6. From the Lord spring three levels of reality — the celestial, the spiritual, and the natural — one after another.

The level termed celestial is one that springs from the Lord’s Divine love, and is Divine goodness.

The level termed spiritual is one that springs from His Divine wisdom, and is Divine truth.

The level termed natural is one that springs from these two. It is a composite of them on the lowest level.

Angels of the Lord’s celestial kingdom, who make up the third or highest heaven, are surrounded by the Divinity emanating from the Lord that we call celestial. For they are prompted by the goodness of love received from the Lord.

Angels of the Lord’s spiritual kingdom, who make up the second or middle heaven, are surrounded by the Divinity emanating from the Lord that we call spiritual. For they are prompted by the truths of wisdom received from the Lord. ¹

And in the church in the world people are surrounded by the natural Divinity that also emanates from the Lord.

[2] It follows from this that the Divinity emanating from the Lord to its lowest level descends through three degrees, and is termed celestial, spiritual, and natural.

The Divinity that descends from the Lord to humankind does so through these three degrees, and when it has descended, it contains these three degrees within it.

Everything Divine is of such a character. When it is in its lowest degree, therefore, it exists in its fullness.

Such is the Word. In its lowest or outmost sense it is natural. In its interior sense it is spiritual, in its inmost sense celestial, and in every sense Divine.

That the Word is of such a character is not apparent in its literal, natural sense, and that is because people in the world have previously known nothing of the heavens, and so nothing of the spiritual and celestial levels, thus nothing of the difference between these levels and the natural one.

Footnotes:

105. We need to explain, however, how the presence of the Lord and heaven and conjunction with them is possible in all lands by means of the Word.

The whole of heaven is, in the Lord’s sight, like a single person. So, too, the church. To be shown that it also actually appears as a person, see the book Heaven and Hell 59-86.

In that person, the church where the Word is read, and where the Lord is consequently known, is like the heart and lungs — the celestial kingdom being as though the heart, and the spiritual kingdom the lungs.

[2] As the heart and lungs are the two founts of life in the human body, and all the rest of the organs and viscera subsist and have life from them, so also do all people in the world subsist and have life from the conjunction of the Lord and heaven with the church through the Word — all those who have any religion, who worship one God and live rightly, who are therefore included in that grand humanity, and who relate to its organs and viscera surrounding the thoracic cavity which contains the heart and lungs. For the Word in the church, even if possessed by relatively few, is life to all the rest from the Lord through heaven, as the organs and viscera of the entire body have life from the heart and lungs. They also have a similar communication.

[3] This, too, is the reason that Christians among whom the Word is read constitute the breast of that grand humanity. They are also at the center of all, with Roman Catholics round about them. Around them are Muslims who acknowledge the Lord as a very great prophet and as the Son of God. After them come Africans. And the outmost periphery is composed of nations and peoples from Asia and the Indies. Regarding the arrangement of these peoples, something more may be seen in the short work The Last Judgment 48.

All those who are in that grand humanity also face toward the middle where the Christians are.