70 HEAVEN and HELL §126
a. All the light in the heavens is from the Lord as the sun: 1053 , 1521 , 3195 , 3341 , 3636 , 3643 , 4415 ,
9548 , 9684 , 10809. Divine truth emanating from the Lord appears in heaven as light, and consti-
tutes all the light of heaven: 3195 , 3222 [ 3223 ], 5400 , 8644 , 9399 , 9548 , 9684.
b. Heaven’s light illuminates the sight and the discernment of angels and spirits: 2776 , 3138.
c. Light in heaven is proportional to angels’ intelligence and wisdom: 1524 , 1529 , 1530 , 3339. There
are as many variations of light in the heavens as there are communities, because there are constant
variations in regard to what is good and true, and therefore in regard to wisdom and intelligence:
684 , 690 , 3241 , 3744 , 3745 , 4414 , 5598 , 7236 , 7833 , 7836.comparison to heaven’s light, but now that I have seen it, I myself can
bear witness. Its brightness and brilliance are beyond description. What I
have seen in heaven I have seen in that light, and therefore more clearly
and distinctly than what I have seen in this world.127 Heaven’s light is not natural like the light of our world, but spiritual.
It actually comes from the Lord as the sun, and that sun, as explained in
the preceding chapter, is divine love. While what emanates from the
Lord as the sun is called divine truth in the heavens, in essence it is divine
good as one with divine truth. This is the source of light and warmth for
angels: they get their light from the divine truth and their warmth from
the divine good.
We can therefore conclude that heaven’s light, in view of the nature
of its source, is spiritual and not natural, as is its warmth.a
128 The reason divine truth is light for angels is that angels are spiritual
and not natural. Spiritual people see things from their sun, and natural
people see from theirs. Divine truth is what provides angels with dis-
cernment; and discernment is their inner sight, which fl ows into their
outer sight and produces it. So whatever is seen in heaven from the Lord
as the sun is seen in the light.b Since this is the source of light in heaven,
it varies depending on the acceptance of divine truth from the Lord or
(which amounts to the same thing) depending on the intelligence and
wisdom angels participate in. This means that it is different in the heav-
enly kingdom than in the spiritual kingdom, and different in each com-
munity. The light in the heavenly kingdom looks fi ery because the angels
who are there accept light from the Lord as the sun. The light in the
spiritual kingdom, though, is white because the angels who are there
accept light from the Lord as the moon (see above, § 118 ). Further, the
light is not the same in one community as in another. It even differs
within each community. People in the middle are in more light, and
people round about are in less (see § 43 ).
In short, to the extent to which angels are open to divine truth (that
is, participate in intelligence and wisdom from the Lord), they have
light.c This is why heaven’s angels are called angels of light.