e state of heaven and of the church after the Lord's
coming into the world. Again, in the Apocalypse:

The countenance of the Son of man was as the sun shineth in his
strength (1:16);

and elsewhere (as in Isaiah 60:20; 2 Sam. 23:3, 4; Matt. 17:1, 2). The
mediate enlightenment of men through the angelic heaven, which existed
before the coming of the Lord, may be compared to the light of the moon,
which is the mediate light of the sun; and because after His coming
this was made immediate, it is said in Isaiah,

That the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun (30:26);

and in David:

In His days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace
until there is no longer any moon (72:7).

This also is said of the Lord.

234. The reason why the Lord from eternity, that is, Jehovah, put on
this third degree by the assumption of a Human in the world, was that
He could enter into this degree only by means of a nature like human
nature, thus only by means of conception from His Divine and by birth
from a virgin; for in this way He could put off a nature which, although
a receptacle of the Divine, is in itself dead, and could put on the
Divine. This is meant by the Lord's two states in the world, which are
called the state of exinanition and the state of glorification, which
are treated of in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Concerning the Lord.

235. Of the threefold ascent of the degrees of height this much has been
said in general; but these degrees cannot here be discussed in detail,
because (as was said in the preceding chapter) there must be these three
degrees in things greatest and things least; this only need be said, that
there are such degrees in each and all things of love, and therefrom in
each and all things of wisdom, and from both of these in each and all
things of use. In the Lord all these degrees are infinite; in angel and
man they are finite. But how there are these three degrees in love, in
wisdom, and in uses cannot be described and unfolded except in series.

236. THESE THREE DEGREES OF HEIGHT ARE IN EVERY MAN FROM BIRTH, AND CAN
BE OPENED SUCCESSIVELY; AND, AS THEY ARE OPENED, MAN IS IN THE LORD AND
THE LORD IN MAN.

That there are three degrees of height in every man, has not until now
become known for the reason that these degrees have not been recognized,
and so long as they remained unnoticed, none but continuous degrees could
be known; and when none