That the Word is such is not evident to man while he is in the world; but it is evident to him when he becomes an angel.  Because the Word is such in outmosts it follows that it is not the Word until it is in that outmost, that is, until it is in the sense of the letter.  The Word not in that outmost would be like a temple in the air and not on the earth, or like a man having flesh but without bones.

As Divine truth is in its fullness and also in its power in its outmost, for when it is in that it is in all things at once, so the Lord never works except from first things through outmosts, and thus in fullness.  For He reforms and regenerates man only through truths in outmosts, which are natural.  And this is why a man remains after his departure out of the world to eternity such as he has been in the world.  For the same reason heaven and hell are from the human race, and angels are not created immediately such; for in the world a man is in his fullness, consequently he can there be conceived and born, and afterward be imbued with knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom, and become an angel.  To create angels in any other way is impossible.

Because the Lord works all things from things first through outmosts, and is in His power and in His fullness in outmosts, so it pleased the Lord to take upon Him the Human and to become Divine truth, that is, the Word, and thus from Himself to reduce to order all things of heaven and all things of hell, that is, to execute a last judgment.  This the Lord could accomplish from the Divine in Himself, which was in things first, through His Human which was in outmosts, and not, as before, from His presence or abode in the men of the church; for these had wholly forsaken the truths and goods of the Word, in which the Lord had previously had His dwelling-place with men.  This was the chief reason for the Lord’s coming into the world, also for making His Human Divine; for He thus put Himself into possession of a power to hold all things of heaven and all things of hell in order for ever.  This is meant by

   “Sitting at the right hand of God” (Mark xvi. 19).

“The right hand of God” means Divine omnipotence, and “to sit at the right hand of God” means to be in that omnipotence through the Human.  That the Lord ascended into heaven with His Human glorified even to outmosts He testifies in Luke: 

Jesus said to the disciples, “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; handle Me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye behold Me having” (xxiv. 39).

This the Lord said just after His resurrection.  “Flesh and bones” are the outmosts of the human body, on which its strength depends. (A.E., n. 1087.)