608. It should be known that there are three heavens, distinguished in accordance with the three degrees of love and wisdom, and in proportion as a person is regenerated he is in touch with angels from the three heavens. This too is the reason the human mind is divided into three degrees or levels to answer to the heavens. On the three heavens and how they differ according to the three degrees of love and wisdom, see My HEAVEN AND HELL (29ff) and also the tract THE INTERACTION OF SOUL AND BODY* (16, 17). Here I can only use a simile to illustrate the nature of the three degrees which distinguish the heavens. They are like the head, trunk and feet in the human body. The highest heaven makes up the head, the middle heaven the trunk, the lowest the feet. For the whole of heaven is in the Lord's sight like one human being. I have had the truth of this revealed to me by seeing for myself, for I have been permitted to see a community in heaven containing thousands all at one time looking like a single human being. Why then should not the whole of heaven look like this to the Lord? On this direct experience see my book HEAVEN AND HELL (59ff).
[2] This too makes it plain how we must understand the fact well known in the Christian world, that the church makes up the Body of Christ, and that Christ is the life of that body. It will also serve as an illustration of the fact that the Lord is the all in all of heaven, since He is the life in that body. Likewise the Lord is the church for those who acknowledge Him alone as the God of heaven and earth and believe in Him. He Himself teaches that He is the God of heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18); and that He is to be believed in (John 3:15, 16, 36; 6:40; 11:25, 26).
* At present published under the English title THE INTERCOURSE [or INTERACTION] OF THE SOUL AND THE BODY.
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