an angel that he is a heavenly man; of their own soul which is to live after death that it is, as it were, an angel; and of the life of heaven with man that it is to live according to the Divine precepts.”  These, therefore, the angels call intelligent and fitted for heaven, but the others, on the contrary, unintelligent.