ISB 13 - The Delights of Love and the Pleasantness of Wisdom; ISB 16 - Degrees

ISB 13

. . . a person is not life,
but an organ recipient of life from God,
and that love together with wisdom is life,
also that God is love itself and wisdom itself,
and thus life itself . . ..
So it follows that so far as a person loves wisdom,
or so far as wisdom in the bosom of love is with him,
so far he is an image of God,
that is, a receptacle of life from God . . ..

ISB 16 [5-6]

. . . there are three angelic heavens:
a highest, which is also called the third heaven,
where are the angels of the highest degree;
a middle, which is also called the second heaven,
where are the angels of the middle degree;
and a lowest, which is also called the first heaven,
where are the angels of the lowest degree.
Those heavens are also distinguished
according to the degrees of wisdom and love.
Those who are in the lowest heaven
are in the love of knowing truths and goods;
those who are in the middle heaven
are in the love of understanding them;
and those who are in the highest heaven
are in the love of being wise, that is,
of living according to those things
which they know and understand.

Since the angelic heavens
are distinguished into three degrees,
therefore the human mind is also
distinguished into three degrees,
because the human mind is an image of heaven,
that is, it is a heaven in the least form.
So it is that a person can become
an angel of one of those three heavens,
and this is effected according to
his reception of wisdom and love from the Lord:
an angel of the lowest heaven
if he receives only the love of knowing truths and goods;
an angel of the middle heaven
if he receives the love of understanding them;
and an angel of the highest heaven
if he receives the love of being wise,
that is, of living according to them.