647. [verse 17] 'And another angel went out of the temple that is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle' signifies the heavens of the Lord's spiritual kingdom, and the Divine Truth of the Word with them. By an 'angel' is signified in the highest sense the Lord, then the angelic heaven, and also Divine Truth proceeding from the Lord, as may be seen above (n. 5, 65, 170, 258, 342, 343, 344, 415, 465). But by the 'angel' here are signified the heavens of the spiritual kingdom, and consequently the Divine truths there, because it follows on that 'another angel went out of the altar', by which are signified the heavens of the Lord's celestial kingdom, thus the Divine Goods there, of which [something will be said] in a subsequent paragraph. There are two kingdoms into which all the heavens have been distinguished, the spiritual kingdom and the celestial kingdom. The spiritual kingdom is the kingdom of the Lord's Wisdom, because the angels there are in wisdom out of Divine Truths from the Lord; and the celestial kingdom is the kingdom of the Lord's Love, because the angels there are in love from the Lord, and thence in every good. That there are two kingdoms into which all the heavens have been distinguished may be seen in the work Concerning HEAVEN AND HELL, published in 1758 at London (n. 20-28); also in ANGELIC WISDOM CONCERNING DIVINE LOVE AND WISDOM, published in 1763 [at Amsterdam] (n. 101, 381). By 'the temple' is signified the entire heaven, as above (n. 644), but because it is here said' the temple that is in heaven and afterwards 'the altar', by 'the temple' is signified the heaven of the Lord's spiritual kingdom as was said just above; and by 'a sharp sickle 'is signified the Divine Truth of the Word, as above (n. 643, 645). [2] The reason why it is said above that 'the One sitting upon the cloud put forth His sickle and the land was reaped', and now that 'an angel went Out of the temple out of heaven, he also having a sickle, and put it forth into the land and gathered the vintage of the vineyard of the land', is because by 'the land' that [was reaped] by the One sitting upon the cloud, or the Lord, is signified the Church throughout the entire world, and by 'the vineyard of the land' is signified the Church in Christendom. These [words] involve things similar to those that the Lord foretold in the parable of the sower and the gathering of the harvest (Matt. xiii), which were quoted above at the end of n. 645, where it is said that 'the harvest is the consummation of the age', that is, the end of the Church, and that 'the reapers are angels', by which are signified Divine Truths. For angels are not sent to reap, that is, to do these things, but the Lord does it by means of the Divine Truths of His Word, for the Lord says:-