5. 'And He signified sending by His angel to His servant John' signifies the things that have been revealed by the Lord through heaven to those who are in the good of life derived from charity and its faith. By 'He signified sending by His angel' in the spiritual sense is understood the things that have been revealed out of heaven, or through heaven by the Lord: for everywhere in the Word by 'angel' is understood the angelic heaven, and in the supreme sense the Lord Himself. This is because no angel separated from heaven ever speaks with man, for any one there has such a conjunction with all that each angel speaks from the communion although he is not conscious of this. For heaven in the Lord's view is like One Man, whose soul is the Lord Himself. The Lord therefore speaks with man through heaven, as a man speaks with another out of his soul through his body, and this is done in conjunction with all the things and with each single thing of his mind, those that he speaks being in their midst. But this arcanum cannot be explained in a few words. It is in part explained in ANGELIC WISDOM CONCERNING DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM. It is plain from this that by 'angel' heaven is signified, and in the supreme sense the Lord. The Lord is understood by 'angel' in the supreme sense because heaven is not heaven out of the propria* of the angels, but out of the Divine of the Lord, out of which they have love and wisdom, indeed life. It is because of this that in the Word the Lord Himself is termed 'Angel'. From these things it is plain that the angel did not speak out of himself with John, but that it was the Lord in the midst of heaven through him. [2] By those words it is understood that these things have been revealed to those who are in the good of a life derived from charity and its faith, because these are understood by 'John'. For by the twelve disciples or apostles of the Lord all belonging to the Church who are in truths derived from good are understood, and in an abstract sense, all things of the Church; and by 'Peter' all who are in faith, and abstractly faith itself, by 'James' those who are in charity, and abstractly charity itself, and by 'John' those who are in the good of a life derived from charity and its faith, and abstractly the good of life itself therefrom. That these things are understood by 'John , 'James' and 'Peter' in the Word of the Evangelists may be seen in the little work concerning THE NEW JERUSALEM AND ITS HEAVENLY DOCTRINE, published at London in the year 1758 (n. 122). [3] Now, since the good of a life derived from charity and its faith makes the Church, therefore the arcana of the state of the Church have been revealed through the apostle John, and they are contained in his visions. That things of heaven and the Church are signified in the Word by all names of persons and places has been shown many times in the ARCANA CAELESTIA, also published at London. It can be established from these things that by 'He signified sending through His angel to His servant John' is understood in the spiritual sense the things that have been revealed by the Lord through heaven to those who are in the good of a life derived from charity and its faith; for charity works good by means of faith, and neither charity by itself nor faith by itself does this. * The Latin word proprium (plural propria) means 'what is one's own'. Swedenborg uses it in a special sense involving 'what is of the self'.