Me; and I will love him and will make My abode with
him (John 14:21, 23).
And again:
If ye do My commandments ye shall abide in My love (John
15:10).
17. All experience in heaven attests that the Divine that goes forth
from the Lord and that affects angels and makes heaven is love; for
all who are in heaven are forms of love and charity, and appear in
ineffable beauty, with love shining forth from their faces, and from
their speech and from every particular of their life.{1} Moreover,
there are spiritual spheres of life emanating from and surrounding
every angel and every spirit, by which their quality in respect to
the affections of their love is known, sometimes at a great distance.
For with everyone these spheres flow forth from the life of his
affection and consequent thought, or from the life of his love and
consequent faith. The spheres that go forth from angels are so full
of love as to affect the inmosts of life of those who are with them.
They have repeatedly been perceived by me and have thus affected
me.{2} That it is love from which angels have their life is further
evident from the fact that in the other life everyone turns himself
in accordance with his love-those who are in love to the Lord and in
love towards the neighbor turning themselves always to the Lord,
while those who are in love of self turn themselves always away from
the Lord. This is so, however their bodies may turn, since with those
in the other life spaces conform to the states of their interiors,
likewise quarters, which are not constant as they are in this world,
but are determined in accordance with the direction of their faces.
And yet it is not the angels that turn themselves to the Lord; but
the Lord turns to Himself those that love to do the things that are
from Him.{3} But more on this subject hereafter, where the quarters
in the other life are treated of.
{Footnote 1} Angels are forms of love and charity (n. 3804,
4735, 4797, 4985, 5199, 5530, 9879, 10177).
{Footnote 2} A spiritual sphere, which is a sphere of the life,
overflows and pours forth from every man, spirit, and angel,
and encompasses them (n. 4464, 5179, 7454, 8630). It flows from
the life of their affection and consequent thought (n. 2489,
4464, 6206).
{Footnote 3} Spirits and angels turn themselves constantly to
their loves, and those in the heavens turn themselves
constantly to the Lord (n. 10130, 10189, 10420, 10
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