Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 205
“What is more than these is from evil” because it is not from
the Lord; and inasmuch as the angels of the third heaven are in
love to the Lord the truths that are in them are from the Lord.
In that heaven love to the Lord is willing and doing Divine
truth, for Divine truth is the Lord in heaven.
272. There is a still further reason, and this is in heaven the
primary reason, why the angels are able to receive so great
wisdom, namely, that they are without the love of self; for to
the extent that anyone is without the love of self he can
become wise in Divine things. It is that love that closes up the
interiors against the Lord and heaven, and opens the exteriors
and turns them toward itself; and in consequence all in whom
that love rules are in thick darkness in respect to the things of
heaven, however much light they may have in worldly matters.
The angels, on the other hand, are in the light of wisdom
because they are without the love of self, for the heavenly loves
in which they are, which are love to the Lord and love toward
the neighbor, open the interiors, because these loves are from
the Lord and the Lord himself is in them. (That these loves
constitute heaven in general, and form heaven in each one in
particular, may be seen above, n. 13–19.) As heavenly loves
open the interiors to the Lord so all angels turn their faces
toward the Lord (n. 142); because in the spiritual world the
love turns the interiors of everyone to itself, and whichever way
it turns the interiors, it also turns the face, since the face there
makes one with the interiors, for it is their outward form.
Because the love turns the interiors and the face to itself, it also
conjoins itself to them (love being spiritual conjunction), and
shares its own with them. From that turning and consequent
conjunction and sharing the angels have their wisdom. That all
conjunction and all turning in the spiritual world are in accord
may be seen above (n. 255).