ces, and thus contain a
spiritual or internal sense, in which are the angels; and in
consequence, when a man reads the Word and perceives it according to
the sense of the letter or the outer sense the angels perceive it
according to the internal or spiritual sense; for all the thought of
angels is spiritual while the thought of man is natural. These two
kinds of thought appear diverse; nevertheless they are one because
they correspond. Thus it was that when man had separated himself from
heaven and had severed the bond the Lord provided a medium of
conjunction of heaven with man by means of the Word.

307. How heaven is conjoined with man by means of the Word I will
illustrate by some passages from it. "The New Jerusalem" is described
in the Apocalypse in these words:

I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and the first heaven
and the first earth had passed away. And I saw the holy
city New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven. The
city was foursquare, its length as great as its breadth;
and an angel measured the city with a reed, twelve
thousand furlongs; the length, the breadth, and the height
of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, an
hundred and forty-four cubits, the measure of a man, that
is, of an angel. The building of the wall was of jasper;
but the city itself was pure gold, and like unto pure
glass; and the foundations of the wall were adorned with
every precious stone. The twelve gates were twelve pearls;
and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were
transparent glass (21:1, 2, 16-19, 21).

When man reads these words he understands them merely in accordance
with the sense of the letter, namely, that the visible heaven with
the earth is to perish, and a new heaven is to come into existence;
and upon the new earth the holy city Jerusalem is to descend, with
all its dimensions as here described. But the angels that are with
man understand these things in a wholly different way, that is,
everything that man understands naturally they understand
spiritually. [2] By "the new heaven and the new earth" they
understand a new church; by "the city Jerusalem coming down from God
out of heaven" they understand its heavenly doctrine revealed by the
Lord; by "its length, breadth, and height, which are equal," and
"twelve thousand furlongs," they understand all the goods and truths
of that doctrine in the complex; by its "wa